But you know what they say you get what you pay for. Ultimately, George’s cheapskate tendencies win over Kramer when they buy Lola a new used wheelchair rather than a brand new model. “Must be one of those rich, spoiled handicapped people who didn't want to do any work and just wanted to sit in her wheelchair and take it easy.” Someone who doesn’t want to do any work? Someone who wants to sit back and take it easy? George doesn’t seem to realize that he is literally describing himself here, and his lack of self-awareness makes his actions that much more reprehensible. Not only is he severely lacking empathy here, but he takes it a step further by insulting the woman and transferring the blame for the accident onto her. “Wheelchairs, engagement presents…it never ends!” In what should have been a kind and heartfelt gesture, George’s thoughts turn instead to apathy and how much money he can save when he whines phrases like “Can’t we just fix the old one?” and “Do you have anything a little more…less expensive?” before finally relenting. “Dad, that other car cut us off! They had swastikas all over it.They were hurling racial epithets at us.I could have been killed!”īut George’s despicable behavior escalates further when he and Kramer decide to buy the now-injured woman a replacement wheelchair – not because George feels remorse about the woman he nearly inadvertently killed, but because Kramer is now dating her and feels the need to replace the one that was destroyed in the accident. Predictably, George sneaks away ( despite the angry mob surrounding his car), shirking both responsibility and shame, choosing instead to invent an entirely fictional account of the evening to account for the mob damage done to his father’s car. “Well,” he says, changing the subject, quickly writing Susan off as if she were something to be rid of, “let’s get some coffee.”Īll is well…until the gang returns back to their car to discover that a wheelchair-user ( Donna Evans Merlo) got into an accident as a result of George taking the last handicapped parking spot. As he stands across from the shocked faces of Jerry, Elaine, and Kramer, George sheds no tears and seems to feel no empathy for his dead fiancée (or the fact that he was the one to put her in the ground) and immediately starts placing his life with Susan in the rearview mirror, turning his thoughts instead to mundane conversation and thoughts of food and drink. “She expired.” George’s only response is an almost hopeful, “Are you sure?” Relief floods his face as if he has been unshackled from a massive weight. “She’s gone,” the doctor tells him, confirming his fiancée’s demise. Instead of mourning his dead fiancée, he rejoices that he has finally gotten out of the marriage that he didn't want in the first place. Not only did George pick out the toxic invitations because they were cheap, inadvertently causing her death, but he seems downright jubilant when he learns of her passing. And the cause? Toxic glue poisoning from licking the envelopes of her wedding invitations. But in true Seinfeld fashion, a happy ceremony is not in the cards for the mismatched couple when Susan is rushed to the hospital after collapsing. Because, “you know, we’re living in a society!”ĭespite George’s schemes to get his wedding to Susan ( Heidi Swedberg) postponed, George’s big day quickly approaches. In a way, the awful personality traits that they display allows us to use them as an avatar to vicariously live out the terrible things we wish that we could do or say to people in our real lives but don’t. Whether it’s Jerry fighting an old woman for the last loaf of marble rye, Elaine inciting a dognapping plot after the barking of a neighborhood Yorkshire Terrier keeps her awake, or Kramer suing Java World because his coffee is too hot, we can’t help but laugh at their antics and (dare I say) root for them. The “show about nothing” that ran for nine seasons from 1989 to 1998 did not shy away from consistently showing that the four main characters - Jerry ( Jerry Seinfeld), George ( Jason Alexander), Elaine ( Julia Louis-Dreyfus), and Kramer ( Michael Richards) - are despicable human beings. What is more rare and risky is sitcoms where the characters aren’t kind, generous, well-adjusted members of society but are, in fact, terrible people. Feel-good comedies like Modern Family and The Goldbergs where familial fighting and hijinks ensue but are resolved at the end of thirty minutes with hugs, apologies, and lessons learned are a dime a dozen. Sweet characters and wholesome families aren’t hard to come by in the world of sitcoms.
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