Jerry comes into a bit of money and buys his dad a Cadillac, only for it to cause chaos in Morty’s personal life. George discovers Elaine’s friend is friends with Marisa Tomei, and that he is exactly her type, driving him to attempt a date even though he’s engaged to Susan, pulling Elaine reluctantly into his lies. Kramer becomes embroiled in attempts to avoid the man trying to disconnect his cable.

Written by: Larry David & Jerry Seinfeld
Directed by: Andy Ackerman

There’s a lot to chew on here. Jerry trying to do a nice gesture and having it ruin his life is a classic comedy move, and a classic Seinfeld move in particular; I think the main reason that Seinfeld comes off as genuinely neutral to people is because the show is so committed to Being Funny that any behaviour – good or bad – will have cataclysmic outcomes, because the joke isn’t the setup but rather the punchline. You can compare it to its direct descendent Always Sunny, which is equally dedicated to being funny but is also specifically dedicated to the one joke: The Worst People In Philadelphia. You can also compare it to how Kramer’s story in this episode ends with them breaking that famous rule, ‘no hugging, no learning’, and it can do that because the situation is a) absurd and b) based around a character we never met before and will never meet again. Seinfeld lacks even the ideology that grounds Always Sunny; as a result, despite being less edgy, it’s also more dangerous and can go anywhere.

This also frees it up to allow meaning to accumulate. Jerry’s plot works because so often we try and do these nice things for people and see it explode before our eyes. In fact, I love that Jerry’s attempt at a nice gesture blows up immediately when his mother tries to return the gift, having accurately recognised that people will think they’re putting on airs (and inaccurately thinking Jerry doesn’t have any money). This kind of situation is actually exactly why I don’t surprise people with big gifts; you can never fully control the consequences to your actions and any reasonable interaction with the world requires allowing other people a little bit of control (for one thing, Jerry could have at least explained that he came into a bit of money).

Meanwhile, George’s story this episode is one of those brilliant moments of creativity; I myself have just recently gotten into the best relationship of my life, and I could empathise with George enough to recognise his stupidity here. George is always searching for ‘better’, always looking for ‘more comfortable’, always looking at the discomfort in his life. You might think George is looking to the future, but really he’s trapped in the present, only able to notice the irritants in his life, unable to see the bigger picture.

TOPICS O’ THE WEEK

• “I tell you how much I make.” / “And I’m always impressed.”
• “Actually, I was thinking of donating a large portion of it to charity.” / “Really?” / “No.”
• One difference this show has to its followers is that the characters frequently reveal friends they’ve known a while. One thing about self-aware metacomedy is how often, for some reason, it descends into ‘these characters have no lives outside of each other’. Early seasons of The Office (US) managed to avoid this; later seasons fall into it.
• Elaine seems to float around everyone else’s stories here, but she manages to be hilarious; I love Jerry’s visible irritation with her sudden attraction to him, and I love even more that she’s initially exasperated with George’s alibi only to commit to it wholeheartedly.
• “I notice you threw ‘stocky’ in there.” / “YEAH! WHAT THE HELL?!”
• These two episodes are filled with references to previous episodes; the foldout bed, Kramer references Chunnel, the marble rye, George’s ‘manure’ material.
• Jerry’s part in the plot is based on Larry David having bought a nice car for his father, then contemplating how it must have come off. I always assumed much of the action was lifted from John Cheever stories, but my current family drama is actually more absurd than the plot of this episode.
• Famously, Jason Alexander struggled heavily to play off Heidi Swedburg because he felt she wasn’t locking into the style of comedy the show works in. Larry David dismissed his concerns initially on the basis that this is what made it funny, though the rest of the cast would join Alexander as they worked with her more. I think, in these episodes, you can see where he’s coming from; she’s still simply a little too sincere as she reads the dialogue, feeding him a weird energy that he’s struggling to build on.
• “Alright. We’ll wait. But it’s unheard of.”
• “Must be nice… to have that kind of money.” This is another one used for shitposting a lot.

Biggest Laugh:

Next Week: “The Shower Head”