Jerry gets tickets for a hockey game from a friend, and then fails to call him to thank him, making Jerry worry he’s offended him. Elaine is disturbed to find Puddy paints his face when attending hockey games. Gorge works up the nerve to tell his girlfriend he loves her, then discovers she’s deaf in one ear. Kramer throws a banana peel at a monkey.

Teleplay by: Larry David
Story by: Larry David and
Directed by: Andy Ackerman

Puddy is a favourite of both fans and the creators, with both discovering nobody can quite infuriate Elaine as well as he does, and I think this is the first episode to really delve into why he can infuriate her so much, and the fundamental reason is very simple: he doesn’t actually care what other people think and he completely lacks neuroticism. Later episodes will dive much more spectacularly into this – “The Butter Shave” and “The Burning” are all about that and how it grates on Elaine – but here we already get “Yeah, that’s right,” and more subtly, his cheerful willingness to throw aside something he does for her. It reminds me of a scene in Community where Abed remarks that he doesn’t mind switching up what he does because there’s a core of himself he likes, except this is unstated and played entirely for laughs.

I’ve been saying for a while that Jerry isn’t the anti-George; this is the first episode where we can see that this title belongs to Puddy. Indeed, look at Jerry all episode; he’s obsessively trying to decode every little action and working out precisely how to signal to Alec Berg, whereas Puddy simply responds to any questioning of his actions with “Yeah, that’s right.” Jerry is a happy and comfortable version of George, but he’s still acting according to George’s principles; Puddy simply acts in this world and accepts the consequences, and that’s hilarious.

In fact, you can compare George himself to Puddy in this very episode; I was thinking how funny it is that he and Jerry operate under the assumption that “I love you” specifically demands a response of some kind. George’s whole character comes from desperately trying to control the world, and the idea that he could simply love someone without needing anything in response simply doesn’t occur to him. His plot is the only one that doesn’t get some kind of climactic scene, which is actually hilarious in this context and makes sense. “Yeah, George, I heard you the first time.”

TOPICS O’ THE WEEK

• “I will never understand people.” / “They’re the worst.”
• “Sienna?” / “Dating a crayon.”
• “You never said it?” / “Once, to a dog. He licked himself and left the room.”
• “You wanna be with someone who doesn’t like you.” / “Ideally.”
• Kramer telling the story of throwing the banana peel at the monkey feels like a dry run for telling the story of the bus. Amazing, by the way, that we’re well past the halfway point and still have so many iconic episodes and scenes to go.
• The reveal that Jon Lovitz’s character from “The Scofflaw” died in a car accident is incredibly funny.
• There’s one genuine, actual plot hole here: how did Elaine know who the priest was or where he was?

Biggest Laugh:

Next Week: “The Understudy”