George accidentally breaks up a couple, driving him to guilt and Jerry and Elaine to attempt to swoop in on the both of them. Kramer helps Mickey with his audition into the Actor’s Studio, but is sabotaged by his new, tight jeans.

Story by: Peter Mehlman and Matt Selman
Teleplay by: Peter Mehlman
Directed by: Andy Ackerman

How bad are the main characters, really? The answer is, inevitably, neutral-to-mildly-bad, but breaking down precisely how bad is fun. I think their true motivation always comes back to selfishness – even when they do a good thing, it’s because they care significantly about how they see themselves and who they are as a person – and that this affects the good that they do do. This episode contains a pretty good grasp of the spectrum of their behaviours; Jerry and Elaine carry the selfishness here, as they try and take relationships with no interest in the emotions of the other people involved. It’s not quite bad, but the way they do it definitely feels sociopathic and indifferent.

George and Kramer each, in different ways, carry a more morally good stance. George is sincerely upset that he may have broken up a marriage; granted, he’s taking full responsibility for something with two people fully capable of making their own decisions, but as Beth points out, there was more than his comment going on with them. Still, he actively attempts to repair the damage he at least perceives himself as causing; I think I’d probably do what he does in this episode, if at least less neurotically. Kramer, of course, is just helping a buddy and doing so completely incompetently, which is of course hilarious.

Like I said, morally: neutral-to-bad. I do think they reflect the usual morality of your average person; most people aren’t interested in embodying a particular ideology or achieving a particular pragmatic goal. They just want to get from one day to another with a minimum of fuss and a maximum of comfort – not just physical, but mental, the ability to walk around under the impression that people around you like you. Seinfeld is brilliant because it makes comedy out of those ideas.

TOPICS O’ THE WEEK

• “Well, I’ve been waiting out two or three marriages, but this is the one I really had my eye on.”
• “Hey, I got the body of a taut, pre-teen Swedish boy!”
• You know, in an older episode, Elaine’s bad driving and David’s question-and-answer style speaking would make up more than a few jokes, and in a weaker show, both would be the entirety of the episode. It’s amazing how Seinfeld is simultaneously light and dense – many ideas, all of them banal.
• Point against Elaine morally: she apparently killed a dog and thinks nothing of it.
• “It’s like when a tenant dies in a rent-controlled building. You gotta take action!”
• Jerry helping Kramer take his pants off is an incredibly easy gag.
• “Well, David, the thing about George is that he’s an idiot.”
• Elaine’s smugness is just as funny as George’s.
• “Turn on some of that so-called ‘charm’ you’re always telling me about.”
• George’s face when David says “You coulda done a lot better than him!” He looks like he’s been owned, which I suspect is a big part of George’s charm as a comedy character; perhaps the very source of his being a schlemiel.
• “It’s gotta have something to do with Kramer.”

Biggest Laugh:

Next Week: “The Invitations”. If memory serves, that’s a controversial one.