SEINFELD - Season 7, Episode 21 - The Wait Out

“The Wait Out”

Filmed: Wednesday, March 27, 1996

Aired: April 25, 1996

Nielsen rating: 20.4

Audience share: 33

Directed: Andy Ackerman

Writers: Peter Mehlman (story and teleplay) and Matt Selman (story only) (Selman was a program consultant at the end of season six. He moved to The Simpsons where he has been ever since.)

The darkest side of Elaine's and Jerry's self-centeredness comes out in this episode. At the coffee shop, they introduce George to a married couple, Beth the doctor and David the insurance salesman. George jokes to Beth, "You could've done a lot better than him!" To George's horror and guilt, this remark leads to the couple getting separated. Jerry and Elaine, however, are delighted:

JERRY: Yeah. I've been waiting out their marriage for three years.

ELAINE: Yeah, me too. Well, I've been waiting out two or three marriages, but this is the one I really had my eye on.

As Beth and David's marriage crumble, Jerry and Elaine swoop in. Elaine suggests she will call David and Jerry will call Beth to let them know they are "there for you." "Then," Elaine explains, "after a period of being 'there for you,' we slowly remove the two words 'for you' and we're just 'there.'" When their plan works and they have begun to date the divided couple, Jerry congratulates Elaine on her successful plan. “I’ll tell you," he says, "that ‘there for you’ crap was a stroke of genius."

Neither Jerry nor Elaine confesses to anything more than a crush on Beth or David. Neither curses the stars for the Beth-David marriage thwarting their chances at being with their true love. Jerry and Elaine just have "a little thing" for Beth and David, and they'd like to satisfy that little thing. In doing their best to break up a marriage purely for their own romantic interests, Jerry and Elaine act as despicable in this episode as any Seinfeld characters acts in the whole series. 

For once, George is a bit better behaved. His guilty conscience sends him on a quest to bring Beth and David back together, a goal Jerry and Elaine do their best to stop. Eventually though George gets sidetracked. David runs into George with Susan at the restaurant. For spite, David tell Susan, "You could've done a lot better than him!" To George's delight, Susan seems to take this comment very seriously. Ultimately, though, Susan says nothing more about it and the wedding plans proceed for one more week.

SEINFELD - Season 7, Episode 20 - The Bottle Deposit

“The Bottle Deposit”

First Script Read: Sunday, March 10, 1996

Filmed: March 10-13 and 20, 1996

Aired: May 2, 1996 (1 hour special)

Nielsen rating: 21.8

Audience share: 35

Directed: Andy Ackerman

Writers: Gregg Kavet and Andy Robin

This classic hour-long episode was originally scheduled to be normal length, but as it went into production Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David decided there was too much good stuff to trim it down to half an hour. As a result, this episode has an epic quality, with all four storylines going through twists and turns before three of them come together in the end.

Kramer and Newman scheme to return a mail truckload of bottles and cans to Michigan where they can get 10-cents as opposed to the 5-cent refund in New York. Jerry's insane mechanic (played by Everybody Love's Raymond's Brad Garrett) steals Jerry's car after he decides Jerry doesn't take good enough care of it. Provoked by her rivalry with Oh Henry! candybar heiress, Sue Ellen Michke, Elaine overbids on a set of John F. Kennedy golf clubs she is sent by her boss, J. Peterman, to try to win at an auction. The clubs end up in the back of Jerry's car, which Newman and Kramer spot somewhere in Ohio. Newman and Kramer are sidetracked in pursuit of Jerry's car, which is never recovered. The mechanic, Tony, throws the Kennedy clubs one by one at the pursuing mail truck. Elaine gets those back to Peterman, but they are badly damaged.

George's story is unconnected, but for me it's the funniest of the episode. His boss, Mr. Wilhelm, chews him out for not paying attention. Moments later, Wilhelm ducks into the men's room. He assumes George follows him in so he keeps talking. George, however, awkwardly hesitates outside. When he does go in he finds Wilhelm has been explaining a special project he wants George to work on. George has no idea what the project is and is too afraid to ask Wilhelm to clarify. The rest of the episode follows George trying to puzzle his way through the project. Of course, he is almost completely unsuccessful in his attempts to figure out what he is supposed to be doing.

George's mystery is exactly the same premise, structurally speaking, as the Hangover films. The main characters find themselves with a blank space in their past that they are forced to gradually try to fill in. Their encounters other people who can provide clues seems to only complicate their confusion and push them farther away from their goal.

Wilhelm's suggestion that George go downtown is one of the additions to the episode added to make it one hour. Tantalizingly, Wilhelm suggests George has to go downtown "just like the song says." George has no idea what his boss means, so he enlists Jerry's help in figuring it out:

JERRY: The song “Downtown?” You mean the Petula Clark song?

GEORGE: Yeah.

JERRY: You sure he didn't just mention it because you happened to be going downtown?

GEORGE: I think he was trying to tell me something, like it had some sort of a meaning.

JERRY: Okay, so how does it go?

GEORGE: “When you're alone, and life is making you lonely, you can always go...”

JERRY: “... downtown.”

GEORGE: “Maybe you know some little places to go where they never close...”

JERRY: “...downtown.”

GEORGE: Wait a second. “…little places to go where they never close.” What's a little place that never closes?

JERRY: Seven-eleven?

GEORGE: “Just listen to the music of the traffic in the city. Linger on the sidewalk where the neon lights are pretty.” Where the neon lights are pretty. The Broadway area?

JERRY: No that's midtown.

GEORGE: “The lights are much brighter there. You can forget all your troubles, forget all your cares. Just go...”

JERRY: “...downtown.”

GEORGE: “Things'll be great when you're...”

JERRY: “...downtown.”

GEORGE: I got nothing, Jerry. Nothing.

JERRY: Well, “don't hang around and let your troubles surround you. There are movie shows.”

 

If anything, that scene is even funnier knowing it was just added to fill time. It accomplishes nothing for the story. George is stuck in his problem without the glimmer of hope in finding a solution. It's a lot like his life; George Costanza's search for meaning is always futile and woefully misguided. If Wilhelm and God were standing there in the restaurant watching George grapple for the answers to his special project and to his life, they would both shake their heads. "Not even close."

SEINFELD - Season 7, Episode 19 - The Calzone

“The Calzone”

First Script Read: February 28, 1996

Filmed: Monday-Wednesday, March 4-6, 1996

Aired: April 25, 1996

Nielsen rating: 19.6

Audience share: 31

Directed: Andy Ackerman

Writers: Alec Berg and Jeff Schaffer

While George gains Steinbrenner's favor with daily calzone lunches and Kramer tries to get rid of his endless supply of pennies, Jerry and Elaine explore two different facets of dating.

Jerry is dating Nicki, a beautiful woman who uses her looks to get all sorts of advantages. As George explains, "You know, they could get away with murder. You never see any of them lift anything over three pounds. They get whatever they want, whenever they want it. You can't stop them." Indeed, using Nicki's looks, Jerry gets into the sold out film, Means to an End, and later gets out of a speeding ticket.

Meanwhile, Elaine has several outings with Todd Gack, though he insists they aren't a date. Todd takes Elaine to the movies (they are stuck seeing Blame it on the Rain) to pay for betting that Dustin Hoffman was in Star Wars. Jerry rightly suspects that Todd is purposely throwing bets to get dates without having to ask women out. He gets another date that he says isn't a date to give Elaine cigars to give to Jerry. The third time they go out together, Todd takes Elaine to dinner with his parents. Still insisting it is not a date, Todd tries to kiss Elaine goodnight. That's their final date, though, as Todd steals Nicki away from Jerry by betting her that Nixon's middle name was "Moe."

These two storylines explore the essence of gender behavior in romantic relationships. Nicki exerts power through her body. Even after she and Jerry break up, Jerry still finds himself offering to walk Nicki's dog. Todd, on the other hand, wins Elaine and then Nicki through deception. He cannot rely on his body to seduce women, so he tries to outwit them while simultaneously protecting his own ego by insisting to himself that his outings are not dates.