The 'Seinfeld' finale 20 years later: Does it get any better with age?

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Twenty years ago today, the final episode of Seinfeld aired, the conclusion of nine seasons of Jerry Seinfeld, Jason Alexander, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, and Michael Richards deconstructing the sitcom, coining catchphrases, and generally ridiculing not just TV culture, but American culture itself. We all loved what co-creators Seinfeld and Larry David did — right up until they ended it, that is. The finale — a 75-minute episode fittingly titled “The Finale” — pulled in massive ratings. In those pre-streaming, basic-cable days, the audience for the finale was huge: More than 76 million people tuned in. But “The Finale” immediately became one of the most controversial series finales ever. It remains so, right up there with the much-maligned exit of The Sopranos.

The final episode — which ended with the four main characters facing each other in a jail cell — met with widespread derision and negative reviews, my own among them. “The show’s swan song was off-key and bloated,” I wrote at the time in Entertainment Weekly. “Ultimately, this kiss-off was a hearty, ‘So long, suckers!’ to the fans.” Hmmm, I wonder if I’d say the same thing today. I thought it might be fun to look at the finale again, to see whether the passage of time has been kinder to the last episode — who knows, maybe it improved with age, right?

If you head over to Hulu — which streams the entire series — or drag out your dusty DVDs, you can squint at the final episode. I’ll refresh your memory on the plot. Jerry and Alexander’s George have finally been contacted by NBC: The pilot they wrote — you know, the “show about nothing” — is going to be turned into a series! NBC offers the elated duo use of the network’s corporate jet; they grab Louis-Dreyfus’s Elaine and Richards’s Kramer and fly off to — well, there’s a midflight mishap and they land in Latham, Mass. There, they witness a crime (the mugging of a fat man, which occasions derisive jokes from the quartet that would seem very politically incorrect these days). Because they merely observe but never come to the aid of the victim, all four are arrested under Massachusetts’s supposedly new “Good Samaritan law” — for not being Good Samaritans.

A trial follows, at which a vast array of former Seinfeld guest stars appear as character witnesses. They include the old lady from whom Jerry once stole a marble rye; the parents of Susan, George’s dead fiancée; and the perpetually angry Soup Nazi. Our four antiheroes are found guilty and sentenced to a year in prison. We leave them — apparently not for a year, but for all eternity — as they sit in one cell together, talking incessantly, Jerry criticizing George’s shirt for its “button placement.” The camera pulls back, back, back … and that’s it.



At the time of the finale, Larry David hadn’t been involved with the show for a while; he returned to write the jumbo-sized episode. Early in “The Finale,” there’s a classically constructed Seinfeld segment that now seems amusingly quaint: Elaine has a friend whose mother recently died; Elaine calls her on her cellphone to express her sympathy. Jerry and George are scandalized by the idea that anyone would make a sympathy call on a cellphone — “the lowest phone call you can make!” explodes George. In those days, the cellphone was apparently thought to be an inferior mode of communication. Jerry and George believe that serious people calling on serious business use serious phones — i.e., land-line phones in the privacy of their homes. This is, due to the passage of time, now quite funny. At the time, it just seemed petty.

Similarly, the procession of characters from previous episodes at the trial seemed, in 1998, like a lazy variation on a “best-of” clip show — especially since, the week before, NBC had aired “The Chronicle,” an hour-long clip show featuring many of the same characters revived for the finale. But when you look at “The Finale” now, the episode works as a clever reminder of how many episodes of Seinfeld you enjoyed, enabling you to see faces that once were obscure (“Look, there’s Teri Hatcher as Jerry’s old girlfriend!”) or to appreciate lesser-known characters, such as Bookman, the library cop — I forgot how much I loved Philip Baker Hall’s crusty overdue-book investigator.

Indeed, watching “The Finale” this time around was almost pure pleasure all the way through. While I’m sure the gang’s lawyer, Jackie Chiles, would come under P.C. scrutiny for the portrayal of a black man as a hustler with a law degree, I also admired Phil Morris’s deft performance, delivering reams of rapid-fire dialogue with ease.

Seen now, the prison-cell ending of Seinfeld is kind of prescient: What are Jerry, George, Elaine, and Kramer being punished for if not their political incorrectness in a wide variety of social situations? Put aside actual crimes (Jerry pushing the old lady and stealing the rye), and “The Finale” is, unlike the rest of Seinfeld, a show about something: an overdue reckoning for four people who have acted selfishly for nine seasons, who have flouted the decencies of human interaction. Seinfeld was built around Larry David’s famous mantra that the show would feature “no hugging, no learning,” and while the quartet never hugs in “The Finale,” these prickly, self-righteous characters do learn something — that there’s a limit to how boorishly you can behave without punishment. Or, as the judge puts it in handing down his sentence: “Your callous indifference and utter disregard for everything that is good and decent has rocked the very foundations upon which our society is built.” Sounds awfully timely in the Trump era, doesn’t it? I hereby upgrade the Seinfeld “Finale”: a solid B-plus.

Seinfeld ended 20 years ago today: Does the much-derided series finale get better with age?

More than 76 million people watched the 75-minute May 14, 1998 series finale, which was met with with widespread derision and negative reviews. Even Jerry Seinfeld regrets the finale. Ken Trucker, who called the series finale "off-key and bloated" as TV critic for Entertainment Weekly, has had a change of heart. "When you look at 'The Finale' now, the episode works as a clever reminder of how many episodes of Seinfeld you enjoyed, enabling you to see faces that once were obscure ('Look, there’s Teri Hatcher as Jerry’s old girlfriend!') or to appreciate lesser-known characters, such as Bookman, the library cop — I forgot how much I loved Philip Baker Hall’s crusty overdue-book investigator. Indeed, watching 'The Finale' this time around was almost pure pleasure all the way through. While I’m sure the gang’s lawyer, Jackie Chiles, would come under P.C. scrutiny for the portrayal of a black man as a hustler with a law degree, I also admired Phil Morris’s deft performance, delivering reams of rapid-fire dialogue with ease."

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[Willbo]

I have grown to like The Finale. I enjoy seeing all the characters throughout the series in one room. A great show.

[stevea]

I'm glad some now like the finale, but to me it still reeks. Give me the Soup Nazi or virtually any other episode (I didn't like the Bubble Boy either, and I'm probably in the minority on that.)

[king of comedy]

No. It hasn't aged well.

[icecream]

Originally Posted by stevea

(I didn't like the Bubble Boy either, and I'm probably in the minority on that.)

I have never liked the Bubble Boy episode either.

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How Seinfeld's series finale paved the way for modern comedy
The series finale that aired 20 years ago today, on May 14, 1998, proved to be influential, even if many fans and critics hated it, says Marianne Eloise. "It's fair to say that the episode is not without problems – its format makes it a little slower than a standard Seinfeld episode, the courtroom setup makes it feel samey, the carousel of old characters and references makes it feel smug," says Eloise. "But that is precisely why it’s perfect: Seinfeld has always been smug, snidey, all-knowing. Its characters and creators have always prided themselves on knowing things that we don’t – whether that’s obscure references or just how to make good comedy. Seinfeld has always gone against the grain of what’s intuitive or expected, and that’s what has aided its longevity. Regardless of its poor reviews, the finale, like the series, has gone down in history as a blueprint for how comedy can be done. In a direct way, the courtroom setup has been recycled by a number of shows."

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  The 1990s are back in fashion: Seinfeld Style has never been more relevant
  Elaine was Seinfeld's revolutionary antihero with a "big wall of hair" and a "face like a frying pan"

[Yong Fang]

Well, the characters were somewhat jerks and got what was coming to them somewhat.

[Edward216]

While I liked that they had a lot of characters seen over the course of the show in the finale I was never entirely happy with it. I didn't like Jerry, Elaine, George, and Kramer going to jail. Even if you look at it as some kind of "justice" for all of them acting like jerks at one time or another. I just thought it was lame and was a weird way to end the show. But I think Seinfeld for the most part was a great sitcom.

Ed.

[gopyle]

No better or worse than when originally aired. I remember being very disappointed in it and watching it today, I don't really lose that feeling. As has been mentioned, the positive is all the appearances by people who had been on the show. The negative is that I didn't really care for the premise and wish it had just gone out with a regular funny episode without having to come to some kind of resolution.