George discovers Susan owns a doll that looks exactly like his mother. Kramer enjoys Frank’s new billiards room, despite it being too small to play billiards. Jerry is exasperated when Susan’s friend gets him to deliver a package to her, only to break a prop he was going to use on television. Elaine tries to make up for an accident with the Maestro. Frank Costanza learns he might have a relative in Tuscany.
Written by: Tom Gammill & Max Pross
Directed by: Andy Ackerman
What better sums up the diversity of morality on this show than this episode? Seinfeld is famous for being about selfish jerks and just as frequently defended by fans as being morally neutral, with the protagonists trying to be helpful just as often as trying to be selfish. Sally Weaver is the worst person here for her inexplicably getting Jerry to carry a package she could have delivered and for consistently ignoring Jerry’s wishes for what she thinks is better, and even then, the latter has her genuinely trying to be helpful. I’m really struck by Sally, actually; she’s a perfect Seinfeld character, landing hard with limited screentime. Part of this is Kathy Griffin’s, uh, notable presence as an actress; I tease a bit there but she’s genuinely making interesting choices, like looking down with satisfaction at the doll she brought at the end. It’s rare that we can immediately picture what a Seinfeld character is like off screen, but you can get her whole life from this performance.
Jerry’s exasperation with her also feels like something new to the character. He’s genuinely perplexed by someone not only going above and beyond, but screwing it up so badly (now he’s on the other end of buying his parents a car). I do also enjoy the episode making him a hypocrite almost immediately, as he tries to sell Elaine on a toothbrush and then faces the exact same issue of someone forcing a better thing on him. I get where he’s coming from in that my mother used to be really bad about this sort of thing; I would very precisely lay out what I wanted and she would go for something better, with the result being that I learned that if you want something specific, you do it yourself (which of course has now made it harder to ask for or give Christmas and birthday presents). This gets us back to a classic Seinfeld theme: trying to approach human behaviour as a rational problem to solve.
TOPICS O’ THE WEEK
- “That’s why I could never be president.”
- The Maestro returning is a lot of fun.
- The plot of Jerry having no material was something Ross and Gammill came up with as a joke about the real Seinfeld (comedian), who is famously very fastidious and industrious when it comes to standup. Seinfeld understandably gets a lot of crap for seeming less important to his own show than Larry David, but apparently he’s one hell of an editor.
- The Charles Grodin sauce bottle is a classic bit of Seinfeld detail – weird, specific, and that specificity even factoring into the plot.
- “Jerry, why don’t you do a bit on styrofoam?” I understand, deep to my bones, the weariness that must have inspired putting this into the script.
- Very easy physical comedy in the billiards plot, my favourite being Kramer getting the triangle on his cue.
- Another returning character: Deena from “The Gum” returns to witness George yelling at a doll.
- Julia Louis-Dreyfus gets the chance to do some Richards-style physical comedy when she’s carrying the big box.
Biggest Laugh:
Next Week: “The Friar’s Club”.