Season 2, episode 5: The Jacket

“We’ll say we’re frightened and we have to go home.”

Jerry’s opening stand up reflects on fashion of the future commenting that everyone in the future on TV and movies wears the same thing. Not to get on a tangent here, but the fashion on Star Trek always bugged me. Not the uniforms but civilian attire. Everyone wore the worst looking jumpsuits. Would it have been so hard to let some of those characters wear the occasional t-shirt or khaki pants? This is something I feel strongly about! Anyway, back to the present (or Seinfeld circa 1991)…

The story opens open Jerry and Elaine shopping in a men’s clothing department where Jerry finds the perfect suede jacket. Elaine asks Jerry to accompany her to dinner with her father (Lawrence Tierney).

Later George and Jerry are getting ready for the dinner. Jerry puts on the suede jacket, catching George’s eye. He asks Jerry how much it cost, guessing the price. Jerry doesn’t answer and George incrementally increasing his guess until it surpasses $1000 by which point he is completely flummoxed. Jason’s performance in this scene is tremendous.

The two meet Elaine’s father in his hotel lobby but Elaine is not there. They sit with him in the most uncomfortably funny scene of the series thus far. Not surprisingly this story is based on an event in Larry David’s life. George and Jerry independently find excuses to get up and convene in the restroom where they plan an exit strategy. Jerry wonders how they’ll get out of dinner to which George, in the most honest response he’s ever given to a question says, “We’ll say we’re frightened and we have to go home.”

Lawrence Tierney is the most inspired guest casting in the first two seasons, and apparently, Tierney was just as intimidating on set as his character was in this episode.

Elaine finally arrives and the group head out to eat dinner. It’s now snowing outside and Jerry is worried about his suede jacket. So he turns it inside out and is about to head out the door when Elaine’s father stops him. The Barbershop stripes of the interior don’t really appeal to his masculine tastes and he makes Jerry turn it back around.

In the end Jerry gives his now ruined suede jacket to Kramer.