Why Seinfelds Ending Is So Hated (& Why Its Actually Great)

Why Seinfeld’s Ending Is So Hated (& Why It’s Actually Great)

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Seinfeld’s finale is one of the most divisive episodes of TV ever; however, the two-part season 9 finale is a fitting end to the long-running sitcom.

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Why Seinfelds Ending Is So Hated (& Why Its Actually Great)

Few episodes in television history have been as divisive as the series finale of Seinfeld. “The Finale,” which originally aired on May 14, 1998, was an hour-long episode that brought back just about every character Jerry, George (Jason Alexander), Elaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) or Kramer (Michael Richards) wronged throughout the show’s nine-year run. Anyone who has ever seen the episode has a strong opinion about it, and those opinions are often negative.

Surely, “The Finale” is not the best episode of the series. For a show that has spawned such classic episodes as “The Contest,” “The Soup Nazi” and “The Puffy Shirt” throughout its’ epic run in the ’90s, it was always going to be a difficult task to please everyone and end the show on a high note. The general consensus is that the Seinfeld finale failed to stick the landing, grouping the show in with Lost, Dexter and Game of Thrones as great shows with subpar endings.

However, if one can look past the flood of criticism and go into “The Finale” with an open mind, they might find that the episode isn’t as bad as its reputation. There’s plenty to like in this two-parter, and it’s far from the disaster that some make it out to be.

What Happens In Seinfeld’s Finale

Why Seinfelds Ending Is So Hated (& Why Its Actually Great)

The episode begins with Jerry getting great news: he has finally struck a deal with NBC to create Jerry, the fictional show-within-a-show that was a recurring meta storyline in Season 4. NBC lends Jerry their private jet, and as a last hurrah, the gang decides to head to Paris to celebrate. But as they are en route, Kramer stumbles into the cockpit, causing the plane to crash in the fictional town of Latham, Massachusetts (not before the characters make some notable admissions, including George saying he cheated in “The Contest” and Elaine telling Jerry she is in love with him).

As they wait in Latham for their plane to be repaired, they witness a man getting carjacked at gunpoint. In typical Seinfeld fashion, they laugh at the man instead of helping him, as Kramer films it on his video camera. But when the cops show up, the victim reports the four of them for not helping, and they are all arrested under the “Good Samaritan Law” that requires bystanders to help out when they witness a crime. They hire Jackie Chiles (Phil Morris), a recurring character who is a spoof of Johnnie Cochran, to represent them, which riles the district attorney and prompts him to dig up as much dirt as he can on the four of them.

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The DA calls several witnesses, most of whom have had some sort of negative experience with Jerry and his friends (as well as being iconic Seinfeld guest stars): Mabel Choate, the elderly woman who Jerry mugged for a marble rye; Sidra, whom Jerry dumped while believing she had breast implants (“they’re real, and they’re spectacular!”); Dr. Wexler, who remarked on George’s “jubilation” when his wife Susan died of tainted wedding envelopes; Leslie, the low talker whose “Puffy Shirt” Jerry ridiculed on national television; the Soup Nazi, who claimed Elaine ruined his business; Babu Bhatt, who believed Jerry got him deported. Jackie Chiles sleeps with Sidra, George’s mother Estelle offers sexual favors to Judge Vandelay for a not guilty verdict, and they all get convicted. The final scenes show all four in prison, where Jerry gets heckled while doing standup for the inmates.

Why Fans Hated Seinfeld’s Finale

Why Seinfelds Ending Is So Hated (& Why Its Actually Great)

In addition to the already-massive expectations for the finale Seinfeld, which is considered to be the greatest sitcom of all time, co-creator Larry David, who had left the show after Season 7, returned to write the final script. But when 76 million people tuned in, many of them thought that it did not strike the right tone. Seinfeld had a winning formula of getting viewers to root for despicable characters, largely because their antics were so funny. But in the finale, there were none of the typical Seinfeld antics. And in recapping all of the terrible things they had done over the course of the series — all within the span of an hour — it got a bit overwhelming.

Some also found that the final episode undermined the entire premise of the show. The whole joke of Seinfeld is that it is a “show about nothing,” where every episode features the characters getting into comic situations of little significance (deciding which pastry to bring to a dinner party, trying to get a table at a Chinese restaurant), then making some selfish decision that makes everything worse. But no episode had any real consequences. Even when characters re-appeared, they seemed to forgive Jerry and his friends for whatever indiscretion happened in the earlier episode. So when they were ultimately forced to grapple with those consequences, some felt it to be a betrayal of what made the show great. As USA Today put it, “it may remind viewers of the last episode of NBC’s St. Elsewhere, which basically told faithful fans they’d been wasting their time on a child’s dream.”

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Even many of the cast members had lukewarm opinions of the finale. Despite saying he was “happy” with the episode in a 2014 Reddit AMA, Seinfeld seemed to walk those comments back in a 2017 interview at the New Yorker Festival. “I sometimes think we really shouldn’t have even done it,” he said. “There was a lot of pressure on us at that time to do one big last show, but big is always bad in comedy.” Jason Alexander said it was “a good episode, not a great episode” in an interview with Emmy TV. And Julia Louis-Dreyfus made an infamous joke on David Letterman’s final episode, saying, “Thanks for letting me take part in another hugely disappointing series finale.”

Why Seinfeld’s Ending Is Great

The thing about TV show finales is that every one of them is expected to be the best episode of the entire series. And especially for a show as beloved as Seinfeld, which had so many overwhelming successes throughout its run, that’s just an impossible standard to uphold. Some shows succeed in making everyone happy, but not every show can be Breaking Bad.

And when you peel away all of the hype and expectations and view the episode on its own, it’s still a funny, well-crafted episode. The “Good Samaritan Law” is the ultimate Seinfeld joke, a ridiculous, annoying thing from the real world that gets played out to completion. Just about every beloved side character made an appearance, and to comic effect — not just to show face. George Steinbrenner shows up to testify, and Frank Costanza interrupts to yell “How could you give $12 million to Hideki Irabu!” — a callback to his Jay Buhner rant from “The Caddy.” Leslie the Low Talker talks so quietly that the court can’t hear her. After Jackie Chiles sleeps with Sidra, he revives the iconic line by telling Jerry, “by the way, they’re real, and they’re spectacular!” Most of the cameos add to the episode’s arc, whereas they could have been thrown in without purpose.

And while some can argue that the finale wasn’t true to the formula, it was certainly true to the characters. Jerry and his friends were never going to have a happy ending. The show famously preached a mantra of “no hugging, no learning,” and while Seinfeld could have paired Jerry and Elaine together like Ross and Rachel in Friends, or given him his NBC show, it wouldn’t have fit within the show’s universe. Larry David told Grantland that he “was not interested in an emotional ride, and neither was Jerry.” Which was absolutely the right attitude to have. Fans might have wanted something else, but the show stuck to its guns.

Link Source : https://screenrant.com/seinfeld-finale-ending-explained-hated-good-reason/

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