George starts dating a woman and tries to get Jerry to downplay his sense of humour so she thinks George is funny by comparison. She turns out to be representing Ping, who Elaine hit with a car in a previous episode. Meanwhile, Kramer punched out Mickey Mantle at baseball fantasy camp.

Written by: Peter Mehlman
Directed by: Tom Cherones

This might be the most continuity-heavy episode in a continuity-heavy season, and is definitely a high point of the show’s criss-crossing of plots. Babu, the cafe owner in “The Cafe”, returns with Jerry trying once again to help his life out, only for events to spiral out of control; I suspect they realised that the events of that episode weren’t quite ludicrous enough, because this whole situation more than makes up for it. I’ve said before that much of this show’s plotting is about creating the worst consequences for otherwise innocent actions or mild mistakes, and this genuinely feels like a situation that could have been avoided with a little more competence – but then, it’s such a minor error that nobody could have reasonably foreseen it, which is a little easier to stomach than Jerry’s advice simply not working out.

I enjoy that Jerry is going out of his way to get Babu a good lawyer, too – it feels downright decent of him, and this is a perfect example of what people point to when they say the characters do try to do good and see that blow up in their face just as much as their pettiness and selfishness. The fact that this situation relies so heavily on continuity is interesting; on the one hand, continuity is always pleasurable because it feels like it makes what we’ve seen more meaningful, as if it’s actually something of consequence because it has, uh, a consequence. On the other hand, it makes the episode feel lighter in ideas, repeating things it’s already done (literally, with the return of “Where is [x]? Show me [x]!” and “Very, very bad man”).

On the third, mutant hand, it adds to the feeling of this show being a fast trainwreck. It’s a gleeful experience to watch this world interact with itself, and giving the character’s shallow actions weight makes it feel even funnier and sillier. There is an extent to which all sitcoms end up falling apart and becoming silly and cartoony, given enough time, but when it’s played as an actual world our characters are moving through, it’s always great fun.

TOPICS O’ THE WEEK

• George getting advice from an actual woman and then ignoring it is great, as is Elaine admitting he may have a point, to his horror. George realising he has nowhere to go but down is so George.
• This episode has multiple cases of characters summarising past plots, which always kills me. Perhaps the best is George summing up Kramer’s life as an absurd fantasy people ought to pay to experience.
• “George, is this funny?” / “It’s funny.”
• Jerry trying not to be funny sounds eerily like my not-very-funny writing style. “Inevitably, irrevocably.”
• Kramer is pushed back about as far as he could possibly be pushed, but Michael Richards makes the most of the stories he tells – physically acting out what happened.
• “I think that’s curdled.” / “I don’t care.”
• Great blocking: when Jerry makes his wild gestures as he tries to reassure Babu, Elaine copies him.
• “Dark and mysterious? His whole life revovles around Superman and cereal!”

Biggest Laugh:

Next week: “The Shoes”.