George is hired to park cars. Kramer gets a role in a Woody Allen movie. Jerry’s car is stolen, so he hires a rental. Elaine is dating an older man who suffers a stroke.

Written by: Larry David and Bill Masters
Directed by: Tom Cherones

Every now and again, you see a comedy scene based around a truth so profound you feel as if it came from a different universe. The Simpsons has “I used to be with it!”, Futurama has “If you do things right, people won’t be sure you did anything at all,” and Seinfeld has “I don’t think you do.” This show very rarely delves into any kind of wish fulfilment – god knows nobody wants to be George – so this kind of verbal revenge on a common problem really stands out. I’ve seen some of my peers – especially those who worked in customer service – who view Jerry as the bad guy in this scene, and having also worked in customer service, I just can’t agree with them on that. This isn’t a reasonable or unforeseeable breakdown of service – not a bus breaking down or a product failing to ship – this is a shady business practice deliberately failing to provide the very service offered.

And not only is Jerry not even being particularly rude about it, the fact that he’s completely and calmly laying out the facts is what makes the scene so funny. This may be Seinfeld’s best acting moment in the series – certainly so far – and it’s informed by his standup experience; the casual way he half-interrupts with “I don’t think you do!” makes him come off completely confident. The greatest insults and burns aren’t gratuitous attacks on people’s character or elaborate combinations of words; they’re completely accurate descriptions of the facts.

And that scene’s not even the only great moment in the episode! The scene of Elaine’s older boyfriend suffering a stroke isn’t just a great moment of stupidity from panicking characters – it sets up almost every scene in Always Sunny – it’s a classic moment of plots on this show colliding all at once. It actually looks a bit more complicated than it actually is – George parking the cars badly echoes out into the paramedics failing to get in on time and Kramer’s shoot being interrupted, and it’s the fact that both of these things happen one after the other that makes it feel more intense in the moment.

Thematically, the Kramer and George plots tie in better to each other than everything else; I love watching George’s slow burning rage as he’s increasingly humiliated by Kramer’s success compared to his, uh, own. I like that he’s particularly enraged by the fact that Kramer doesn’t even seem to fully appreciate Woody Allen movies as much as he does, nor fully realise the momentousness of what he’s doing (even when Kramer talks about Allen like he knows him personally, he’s genuinely casual about it). Part of what makes George so funny is how intensely he compares himself to other people; any person’s gain is something he lost out on. You think there are many better anti-role models?

TOPICS O’ THE WEEK

• I liked Jerry’s standup a lot this week, especially his opening bit on car alarms.
• Speaking of The Simpsons, that whole sequence of Jerry talking to the guy who stole his car is very reminiscent of Springfieldianites in his casual self-awareness.
• This is our first appearance of Sid, and it says something that he doesn’t even come close to the heights of his comedy yet. I love that he gets no-nonsense responses to our protagonist’s antics and still comes off as nuts. That said, his exasperation at having to clarify which Wednesday he meant is very relatable.
• “Did you see the size of that document? It’s like the Declaration of Independence!” As has been pointed out by others, the Declaration of Independence is about 1300 words. I would like to point out that my essays – so noted for their length – frequently come out far lower in word count than that.

Biggest Laugh:

Next Week: “The Red Dot”