The glorious day has come: Seinfeld is available to stream on Hulu in its entirety. While many of you will seek out your favorite episodes and understandable classics like “The Contest” or “The Chinese Restaurant,” we humbly suggest these deeper cuts that may have faded from memory. So here they are, in chronological order.
“The Pony Remark”
Seinfeld wasn’t just a show about nothing; it was a show about awful people who existed in a vacuum of their own neurosis, but the characters occasionally felt bad about their actions, like in this episode where Jerry and Elaine’s flippant cruelty and narrow worldview with regard to pony ownership wind up killing a woman. Poor Manya, Jerry’s departed and distant relative/former Polish pony owner? Nah, while I have no ill will toward teeny equine aficionados, if you owned a Power Wheel when you were a kid, I echo everything Jerry said about ponies, and I direct those words at you.
“The Deal”
Seinfeld didn’t seem to think that a friendship between a man and a woman — ex-lovers, no less — was as exotic as other shows and movies have with their clichéd philosophy regarding penis/vagina proximity, and the magnetic force that pulls those things together. Why? Larry David basically got a lot of it out of his system with “The Deal,” an episode that sees Jerry and Elaine put rules in place that will let them have their sexy time and their friendship AT THE SAME TIME!
The resulting relationship wound up being dispatched off-screen as quickly as it sprung to life, but the episode is unique in that it almost feels like it’s taking place in a bizarro realm where Jerry and Elaine are reading the Sunday paper as a couple, and each cares about the other’s feelings. It’s both fun and terrifying to think of where the show would have gone had David and Seinfeld continued with this storyline.
“The Library”
Jerry finds out that he owes the New York Public Library a fine for a severely overdue copy of Tropic of Cancer, and both he and George take a trip down memory lane to their high school days where we meet George’s emotionally abusive gym teacher. We also learn that romance-tinged memories from youth are unreliable, and that Mr. Bookman, the library cop (Philip Baker Hall), might be the best guest character in the history of Seinfeld.
“The Opera”
“Crazy” Joe Davola was Jerry’s most frightening adversary, and he reached his villainy high point in “The Opera” after leaving a threatening message on Jerry’s answering machine, and menacing Elaine in an uncomfortable scene in his apartment. Episode writer Larry Charles played with the looming threat of Davola’s violent outburst that took everyone out to the opera for a night of high class, leaving him in the shadows (and in clown makeup) like a boogeyman. The expression on Jerry and Elaine’s faces at the end of the episode, as well as the sight of George in a two-sizes-too-small tuxedo, makes this worth another watch on its own.
“The Cigar Store Indian”
“The Cigar Store Indian” observes Seinfeld as he tries to recover from a series of unfortunate verbal flubs that jeopardize a possible relationship with a friend of Elaine’s, who’s a Native American. Jerry’s egg shell-walking is funny, but it’s made a little more interesting considering Seinfeld’s more recent remarks about PC culture.
“The Hamptons”
First of all, Seinfeld‘s destination episodes don’t get enough credit, and this one, which takes places in the Hamptons, is among the best. While the gang is all there, Jerry mostly reacts to everyone else’s goings on, and Kramer’s minor story about lobster poaching is a little flat. Elaine and George, however, pace the episode as the former has to contend with being described with the same word (“breathtaking”) as a thoroughly ugly baby, and the latter re-introduces the word “shrinkage” into the English language to describe the effects of cold water on one’s manflesh.
Honorable mentions: I wrote about Seinfeld‘s weirder episodes back in December, and it felt silly to rehash some of those, but “The Bris,” “The Limo,” and “The Subway” would have all cracked this list with ease. And, of course, there are countless other episodes that could crack a list like this, so please do share yours in the comment section, and please do roam aimlessly through Seinfeld‘s nine seasons, hunting for other episodes you may have forgotten about.
