The Seinfeld series finale aired on May 14, 1998
The episode saw the four main characters — Jerry, Elaine, George and Kramer — pay their dues for their bad deeds when they are arrested and sentenced to a year in prison
Twenty-seven years later, the finale is still one of the most controversial sitcom endings of all time
More than 25 years after it first aired, people are still talking about the Seinfeld ending — including the show’s stars and creators.
The Seinfeld series finale, which aired on May 14, 1998, and was written by Larry David, ended with Jerry (Jerry Seinfeld), Elaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus), George (Jason Alexander) and Kramer (Michael Richards) sharing a jail cell after a jury convicted them for breaking a small town’s Good Samaritan law.
Seinfeld previously told PEOPLE during an October 2021 press junket that he and his castmates agreed that season 9 would be their last in order to go out on a good note.
“I was in the ninth season and I was thinking, maybe it’s time to wrap this up,” he recalled. “I remember inviting Michael and Julia and Jason to my dressing room, and we all just sat there and we stared at each other.”
He continued, “And I went, ‘You know, I was thinking maybe this is our moment to make a good exit. We’ve had a lot of good fortune here. Maybe we shouldn’t push our luck too far.’ And we all agreed that this was the right moment.”
From what became of the characters to how the cast and creators got a second chance at TV redemption, here’s the Seinfeld ending, explained.
What happened during the Seinfeld finale?
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Julia Louis-Dreyfus as Elaine Benes, Jason Alexander as George Costanza, Michael Richards as Cosmo Kramer and Jerry Seinfeld as himself in Seinfeld.
The Seinfeld finale opens with Elaine trying to call her friend Jill to check in on her father’s health. While Jerry and George tease her, Kramer jumps around trying to get water out of his ear.
In the next scene, Jerry receives the news that the new NBC president wants to greenlight his sitcom, Jerry. He and George plan on moving to California to work on the series. Jerry calls Elaine at home, and Elaine puts Jill on hold to take Jerry’s call.
NBC gives Jerry and George the network’s private jet, which they use to take a trip to Paris with Kramer and Elaine. During the flight, Kramer jumps up and down more to get the water out his ears and accidentally falls into the cockpit, knocking into the pilots. They briefly lose control of the plane and make an emergency landing in Latham, Mass.
As they wait for the plane to be repaired, the friends witness an overweight man named Howie (John Pinette) being carjacked at gunpoint and decline to help, instead mocking him as Kramer records the incident on his personal camcorder.
Howie tells a nearby police officer what happened and reports Elaine, Jerry, George and Kramer for not helping. The officer arrests the group for violating a “Good Samaritan” law, which requires bystanders to help those under duress or attack.
After an unsuccessful trial, Jerry and his friends are imprisoned. While together in their jail cell, Kramer finally gets the water out of his ear, and Elaine muses on using her “one phone call” to finally call Jill back.
In the final scene during the end credits, Jerry, rocking an orange jumpsuit, performs standup for his fellow inmates in prison, but only Kramer and George laugh.
What did Jerry go to jail for?
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Jerry Seinfeld as himself in Seinfeld.
For their trial, Jerry hires attorney Jackie Chiles (based on O.J. Simpson’s real-life lawyer, Johnnie Cochran) to represent them, but it doesn’t go well.
The prosecutor (James Rebhorn) has not only Kramer’s camcorder footage and Howie’s firsthand eyewitness testimony, but also a slew of character witnesses — including the “Bubble Boy,” the “Soup Nazi” (Larry Thomas), “The Virgin” (Jane Leeves), “The Library Cop” (Philip Baker Hall), Jerry’s ex Sidra (Teri Hatcher) and then-New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner (voiced by David) — from the group’s past to testify about their selfishness and petty natures.
In addition to their drama in court, Jerry, Kramer, Elaine and George are media sensations called “The New York Four,” with Geraldo Rivera exhaustively covering the trial.
The jury finds the group guilty of “criminal indifference,” and they’re sentenced to one year behind bars.
In the episode, a jailkeeper tells them that they are the first people to ever be criminally charged under the Good Samaritan law and explains that it states bystanders must help in emergency situations.
Why was the Seinfeld finale so controversial?
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Jerry Seinfeld as himself and Michael Richards as Cosmo Kramer in Seinfeld.
The sitcom’s ending was a controversial one, dividing fans and critics alike.
Part of it was the length: It was divided into two episodes on broadcast, running a total of about 56 minutes to fit in all of the necessary cameos. Some critics, like Entertainment Weekly‘s Ken Tucker, lamented that the finale’s tone of retribution undermined the fact that the characters all paid for their bad behavior within each episode.
For his part, Seinfeld called the finale episode “impossible” during a talk at the New Yorker Festival in 2017, per Vulture.
“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.”
He explained that comedy is best when it’s “small and cheap and quick,” adding, “That’s why TV is always funnier than movies, because you don’t have that much time and that much money.”
One of the finale’s staunchest defenders, however, was David, who penned the script.
“Everybody has it in their head what they think this show should be … Everybody has their own scenario going, so you have to top their scenario,” he told Charlie Rose in 1998 before the episode premiered. “Not only do you have to top their scenario, you have to come up with something that really brings them closure to the entire series, so it was a daunting prospect.”
Nearly 20 years later, David reflected on fans’ expectations for the finale, explaining that he thought their hopes for a moving ending were misplaced.
“I was not interested in an emotional ride, and neither was Jerry. No wonder why they would dislike it,” he told Grantland in 2014. “But let me toot my own horn for a second. I thought it was clever to bring back all those characters in a courtroom and testify against them for what they did, and then show those clips, and also for why they even got arrested in the first place.”
Read the original article on People
