Elaine has an incident with a woman in a toilet stall, and Jerry quickly works out the woman was his new girlfriend. Meanwhile, George has a nonsexual crush on Elaine’s new boyfriend; when he takes George and Kramer rock climbing, he gets injured, forcing Elaine to confront her own superficiality.

Written by: Larry Charles

Directed by: Tom Cherones

It’s amazing how easy it is to make a good farce plot. The main complaint about the genre is that it often depends upon people either acting like idiots, lying for no reason, or ridiculous coincidences, but I think this particular story does it really well – the one hand of fate moment is that Elaine and Jane are separated just long enough for Jerry to catch on that Elaine was the harassing woman. Pixar has a list of storytelling rules, and one of them is that you can use luck to get characters into trouble, but not out. Jerry’s plot demonstrates this in how he’s now forced to move fast. I kept wondering what his long-term plan was – keep them separated forever?

It also helps that there’s a lot more going on here. George’s nonsexual crush on Tony is so funny because it’s so true to life (and Jason Alexander is predictably great – there’s his magnificent look of awe when we first see him look at Tony, and he’s heartbreakingly sincere when he thinks Toby stopped liking him). It’s ironic that Seinfeld is most famous for romantic relationships when it’s so good at exploring platonic relationships through the same lens as a romantic one; the fact that George is in love with this guy in particular is what makes it so funny.

What gets me the most is Elaine’s part in all this. She fervently denies being shallow about Tony’s looks/brains division, only to immediately face the issue of Tony losing his face. Whatever they say, most people are neither consequentialists not Kantian followers of the moral imperative – they’re like Elaine, doing whatever makes them feel good in the moment, which includes saying what sounds like the right thing. When you’re incompetent and not particularly introspective, you end up looking like Elaine and making a fool out of yourself.

TOPICS O’ THE WEEK

• “You can’t spare a square?” is a deeply Seinfeld moment, not just because of the wordplay but because it’s classic inexplicable behavior, except we also get to spend time with the person, which oddly makes it more inexplicable. Although it is funny to see Elaine’s whining from the outside.
• “Hey, Andre! Get off the phone!”
• There’s a funny little conversation where Jerry remarks that he’s defrosting his fridge, which is definitely up there in terms of the show making comedy out of banality.
• The characters discuss the concept of a male bimbo, but end up using ‘mimbo’ instead of the more popular ‘himbo’.
• Love how big a laugh they get out of George just turning his hat around.
• “Rock climbing? You need a boost to climb into your bed.”
• “You’re not getting any sandwiches either!”
• Michael Richards would later express regret that he didn’t find more physical comedy in the rock climbing.
• There’s a continuity nod to “The Masseuse” when Jerry gets a massage from Jane.
• “You’re crazy.” / “Am I?! Or am I so sane that I just blew your mind?!”

Biggest Laugh:

Next Week: “The Dinner Party”