The Jacket has got to be one of the more interesting episodes in Seinfeld's history. It's more the behind the scenes stuff that occurred rather than the episode itself.
Jerry is browsing through jackets and finds himself a nice suede one. It fits him well and after a little concern about the price, he buys it. There seems to be this obsession over the fact that he loves it so much. To the point of Kramer taking his old jacket. Outside of that, the next big plot involves Jerry, Elaine, and George. All three are to meet and go to dinner with Alton Benes, Elaine's father.
For the guest stars before this episode, it consisted of small named actors or ones that they found on the street. Seinfeld went all out and got Lawrence Tierney. The Inside Look on the DVD for this episode goes really into the casts feelings about the actor and the character. Larry David based Alton on a girlfriend's father, but the cast and crew were scared. This is a guy in his 70s that still had that same personality that he had in movies from the 40s and 50s. Those mob films, gangster ones. It's funny that his career was still going high a year and a half later when Reservoir Dogs hit theaters. Even from what I read, the crew of The Simpsons had issues with Tierney when he voiced a store security guy for an episode a few years later.
The idea of parents appearing in episodes from time to time is not unusual. Unfortunately, Tierney taking a knife off the set was a breaking point. A shame, though, because Alton terrifies Jerry and George very well. Talking about war and a tail gunner getting killed feels dark but still funny considering who he is talking to about it. Even early on in the episode, Elaine is uncomfortable having not seen her father in a while.
Outside of Jerry's main plot, George's is singing Les Miserables and they show it a handful of times. It helps a bit considering Jason Alexander being involved in theater. Kramer and Elaine have their own little story of their own. Kramer is watching birds for a magician and needs someone to watch them for a few minutes. He tried to get Jerry and George to do it, but they didn't. A funny bit includes Jerry knowing how his neighbor functions. Elaine winds up late to meet her father and the two. Her explanation is the opposite of how she was in The Busboy in that she is very animated about what happened with watching the birds. We do get a mention of her job at Pendant Publishing, a place that will have quite a bit of episode plot lines for her.
The ending is what you would expect out of anything Larry David writes. With what he and Jerry wrote for the episode, it's a great one. All four characters have their moments and are hilarious. Improvement of the stories and characters with each passing episode shows the genius of this sitcom.
Score: 8 out of 10
Next week's review is an episode NBC hated.
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