Jerry is called about a library book overdue since 1971 that he insists he returned, bringing a detective named Bookman into his life. George sees his high school gym teacher homeless on the street. Elaine worries her boss doesn’t like her work. Kramer dates a librarian.

Written by: Larry Charles
Directed by: Joshua White

Even when Seinfeld gets really weird, it’s always about banal social phobias. I don’t think I’ve ever heard of a library actually chasing up decades-old lost books, and even if they did I can’t imagine the fine would go beyond the basic price of the book, but I do get the reasoning behind the fear. When you believe that you’re living in a society and you’re supposed to act in a civilised way, there’s always a part of you that believes there’s a Bookman hiding behind every corner, ready to chase up every rule. The thing that’s funny about the inimitable Phillip Seymour Hoffman’s performance here is that he’ barely even listening to Jerry – he’s a pseudo-noir force of nature who can’t be bargained or reasoned with, which is really funny when it’s about a lost book.

I also like how this whole plot spins around Jerry romanticising and misremembering an incident from his teenaged years. Eyewitness accounts are the least reliable form of evidence, and it’s funny to see how one’s whole identity can end up coming from a mixed-up memory. I particularly enjoy the contrast between Jerry’s memory of his high school girlfriend and the current reality. I know it’s possible that she was always like this and he was too wrapped up in himself to notice, but I like to think that she actually evolved into that form over the years the way I’ve seen my other high school friends do it.

Meanwhile, I’m developing a theory that Elaine is the most ‘relatable’ of the main cast, at least in the sense that most of what she does and what happens to her actually happens in reality. George and Kramer are each, in their own ways, extreme men living extreme lifestyles; Kramer simply does everything wrong, but George finds the most extreme expression of pettiness and fear. Jerry, of course, is aloof, distant, and unshakeable. Elaine is the one whose pettiness and superiority feel the most normal, and as she points out to Jerry she’s the one actually working in an office. To put it another way, George is living out the more absurd Am I The Asshole posts (and Jerry is commenting), whereas Elaine is living out Ask A Manager posts.

TOPIC’S O’ THE WEEK

• Fascinatingly, George seems to genuinely feel bad for putting his gym teacher out on the street. This is another element of how George is neutral rather than actively evil. It fits with one of my favourite elements of Curb Your Enthusiasm: how Larry can be infuriated with someone in one scene and delighted to run into them later.
• It’s delightful that Kramer genuinely encourages his girlfriend. Hey George: maybe that’s how Kramer attracts women.
• This episode is also filled with some amazing turns of phrase. I often attribute this element to Seinfeld, knowing how obsessively he rewrites his jokes. “Finding drawings of peepees and weewees!” is the most famous phrase but my favourite is ‘baked bean teeth’.
• Weird, delightful observation from Jerry: “Columbus. Eurotrash.”

Biggest Laugh: