“The Abstinence” (season 8, episode 9; originally aired 11/21/96)
Consider this episode a quasi-sequel to “The Opposite,” but with a less pure premise and thus, diminishing returns. It’s not a bad episode, but because it’s about George becoming smarter and Elaine getting dumber at the same time, the comparison must be drawn. The reason “The Opposite” is one of Seinfeld’s best-ever episodes is that it has such a pure concept—if George starts to do well, Elaine must suffer, with Jerry in the middle of their cosmic see-saw relationship. But here, because George stops having sex with his girlfriend (she is diagnosed with mono), he starts to get smarter, learning Portuguese and demonstrating science experiments. This is because the majority of his brain previously obsessed with sex is now diverted to other pursuits, Jerry thinks.
Meanwhile, Elaine follows his example and deprives her med-student boyfriend played by Bob Odenkirk (this aired right around the second season of Mr. Show) so that he can pass his licensing exam and she can be officially dating a doctor. But this lack of sex turns Elaine into a babbling idiot, because, as Jerry posits, the “garbage bags” in her brain are no longer being hauled away. George’s transformation is a little more logical than this one (to the extent that any of this is “logical”) but Julia Louis-Dreyfus has more fun with it—her gazing in glee at the revolving tires at a garage is one of the highlights of the episode.
Jason Alexander sells his new-found smarts well, but the dazzling explosion of intellect is more fun when its subtle, like when he’s automatically answering Jeopardy! questions without even thinking about it to Jerry’s astonishment. Other stuff, like his newfound skill at hitting home runs, doesn’t really gel with the concept—he’s supposed to be judging shit mathematically, I guess, but it still seems off. It’s an excuse to get a very young Derek Jeter and slightly less young Bernie Williams to make a guest appearance though, so that George can mock their World Series victory (“Yeah. In six games,” he scoffs).
Of course, George eventually succumbs to temptation—given the chance to bed a Portuguese waitress at Monk’s, he takes it, calculating that the odds of such a thing ever happening were infinitesimal. Even better, he goes all the way to Jerry’s junior high school to tell him of his sexual triumph, and to put test tubes on his head like an idiot. George’s stupidity here seems more cartoonish than usual, but I can’t deny laughing at the sight of him acting the fool.
Apart from this fairly thin concept, the episode is largely plotless. Jerry’s storyline about being bumped from career day by a monitor lizard and a fire drill is routine stuff; his manic agent played by Debra Jo Rupp returns, but to little effect. Kramer’s smoking subplot (his face gets fucked up by him hosting a smoking club) feels very warmed-over, and although things perk up with the arrival of Jackie Chiles, they’re resolved all-to-quickly by Kramer getting to be The Marlboro Man, which feels forced. Yes, Jackie must always regret taking on Kramer’s latest crazy case, but there should be more buildup. Still, his conversation with the cigarette executive is brilliant. “I feel Mr. Kramer projects a rugged masculinity.” “Rugged? The man is a goblin.”
“The Andrea Doria” (season 8, episode 10; originally aired 12/19/1996)
In these later seasons, Spike Feresten definitely became one of the show’s most reliable writers—his season eight scripts are “The Little Kicks,” “The Muffin Tops” (later in the year) are two of the season’s best, I think. “The Andrea Doria” isn’t quite at that level, but it’s a pretty good time. Much like “The Chicken Roaster,” it’s very wacky, but it nails the madcap tone way better so it doesn’t feel as jarring even as Kramer is running around like a dog or Jerry is delivering mail in Newman’s (rookie) postal uniform.
The Kramer storyline is probably the stupidest, and the least successful, not that Michael Richards doesn’t give it his all. But at this point it feels like he’s being handed big physical humor because that’s what’s expected of him, whereas the real genius of Kramer has always been that he can find physical humor in the strangest places, even a simple dialogue scene with Jerry. The simple act of him retrieving milk from a fridge can be hysterical—we don’t need him on all fours because he’s taking dog medication.