George must abstain from sex, which leads to him becoming smarter. Elaine tries to do the same thing to help her wannabe-doctor boyfriend, which leads to her becoming dumber. Jerry keeps getting bumped by his old school every time he tries to make a speech there. Kramer starts a smoker’s lounge in his apartment, which causes him to age terribly; he gets Jackie Chiles to take on the tobacco industry.

Written by: Steve Koren
Directed by: Andy Ackerman

This is the rare Seinfeld episode with a Thematic Point, and as a result, it sacrifices a little bit of realism – even internal realism – for the sake of a joke. Out of curiosity, I looked it up; refraining from sex has no measurable effect on intelligence at all. But that’s secondary to the central joke of how women and men approach sex differently – for men, sex is an all-consuming goal to achieve, whereas women don’t have to work as hard to get laid. Which also isn’t even that true; I know personally I could cheerfully go without sex ever again, and am aware of many female Georges Costanza, and it isn’t even that true in the context of the show; we’ve seen Elaine struggle to get laid sometimes. If it works at all, it’s because it feels true, and even feels true in the context of these characters.

Jerry’s argument for George is that he’s always so focused on sex that the part of his brain that deals with everything else is shrivelled up and withered. There’s a certain sense to this in that George is so heavily invested in his specific goal of getting laid that it interferes with his ability to rationally approach it; actually, it’s easier to flip this over and say that by taking George’s ultimate goal of sex off the table entirely, he’s able to approach life with a more relaxed attitude, which has the coincidental side effect of thinking more rationally and with a more open mind. My argument that generally, Jerry’s attitude is like this because he has standup as an identity and goal to fall back on; it’s very funny to see George embrace it.

TOPICS O’ THE WEEK

• “I would eat you!” / “That’s very nice. I guess.”
• “George. I can’t have sex.” / “… With me or in general?”
• Bob Oedenkirk! This is actually a rare example of a big comedy actor getting such a meaty role on this show. Not that the actors in general are bad, or that the writing is bad, or even that they’re playing the role wrong; rather, that these were working actors who came onto the stage and said the words basically how a real person would say them, and then go. Oedenkirk, by this point, was in the middle of making Mr Show with Bob and David, and he’d developed various comic persona to fall into with the specific outcome of making the audience laugh; his character here feels like a transplant from that show, and his final line in particular (“I always knew that when I would become a doctor, I would immediately dump whoever I was with and find someone better – that’s the dream of becoming a doctor.”) sounds like something one of his characters would say.
• “Just by conversing, you can really learn a lot about a person.” / “I’m just finding that out.”
• “It bothers people, and it’s against the law.” / “You can make all the laws you want, he’s still gonna bother people.”
• “Oh my god! I just remembered where I left my retainer in second grade!”
• Elaine spotting Sue Ellen in the cafe with Ben mirrors Jerry spotting Kenny Bania in a previous episode.
• “What happened to your face?! It looks like an old catcher’s mitt!”
• “Look away, I’m… I’m hideous!”
• “Perhaps I could better serve the world this way.” / “You mean not subjecting women to your sexual advances.”
• “Who could love me?”
• “What’s the deal with homework? You’re not workin’ on your home!”
• “Who told you to have a pow-wow? I didn’t tell you to have a pow-wow.” When I first learned there are men who send unsolicited pictures of their penis to women, I thought “Who told you to send pictures of your penis?” in this exact cadence, long before I ever actually watched Seinfeld.
• “This is the most public yet of my many humiliations.”
• This has a lot of iconic and very funny images. Remind me to post them in the comments when this goes up.

Biggest Laugh:

Next Week: “The Andrea Doria”