BEST SEINFELD EPISODES PLUS

But I love this fifth-season episode for being quintessentially Seinfeld in such understated fashion, in the way its details accumulate and snowball into a punchy comedy of manners and errors whose pair of storefront settings have as much texture and character as that ridiculous Gore-Tex jacket George is wearing. ” There are scripts whose contributions to the lexicon go deeper than Jerry’s dessert-based solution to racial tension. There are Seinfeld episodes that are flashier than “ The Dinner Party. Dowd states above: We all know that asking someone to help you move is about as intimate as a friendship can get. This episode also shows how Seinfeld’s humor stems from specific universal truths, as A.A. Hernandez even manages to weave into that storyline by the end, making “The Boyfriend” a deft masterpiece of sitcom structure. Even that bit is superseded by George’s obsession with not working, telling the unemployment office that he’s trying to become a latex salesman at the fictional Vandelay Industries. Meanwhile, the show pulls off a spot-on JFK parody with Jerry leading Elaine through the story of the “second spitter” who hocked a loogie at Kramer and Newman, absolving the accused Hernandez.

Jerry happens to meet baseball great Keith Hernandez in a locker room, kicking off a bromance that turns into a triangle when Hernandez starts dating Elaine, leaving Jerry unsure of which one he’s jealous of. This might be cheating a bit because it’s a two-parter ( Seinfeld’s first), but “ The Boyfriend ” is absolutely packed with greatness. It doubles as a description of Seinfeld’s guiding philosophy: To be human is to “feel awkward, uncomfortable, even inhibited in certain situations with the other human beings.” The episode features one of the show’s all-time funniest exchanges, when Jerry has to explain to Kramer why, exactly, he doesn’t want Elaine to move in.

BEST SEINFELD EPISODES PLUS

Seinfeld often gets cited as a particularly mean-spirited, even heartless sitcom, but there’s something weirdly touching about the wrestling match of Jerry’s competing impulses-his genuine desire to do his friend a favor versus his anxiety about the potential conflict it might create, plus a craven inability to just say what he’s feeling, even when Elaine gives him an out. The plot hinges on a surprisingly affordable unit that opens up in Jerry’s building, and the crisis he creates for himself when he suggests that Elaine move into it, before realizing too late that having a close friend (and ex-girlfriend) living right above him might not be so great after all. To that end, I’ve always cherished “ The Apartment ,” an exquisitely relatable episode from the second season. For this fan’s money, many of the show’s best episodes were the ones that nailed something ultra precise about social interaction-the little agonies and petty obstacles of navigating a world of other people. That was just a hooky way to describe its actual area of interest: the mundane, inconsequential somethings of middle-class American life. Seinfeld was never really a show about nothing. When he does, Sophie believes he’s someone named Rafe and mentions that she hasn’t told Jerry about “the tractor story.” Everything after that is fantastic, including Jerry’s fake voice, the fact that the name Rafe is just weird enough to throw Jerry off, the abrupt way that Jerry hangs up and his relief at avoiding being caught, and then the MVP of a scene that’s already very over-the-top: George’s “beep beep beep,” a weird little moment that completely derails any concern about “the tractor story.” Jerry Seinfeld didn’t break too often on the show, but it’s clear that he’s having a lot of fun being extremely silly in this scene. There might be Seinfeld episodes that are funnier overall than “ The Burning ,” but I don’t think the show ever topped the two minutes surrounding the first mention of “the tractor story.” Jerry is annoyed that his girlfriend, Sophie, has started saying “it’s me” when she calls, prompting George to suggest that he pulls the “old switcheroo” and do the “it’s me” to her.

Best seinfeld episodes