Elaine is dating a sax player who won’t go down on her, and she’s worried about pushing too hard on the relationship. George’s parents meet Elaine’s parents, and in the process, cause a faux pas over a marble rye that George must rush to repair. Kramer buys a load of food wholesale and becomes a hansom driver. Jerry is pulled into George’s scheme and steals a rye from an old lady.

Written by: Carol Leifer
Directed by: Andy Ackerman

As always, I’m delighted by how a Seinfeld episode is a series of moving parts. I’m amused by how the Costanzas basically drop out of the episode when they’re no longer necessary to push the plot forward; by that point, it’s like Jerry and George are there to pick up the load. This is a natural result of the organic plotting of the show, I think. Anyway, this is a Greta example of the main quad of the show being genuinely neutral rather than completely selfish and evil; indeed, this goes beyond the usual alternating of trying to be selfish or selfless and into something genuinely perfectly grey, because George’s scheme is a) actively trying to do a good deed for someone, b) for a selfish motivation, both of which pale against c) the fact that the plan is completely nuts.

The initial plot was based on something Carol Leifer heard about in high school; it’s brilliant to attribute it to Frank, who can hold a grudge like nobody’s business and makes the act look completely deranged; Jerry stealing the rye from an old lady was contributed by Larry David, and it sounds like exactly the kind of petty thing he’d commit to and think about. I love that both of these things are still there to set up George’s insane scheme; this, I find, is often the discipline of storytelling – not only having an idea but building on it.

The other thing I like is how elegantly it interweaves Kramer’s plot, to the point that I wonder if this episode was a bit slapdash in its construction; my favourite episodes are the ones with these complex interweaving stories, and I suspect many of them were written in a rush – not lazily, but in the sense of enthusiastically building on ideas.

TOPICS O’ THE WEEK

• No standup cold open.
• “So I take it he’s sponge-worthy.”
• Elaine’s story here is incredible – I don’t think there’s anything like it, even today. I think what throws me here is how it treats both a man refusing to go down on a woman and her taking that in stride so indifferently; it’s just motivation for a character and setup for an absurd climax as opposed to moral argument. Not that there’s anything wrong with moral argument, it just speaks to Seinfeld‘s priorities as a comedy.
• “These are all staples.”
• “Alright, let’s not get into panic mode!”
• Frank’s musing on the nature of hens is one of the show’s most iconic scenes (“That’s perverse!”).
• Frank is intensely anti-spoiler before that becomes a thing.
• “What have I done? My whole plan is depending on Kramer? Have I learned nothing?”

Biggest Laugh:

Next Week: “The Caddy”