Vulture ranks all eps of Seinfeld

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http://www.vulture.com/2015/06/every-seinfeld-episode-ranked.html

169. "The Puerto Rican Day Parade" (Season 9). An episode so racially offensive that NBC had to apologize upon its airing, the second-greatest crime that "The Puerto Rican Day Parade" commits is simply not being funny enough. It's the loosest version of a bottle episode to come out of the writers' room — and of all the bottle episodes in Seinfeld's run, it's the dullest, full stop.

168. "The Outing" (Season 4). After four seasons spent using George's homophobia as a character flaw, the show wholeheartedly embraces gay panic as a plot device to a nonsensical, largely unfunny degree. The phrase "Not that there's anything wrong with that" ascends to pop-culture permanency after a practical joke played by Elaine causes a college newspaper reporter to mistake George and Jerry as lovers.

167. "The Finale" (Season 9). Is the final episode of Seinfeld really that bad? They get what they deserve! It's a long time coming! Symbolically, it's perfect! But upon rewatching, you realize that, yeah, it is that bad. Not even the minor revelation that George cheated during "The Contest" can save what is an uninspired parade of guest stars and forgotten characters. The final scene's callback to Seinfeld's first episode is a cute touch, but it's not enough to save "The Finale"'s reputation as one of Seinfeld's lowest points.

166. "The Jacket" (Season 2). An episode about sitting around waiting for someone in a hotel lobby, “The Jacket” offers all the thrills of … sitting around waiting for someone in a hotel lobby. Notable only for the following bit of trivia: Lawrence Tierney, who plays Elaine's cranky father, Alton Benes, attempted to steal a butcher knife from the set and mock-threatened Seinfeld with the very real prop when caught in the act.

165. "The Tape" (Season 3). Elaine's sexy-voice answering-machine prank in this episode is mildly humorous, but the collective horndog mentality displayed by Jerry, George, and Kramer runs contrary to the show’s established platonic-frenemy dynamic. This episode also features the first appearance of Ping, the recurring Chinese-food-delivery-guy character who suffers a bike accident after an encounter with Elaine in "The Virgin."

164. "The Deal" (Season 2). Larry David specifically wrote this episode to satisfy NBC brass's continued demands to get Jerry and Elaine back together, and it's easy to see why the writers’ room was eager to split them up shortly thereafter. "The Deal" packs at least one comedic punch — Jerry's birthday gift of $182 cash to Elaine — but this brief rom-com digression (which includes a seemingly out-of-character coffee-shop convo between Jerry and George about Elaine's sexual prowess) disrupts the considerable creative gains made at this point in the series.

163. "The Chinese Woman" (Season 6). Jerry dates a woman who has the surname "Chang" but isn't actually Chinese, which turns into a (possibly accidental) examination of racial stereotypes. "Isn't that a little racist?" Elaine says when Jerry says he "loves Chinese women." Jerry disagrees, but jokes about Confucius and conflating Ls for Rs now come off as especially dated. The introduction of the story arc where George's parents consider getting a divorce — complete with a cameo from a cape-wearing Larry David, as Frank Costanza's lawyer — provides more laughs than the titular woman.

162. "The Mango" (Season 5). Talk of cunnilingus and faking orgasms on a single episode of network TV that aired in 1993 is groundbreaking stuff — but Jerry's incessant needling of Elaine after she admits she "faked it" during their relationship grows tiresome. Meanwhile, Kramer's fruit-obsessed subplot feels like a stale reprise of previous episode "The Ex-Girlfriend," with the aphrodisiac qualities of mangoes standing in for the Mackinaw peaches.

161. "The Muffin Tops" (Season 8). All you need to know about this late-period episode is that most of the characters end up in the dump, and they deserve to be there. Elaine and Mr. Lippman selling muffin tops and donating the bottoms to food banks, Jerry shaving his chest, Kramer's ultra-meta "J. Peterman Reality Tour": a bunch of half-formed ideas crammed into an episode where the only notable element is George finally — finally — getting fired from the Yankees.

160. "The Ex-Girlfriend" (Season 2). An episode that builds to one specific punch line: A woman Jerry's seeing doesn't want to sleep with him because she doesn't think he's a funny comedian — and not much else. It’s also notable as the first episode where George explicitly acknowledges his homophobia: "You're a little homophobic, aren't you?" Elaine asks, to which he replies, "Is it that obvious?"

159. "The Gum" (Season 7). The dynamic between George and perpetual nemesis Lloyd Braun is always a treat, but other episodes explore it better than "The Gum," which largely and improbably focuses on Elaine accidentally exposing herself multiple times due to a faulty button

10. "The Secret Code" (Season 7). If you don't pour out an entire container of Bosco after this episode, you clearly have no respect for the dead.

9. "The Summer of George" (Season 8). There’s an argument among Seinfeld crowds that the show should have ended after season eight. While that would have been a shame — there are more than a few solid episodes in season nine — the last episode of season eight would have made a much better series finale than "The Finale." Think about the cosmic perfection of Seinfeld ending with George almost relaxing himself to death.

8. "The Old Man" (Season 4). For one episode, Jerry, Elaine, and George have the exact same job: volunteer work caring for the elderly. But Elaine is the only one who takes it seriously — and she acquires some game-changing wisdom in the process — while Jerry exploits his elderly charge and George, outstandingly, gets fired. From a volunteer job. It's a brilliant narrative conceit that brings out the worst in everyone, with an ending that speaks to a universal truism: When you get older, it doesn't mean you become less of an a$$hole — you just get older.

7. "The Rye" (Season 7). Actually, maybe this is the worst thing Jerry does during the course of Seinfeld. George pulling the marble rye through the window on a fishing hook cements the episode's canon-level status, but Elaine's oral-sex-focused subplot is curiously undersung — especially since a poorly played saxophone is always funny.

6. "The Pen" (Season 3). The only episode that doesn't feature George, which made Alexander so incensed that he threatened to leave the show if the writers ever turned in another script that excluded his character. That makes sense, but this episode is marvelous — a headfirst dive into the world of Del Boca Vista, where we're introduced to Jack Klompus and see the infamous astronaut pen that gives the episode its name. A muscle-relaxant-fueled Elaine hollering "STELLA!!!!" at the end earns Louis-Dreyfus a million trillion Emmys.

5. "The Hamptons" (Season 5). A brilliantly constructed episode in which George is the victim of a series of misfortunes, then seems to get the satisfying revenge he seeks — before getting a tomato slammed in his face. At least it's a Hampton tomato! You can eat them like an apple!

4. "The Fire" (Season 5). Annnnnnd, this might be the worst thing George does in the entire nine seasons of the show. The police officer asking him how, exactly, he lives with himself is a proxy for all of us. Props to the writers for plotting a complicated but totally sound "No bad deed goes unpunished" story involving Jerry and Elaine, where the former's fulfillment of every comedian's revenge fantasy results in the latter losing a promotion.

3. "The Opposite" (Season 5). What if doing the exact opposite of what you would typically do in a given situation could improve your life? The season-five finale mines this question in what is possibly Seinfeld's most effective attempt at magical realism. "The Opposite" takes a hard look at the show's power dynamic and treats George and Elaine like elevators: One goes up and the other goes down, while Jerry remains neutral (or, as Kramer refers to him, "Even Steven"). Elaine's realization at the end of the episode that she's "become George" is one of the show's funniest moments. (Also, the Kramer-meets–Regis and Kathie Lee scene is truly inspired.)

2. "The Subway" (Season 3). What keeps this from being No. 1? We’re down to the end, so it’s a matter of pedanticism: When the cop busts the mugger who’s trying to steal Kramer’s OTB winnings, there’s an applause track that doesn’t match the show's established antipathy toward sentimentality. That’s enough to drop it a spot. Everything else about "The Subway" is as pitch-perfect and refreshing as an empty, air-conditioned 4 train in the summertime.

1. "The Contest" (Season 4). Even today it's easy to marvel at how much comedy is packed into these 22 minutes without feeling like overkill: George's odd choices for masturbation material ["Glamour?!"], Estelle Costanza yelling at him in the hospital room, the sponge bath, "I'm out!" Elaine's JFK Jr. obsession, and the episode ending with the gang ostensibly watching Kramer have sex with the naked woman in the apartment across the street.

At this point in the show’s run, Seinfeld had already incorporated several clever masturbation jokes into episodes. But here, the show's architects created an entire episode about it without once saying the word, instead creating their own language that doesn’t resort to cheap euphemisms. (The closest they come is Estelle's "I find my son treating his body like it was an amusement park" remark, which still kills.) Peerless TV, no question.
 

Ed MOTHEREFFING G

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168. "The Outing" (Season 4). After four seasons spent using George's homophobia as a character flaw, the show wholeheartedly embraces gay panic as a plot device to a nonsensical, largely unfunny degree. The phrase "Not that there's anything wrong with that" ascends to pop-culture permanency after a practical joke played by Elaine causes a college newspaper reporter to mistake George and Jerry as lovers.
larry fitzmaurice is a BLIGHT on the street that is the internet :camby:
 

The Watcher

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larry fitzmaurice is a BLIGHT on the street that is the internet :camby:

:smh:

People still use "Not that there's anything wrong with that" to this day and most still get the reference. That was a great episode.

Judge gay public opinions in the early 90s based on gay public opinions in 2015 brehs.
 

Ed MOTHEREFFING G

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:smh:

People still use "Not that there's anything wrong with that" to this day and most still get the reference. That was a great episode.

Judge gay public opinions in the early 90s based on gay public opinions in 2015 brehs.
"not that there's anything wrong with that" was actually progressive back then :why:
 

Ed MOTHEREFFING G

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Dude is making it seem like Jerry and George were on some "We ain't no fukking fakkits :pacspit:" type shyt
honestly

'review' and 'rank' sites are run by like less than 50, ultra liberal hipsters who move opinions. This dude wrote or writes for pitchfork...honestly i can stop right there.

i MUCH prefer style sites and others with NO OPINION, like hypebeast and FRESHNESS mag because at least they don't do those annoying little entitled narratives like this douche
 
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