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Rob Cesternino and Akiva Wienerkur continue their journey to watch every Seinfeld episode as they discuss Season 5, Episode 21, “The Hamptons.”
Rob Cesternino and Akiva Wienerkur gathered once again to bring you a breathtaking Seinfeld recap, and during Festivus week no less. This week they breakdown “The Hamptons”, which first aired May 12, 1994 as the penultimate episode of season five. It was written by Peter Mehlman and Carol Leifer, and was one of only a few episodes that did not take place in Manhattan at all.
After disusing how big Festivus still is, even with non Seinfeld watchers, Akiva shared a bit of news. Jerry will entertain President Barack Obama in an episode of his upcoming season of Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee. Akiva also shared that he was blocked for the first time on Twitter, and by none other than his own 14 year old sister.
Jerry’s part of the episode is minor to the overall plot. His girlfriend Rachael’s father allows her to see Jerry again after the Schindler’s List make out session, so she comes along to The Hamptons as well. He spends much of the time playing damage control, since Rachael walks in on George, seeing him naked after experiencing “shrinkage”.
George has a huge role in the storyline this week. He is finally getting his chance to sleep with his new girlfriend Jane. When he learns that the rest of the gang saw Jane topless, he decides it’s only fair for him to see Jerry’s girlfriend naked to make up for it. When Rachael ends up walking in on George, he is incredibly embarrassed because he just got out of the pool and was suffering from “shrinkage”.
When Rachael shares the shrinkage news to Jane, Jane decides to head back to the city early, leading George to seek revenge against Rachael. He decides to sneak some of the leftover lobster into some scrambled eggs the next morning, not telling Rachael, who is kosher and can’t eat shellfish.
Elaine’s story is also a small one. The baby’s doctor describes her as breathtaking, though when he also calls Michael and Carol’s ugly baby breathtaking, she isn’t sure if he was being nice to her, or being nice about the baby.
Kramer has a small part to the plot this week. While rummaging around the beach, he discovers a lobster trap with a bunch of lobsters that he brings back to the beach house for everyone. When the host Michael hears he emptied a commercial trap, he gets upset, since that was how his father had made a living. When a local cop stops by to inquire about the empty trap, Michael rats out Kramer, leading to him having to join a highway clean up crew to pay off the fine.
Akiva and Rob had some great tangents this week. First they debated why the baby’s doctor would essentially be a live in physician on their weekend away. Next they talked about how Puff Daddy has changed his name yet again, going from Diddy back to P Diddy. Rob thought it would be a good idea to do a Serial-like podcast about the disgraced CEO Martin Shkreli. Rob felt that if he was hosting guests and one of them was inexplicably cooking, he’d ask where they got the food from. Rob also wondered how bad it would be to trick a kosher person into having shellfish, to which Akiva thought her level of commitment to the religion would determine it, suggesting he might be the wrong person to weigh in since he is kosher himself.
In 2015, there wouldn’t be much that was different. Rob thought George could Google “shrinkage”, and Akiva thought they’d have a chance to see the baby on Facebook, but ultimately both thought it was a timeless tale.
Akiva decided to rank this iconic episode in the top 9, joining “The Marine Biologist and “The Contest”. Akiva and Rob both thought George’s storyline was a big A+, adding that there aren’t many better from any character in any episode. Jerry had such a small storyline, really just serving as a buffer to the other characters, so they both gave him an incomplete. They gave Elaine an A, though it was a very small part of the plot. Kramer was deserving of A- from Akiva, while Rob was way down on Kramer in particular, giving him a C or C-.
There were several emails this week. Travis loved the episode, but didn’t like it ending with Rachael throwing the tomato, to which Rob and Akiva agreed. Dr. Tom the medical correspondent offered the answer for shrinkage. He said it shrinks to maintain the optimum body temperature. Raul Castillo wondered if Rob would be mad if Akiva saw his wife naked. Rob wouldn’t be if it was an accident. Raul also asked if Rob would eat the stolen lobsters, but Rob thought he wouldn’t ask too many questions about it. Liz wrote in to ask if either of them have met ugly babies. Rob thought most babies are standard looking, while Akiva agreed that most babies don’t get cute until they start to talk.
Johnny De Silveira shared that the working title to the episode was “The Ugly Baby”. Real BG Lowe noted that it was creepy for George to try and see Jerry’s girlfriend naked. He also thought Rachael had a great arm when throwing the tomato. Amir thought the episode should have been called “The Shrinkage”, but Rob and Akiva thought it gives away the joke. He also pointed out that having sex once with a woman wouldn’t automatically mean he could touch her breast whenever he wanted. Lastly, Chester pointed out that no one could get from the city to The Hamptons that fast. He also wondered what doctor would make a house call in The Hamptons, and also thought the final scene didn’t work.
Tune in next week as the guys will recap “The Opposite” another iconic episode that closes out season five. Send in your questions by emailing Seinfeld@postshowreca
Special Thanks to Mike Moore for the episode recap
Upcoming Schedule
#86 – “The Opposite” – Questions deadline: Tues, Dec 29th @ 3pm ET
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