[Exterior of JERRY SEINFELD’s mansion in Amagansett, NY. Funky bass riff. INTERIOR: Floor-through kitchen/dining area. JASON ALEXANDER as GEORGE COSTANZA (sort of, when is he not) is fiddling with his iPhone. Canned laughter throughout.]
JERRY: What are you looking at?
GEORGE: Cops beating up these protestor kids. I was hoping maybe some of the girls would be attractive.
JERRY: Are they?
GEORGE: Nope. And so many of them have tattoos. Remember when girls with tattoos were sexy? When you saw a cute girl in a club and she raised her arm and her sleeve fell back and you saw she had tattoos all up and down, boy, you felt like you were really walking on the wild side. Did I imagine that?
JERRY: I wouldn’t know. Not a tattoo kind of guy.
GEORGE: Oh, right, your girlfriend’s parents wouldn’t let her get a tattoo until she graduated high school.
JERRY: Again with the zingers! What is that? You don’t zing me, I zing you! That’s our dynamic! When did you start zinging me?
GEORGE: [Thoughtfully] Not sure. [Snaps fingers] I know! It was when Elaine stopped coming over.
JERRY: Of course! Elaine used to zing me, now you’re picking up her zing slack.
GEORGE: Is that a thing, zing slack?
JERRY: I dunno. We’ll throw it back to the writers’ room.
GEORGE: So why did Elaine stop coming over?
JERRY: [Archly with many air quotes] Oh, you know, when she started working with British comedy geniuses and Hollywood beautiful people and winning multiple Emmys.
GEORGE: I hate when that happens.
JERRY: Plus I think she got mad at me when I said I was voting for Trump.
GEORGE: Wh — what? Are you crazy? Even I know you never tell a woman you’re voting for Trump!
JERRY: Well, it kinda slipped out!
GEORGE: Slipped out how?
JERRY: You know. She said she was concerned about abortion rights, I said I don’t care, I’m voting for Trump, it was a whole thing.
GEORGE: You know what I think? I think you secretly didn’t want her coming over here.
JERRY: Well, my wife never liked her. Plus she kept telling our daughter I’m a cishet misogynist.
GEORGE: You’re kidding!
JERRY: I’m not! And you know the funny part?
GEORGE: Ah, so finally we’re getting to the funny part.
JERRY: [Ominously] OK, seriously, George, enough with the zingers. The million dollar idea is me doing the zingers, not you doing the zingers.
GEORGE: Where’d you get that, the Tao Te Zing?
JERRY: This is your last warning, Jason.
GEORGE: OK, OK, I’m sorry. So, what’s the funny thing?
JERRY: Well, the funny thing is —
[He is interrupted by the sound of a madly rattling door; MICHAEL RICHARDS as COSMO KRAMER humorously hurls himself in.]
Kramer, how did you get here? I thought you were in L.A.
KRAMER: There’s nothing tying me down there, Jerry.
JERRY: Except a wife and a child.
KRAMER: I flew in for some of that Big Apple energy, baby!
GEORGE: In the Hamptons?
KRAMER: The Hamptons is the New New York, Georgie boy! The rich have taken over the five boroughs — The Bronx, Staten Island, The Hamptons, they’re all playgrounds of the rich now.
JERRY: What is with all the social commentary all of a sudden? Remember when you could just make fun of the Gay Pride Parade and black superlawyers and everybody was a good sport about it? It wasn’t anything political! It was just comedy! Now they cancel you if you just masturbate in front of some unwilling women!
[JERRY checks his watch.]
Oh, speaking of which, I gotta go give a commencement address at some southern college, you guys want to tag along?
GEORGE: Sure.
KRAMER: Giddy-up!
JERRY: Alright, let’s go to the helipad.
[They all head out; GEORGE stops JERRY at the door.]
GEORGE: Wait, Jerry, so what was the funny part?
JERRY: Oh, the funny part was that Sascha told Elaine I wasn’t a misogynist but that I was cishet and that was worse.
GEORGE: [Big grin, chuckling] Ha ha. Wow. OK.
[JERRY precedes GEORGE out the door; GEORGE cheats a grimace at the audience. CUT TO helicopter flying across Long Island Sound, funky bass riff; CUT TO a commencement audience with many students waving Palestinian flags and walking out — JERRY’s voice in the background:]
JERRY V/O: And what’s the deal with these encampments? When I was a kid you went to camp after you got out of school!
STUDENTS: Booooo you suck!
JERRY V/O: Listen, if you’re gonna be anti-semitic I’m gonna cut this short.
[Suddenly we see GEORGE being muscled out of the crowd by security guards.]
GEORGE: You don’t understand, she just had something on her blouse! I mean her shirt! I was just trying to brush it off! She had tattoooooooos….
[Freeze frame, funky bass riff, credits, applause.]
That all seems like such a long time ago. These guys, Friends.
No wonder everybody's relationships are all fucked up.
8/10, no notes —