George hires a secretary and tries to hire competency over attractiveness to avoid a sexual mishap, only to have sex with her and cause her to make more money than him. Jerry discovers his dry-cleaner is wearing his clothes. Kramer gets Uma Thurman’s phone number, only to sell his suit to Kenny Bania and lose the number. Elaine buys a dress, only to realise she looks terrible in it at home, and tries swapping it for another one.

Written by: Carol Leifer & Marjorie Gross
Directed by: David Owen Trainor

I always enjoy spotting female writers in 90’s television shows (of all things, Stargate: SG-1 is one of the more egalitarian writer’s rooms of the time that I noticed) – Carol Leifer was actually Seinfeld and David’s initial model for Elaine, so it’s appropriate that she made her way into the Seinfeld writer’s room. I know it’s silly to put too much emphasis on individual writer identity in the anonymising writer’s room, but I still end up looking for what kind of effect a female writer has; in this show’s case, I think it’s more specific and nuanced ideas for plots involving women. The more obvious example is Elaine trying on a dress in the store and seeing it looks like shit when she gets home; her switching straight from tearing into the assistant to trying to get away with taking the dress out of the store kills me.

I’ve really been struck by Elaine’s banal terribleness in this project; I don’t think there’s another character quite like her on television. I mean, there are a lot of characters who are terrible hypocrites that tear into people who break the rules and then whine when subject to the rules themselves, but most of them are either amplified for comic effect (see Dee in Always Sunny) or written without recognition of how terrible they are. Granted, very few shows are written with the cosmic indifference of Seinfeld, which shifts the tone a bit.

The less obvious result of this show having female writers is in the way George’s plot plays out. It’s an inspired moment of self-awareness for George to hire a competent woman over someone attractive; it’s amusingly stupid for him to outright tell women he’s not hiring them because they’re hot; it’s transcendently funny for him to fall for the secretary specifically because of her competence. Now, granted, it’s fairly standard for this show to present male characters with a complete indifference to their behaviour, so I can’t put down the episode’s treatment down to the gender of the writer; I’m more speculating about obvious jokes Leifer and Gross skipped over in playing with the concept.

TOPICS O’ THE WEEK

• “It’s incredible. Six months ago, you were taking messages for your mother.” / “Yeah, and now someone’s gonna be taking messages for me.” / “From your mother.”
• “I would give up red meat just to see you in a bra.” If nothing else, this episode has a lot of killer one-liners.
• “Your arms look like something hanging in a kosher deli.”
• I can assure you, as a guy who works in dirty dishwater, moisteriser isn’t just girl stuff.
• Jerry references the Kavorka effect of Kramer.
• That’s Vicki Lewis as George’s secretary – she’s more famous as Beth on Newsradio, and she’s a fantastic scene partner with Jason Alexander.
• I had completely forgotten this episode builds off “The Soup” when Kenny Bania comes back and gets his meal with Jerry.
• This has the first ‘behind the head’ staging of Steinbrenner, which pays off comic dividends immediately – when you’re holding the camera on George as he reacts to somebody who won’t let him get a word in edgewise, Jason Alexander is gonna give you some acting.
• “You need a code to tell you not to wear people’s clothes?”
• For a weak actor, Seinfeld (comedian) is fantastic at just reacting to things, like when he hears Kramer’s voice unexpectedly.
• Great note to have the drycleaner’s wife say “No it’s not!” before Jerry says anything.
• I love that Kenny’s conversation is simply too inane even for Jerry.

Biggest Laugh:

Next Week: “The Race”.