It’s been 25 years the Seinfeld finale left Jerry, George, Elaine, and Kramer in jail after a trial that rehashed some of their various micro crimes against humanity and the strange cabal of side characters they encountered across 9 seasons. In the time since Team Seinfeld has gone back to the well with a fictional reboot of the show running through the 7th season of series co-creator Larry David’s Curb Your Enthusiasm and a commercial/episode of Jerry Seinfeld’s Comedians In Cars Drinking Coffee between him and Jason Alexander returning as George.
Despite previous dalliances with nostalgia mining, however, an actual full-on Seinfeld reboot never seemed likely. It probably still isn’t (based on 25 years of Seinfeld and David showing no interest in anything typical or substantial), but Jerry Seinfeld made a vague tease to a stand-up crowd in Boston the other night about “something” on the horizon, and now we’re allowing ourselves the space to dream or, at least, speculate wildly.
So, will this be another splash on Curb‘s upcoming new season? Another Super Bowl ad (please not a crypto ad, Larry)? Something more formal, less official? We have no earthly idea, but we do know that there are things that we don’t want any possible Seinfeld “reunion” or pseudo-reunion to be.
An Apology For The Seinfeld Finale
While Seinfeld and David bickered about the finale on Curb, public comments indicate they’re both good with how it wound up with Seinfeld chalking it up to a love letter to the people who worked on the show in comments made during a 2013 Reddit AMA. David’s response was even more interesting, as told to Bill Simmons on the Grantland podcast in 2014 (hat tip to ComicBook.com for resurfacing both quotes in a 2022 article):
“I think the thing about finales is everybody writes their own finale in their head, whereas if they just tune in during the week to a normal show, they’re surprised by what’s going on. They haven’t written it beforehand, they don’t know what the show is. But for a finale, they go, “Oh, well this should happen to George, and Jerry and Elaine should get together,” and all that. They’ve already written it, and often they’re disappointed, because it’s not what they wrote.”
Hey, that’s smart! Listen, the Seinfeld finale was far from perfect, it might even be chaotic and tonally confusing (more on that later – I swear!), but it was also a big swing and a big screw you to the idea of a more on-the-rails ending. Gotta respect that.
To Seinfeld’s point: Hell yeah, Jer! The idea that a finale has to be about saying thank you and goodbye to the audience is weird. Writers should trust the process and go toward their own satisfaction and the satisfaction of the various people who have made these things, first and foremost. Same as they usually do.
All this is to say that no one needs to apologize for the Seinfeld finale, so I hope there’s no cheeky “it was just a dream” retconning or other attempts to re-land the plane.
No Hollow Nostalgia Or Weepy Reunion Specials, Please
Seinfeld has, more than any show from the last 30 years, remained firmly stuck in the meat of the zeitgeist. We’re talking about it now because a newsworthy thing happened, sure, but people are always talking about and reassessing it, ranking it, writing books about it, podcasting about it, and collecting Funko vinyl pops of the characters like they’re Disney princesses. Streaming rights went for a fortune and the show is everywhere. Not just because of nostalgia for the ‘90s, but because people (of all ages) still watch the hell out of it.
I literally throw on an episode or two while I’m trying to fall asleep almost every night. It’s comfort food for my brain as I sometimes (often) mouth the words in tune with the actors – words that have often bled into the lexicon.
Across the generational landscape, people find new bits of “nothingness” to laugh at on the regular, keeping the show relevant with memes on Twitter and TikTok vids. Can you nostalgize something that isn’t really gone and, through the magic of minutiae and an allergy to topicality, still feels of the moment?
I bring all of this up because I really don’t want a weepy reunion special like what they did with Friends. It would feel weird because of the show’s lingering semi-relevance, but also because that’s just not really a Seinfeld kinda thing. Not that the cast and crew didn’t establish real bonds and relationships with fascinating behind-the-scenes stories that would thrill and delight fans. I’m sure they did, but Friends had a lot more heart than Seinfeld as its characters matured. Just way more touchy-feely moments were… well it’s in the song, isn’t it? They’ll “be there for you” and for each other. Isn’t that nice?
On Seinfeld, nothing was nice and nobody was rooting for anyone but themselves. All signs of personal growth were mocked and covered in dirt. It was a story about a nest of snakes, and I mean that in the best possible way.
Would a panel reminiscence fest cut with clips of sponges, chucked JFK golf clubs, Penis chess, sex pastrami, spotted sweaters, and Velvet Fog sing-alongs really provide any creative benefit for Seinfeld and David? Sounds like they’d be attending their own wakes. It also sounds hollow for fans who know all the stories and can recite the show’s best moments (hellooooo! la la la).
No Happy Endings, No Growth
Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David understood that you’d give people whiplash if these characters were rewarded with a happy ending or a group hug and poems about their shared journey. Seinfeld and David even played with all that with George’s near-death confessional, Jerry nearly getting everything he ever wanted, and Elaine and Puddy parting as she’s carted off to jail. Again, a lovely screw you to the idea that they’d ever deliver a cookie-cutter finale with all the usual notes. But…
While the finale was devoid of hugs and happiness, it wasn’t a finale about nothing. They still made a summary statement, they just made it about justice, consequences, and a kind of looping purgatory for these characters.
Though it took time for me to adjust to something that judged the characters so harshly the purgatorial part is now my favorite part of the re-assessed finale and the Curb episodes. These characters will never escape each other or the coffee shop or Jerry’s apartment. They should never escape. That’s the devil’s bargain of perpetual adolescence and the tragicomedy of Seinfeld. To have any value to other people or the world at large, these assholes would have to soften, mature, and change. As such, they wouldn’t be free to be this terrible and scathing to each other and everyone else. Which would KILL irredeemable George, Elaine, Jerry, and Kramer.
While it was vital in 1998 to not betray that key truth about these characters, it’s even more vital now if we’re actually going to spend any time with them (an admittedly massive if). At least if the intention is to hold to the ethos of the show. And no matter what this is, I believe that would be the intention. If these guys were going to sell out, they would have done it two decades ago with The Newman Chronicles, Jackie Chiles: Attorney At Law, or Monks Cafe: Nights.
So, What Should A Seinfeld Reunion Be?
Again, no idea. Funny? Smart? Worth our time? How about this: the Seinfeld sorta reunion should NOT be a massive tease, because I’m gonna want to flip over a comedian in a car getting coffee if this winds up being Jerry and the Soup Nazi for Progresso Chickarina Soup, a metaverse Seinfeld experience, or a Seinfeld X KITH Festivus home decor collab.
