Jerry and Elaine visit Jerry’s parents for three days to go scuba diving. Jerry meets Jack Klompus and compliments his pen, causing an extended argument. Between the heat and a terrible bed, Elaine finds herself uncomfortable to the point of using muscle relaxers.
Written by: Larry David
Directed by: Tom Cherones
One of the most underrated aspects of Seinfeld is its ability to wring comedy out of old people. It’s not that much of a surprise when the show builds a plot out of John Cheever considering how much crossover there is in the weird behaviours and morality of old people in the show and Cheever’s characters in his stories, with the obvious difference being that Cheever played it for despairing melancholy and Seinfeld plays it for laughs. I also, of course, recognise the old people in my own life within this; my mother has two sisters and three brothers, and they have both the practical need and the emotional temperament to form committees over things ranging from the running of my grandfather’s property to Christmas barbeques, so I recognise a lot of the behaviours and assumptions here.
One thing that particularly makes me laugh is watching Jerry’s mother trying her best to be helpful but inadvertently making things so much more complicated – in fact, the more I think about it, the funnier it becomes. On the obvious level, she keeps trying to push help onto Jerry when he explicitly doesn’t want it; I recognise my own mother’s behaviour in how she keeps trying to give him her car when he can just pay for a rental. But it wasn’t until writing that I thought about how funny it is that she keeps interrogating his assumptions and actions until his ability to do anything is slowed to a crawl – in effect, the exact opposite of what she’s going for.
This also drives the story with Jack Klompus and the infamous pen. Right from his entry in the story, everyone is making everything so much more complicated by trying to get everything as simple and fair as possible. One cannot simply buy lunch for their friend; they must get everything squared down to the cent. Morty and Jack end up in a vicious cycle of trying to out-explain the other (with Helen occasionally joining in), as if they can logically prove the other guy (or Jerry) is the asshole in this situation. It’s especially funny to me that Jerry being above all this doesn’t make him immune to its consequences; in fact, his apathy over the pen or what it symbolises only ends up making him prone to putting his foot in his mouth.
Jerry wonders where this behaviour comes from, and I think it’s that people generally want to feel as good as possible at all times. They want to feel generous and smart and in control of every situation they’re in, and when their self-image is threatened they want to feel tougher than the threat. I don’t think there’s much you can really change about human nature – particularly people as stubbornly lacking in self-awareness as Jack or Morty – but you can find it funny if you want to. These are some top-tier comic setpieces as arguments keep escalating and escalating as characters keep picking at each other’s logic until it explodes with a witty one-liner.
TOPICS O’ THE WEEK
- This is also a major turning point in that from now on, the writers have to find something for all four members of the main cast to do every single week. Famously, Jason Alexander was furious at being left out of an episode, and Larry David genuinely took it on board. I think this was for the best – giving the show its famous density.
- I never even got into how Elaine’s plots perfectly capture the discomfort of staying in a stranger’s house! This is a great bunch of scenes for Julia Louis-Dreyfus’s particular brand of comic acting. “STELLAAAAA!”
- One of the great things about Seinfeld’s weird face and bad acting is how it’s inherently funny to put him in any funny costume or make-up – here we have both his bruised eyes from the scuba diving and the sunglasses to cover them up.
Biggest Laugh:
Next Week: “The Dog”.