Elaine hates a movie and finds it ruins her relationships. George becomes obsessed when a woman mistakes him for her boyfriend Neil. Jerry, to his exasperation, gets into a rivalry with an old man. Kramer hires some Cubans to make cigars for him, only to discover they’re Dominican.

Written by: Steve Koren
Directed by: Andy Ackerman

Oh man, this is a great Elaine episode. To me, Elaine manages to capture a very particular kind of person – someone who isn’t stupid, but can’t handle even the slightest inconvenience, suffering, or boredom – even for a moment. This is one of the two most spectacular presentations of that (and the other is still coming), in which she not only can’t handle not liking a movie, and not even be unable to handle dissent – she is genuinely shocked at first that there is any dissent. I would phrase it that, for Elaine, the world outside her head is supposed to be an extension of her inner life; any deviance from her will is unacceptable – as Judge Holden puts it in Blood Meridian, “Anything that exists without my knowledge exists without my consent”. Which is a heady way to describe a sitcom character, I’m aware.

What I love is how you see it in the way she simply can’t bring herself to be diplomatic about it; it’s outrageous enough to her that everybody likes a movie she hates, and the fact that she can’t be honest about it is driving her even more nuts. You can contrast her attitude directly with Jerry in this same episode; a lot of his detachment comes from accepting people mostly as they are, an awareness that his inner life won’t necessarily see expression in reality, and a recognition he’ll be inconvenienced occasionally; I doubt he’d even care about being the #1 comedian. I started off this whole series with the thought that this is a show about making observations; Jerry is happy to simply observe, but Elaine thinks the world absolutely has to make sense and only on her terms.

Meanwhile, George’s attempt to meet Neil is another, even more minor aspect of Magical Realism that the show is indulging in. It’s a step below the mysteriously pathetic girlfriend Jerry had a few episodes ago and a step above the woman who refused to try the pie – not entirely impossible, but just enough details to be slightly odd. I think part of the reason the show comes off wackier in the post-David years is because the writers invent just a few more details; you also see this with the family of old men, where it’s not impossible each of them had kids when they were twenty and gave us three old men and not impossible that they were all blowhards, but it’s clearly something they made up as opposed to a real, insane detail with the complexity and simplicity that implies. Classic Seinfeld is defined by the absolute minimum of invention; post-David Seinfeld is a step beyond that, and I think people respond to that differently.

TOPICS O’ THE WEEK

• “A box of raisenets eating another box of raisenets? It’s perverse.” / “He’s not buying them for himself. He’s buying them for his Pepsi girlfriend.”
• “You could do a lot worse than Mr Peanut, my friend.”
• “No, you’re a little taller. You’re also in better shape than him.”
• “How about, it sucked?”
• “This is the most thoughtful thing you’ve ever done for me.” / “You know I bought you a Cadillac. Twice.”
• “Jerry, Cuban cigars are illegal in this country!”
• “Try to take a vacation, I come back, the whole operations in shambles.”
• “I thought they smelled pretty nice!”
• “Well, I don’t know how official any of these ranking really are.”
• “Marry me! I’ll burn myself! I’ll burn my parents!”
• “George… I win.”
• Love that the movie Elaine actually wants to watch sounds very dumb.

Biggest Laugh:

Next Week: “The Nap”