NOW PLAYING
The Deal
Please download the latest Flash plugin
SYNOPSIS
While alone together watching television, Jerry and Elaine reminisce about the days when they were a couple. After establishing a new set of ground rules designed to preserve their friendship, the two agree it is all right to start having sex with each other again. Told by Jerry about the deal they struck, George expresses skepticism that it will ever work.
In a test of the new rules, Jerry tries not spending the night with Elaine but, after sensing some tension, he decides to stay after all. However, exercising her own option, Elaine demands that he leave. While discussing Elaine's birthday with George, Jerry worries that his gift may send the wrong message.
After ruling out a host of choices, Jerry finally decides to give Elaine money for her birthday. Though upset by the impersonality of Jerry's gift, Elaine is overjoyed when Kramer gives her exactly what she wanted, a hand-crafted bench seat. While his present nearly causes them to break up for good, Jerry and Elaine decide to reconcile their differences and resume their new relationship.
By the time this episode aired on May 2, 1991, Seinfeld was being declared a "hit" by critics. Eric Mink of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch said the show "rings with truth and familiarity, as well as laughter and just plain silliness."
"The Deal" was written as a gesture to NBC executive Warren Littlefield who had spent the production year requesting Jerry and Elaine become a couple again. With the show's fate hanging in the balance, David complied and granted Littlefield's wish. Once the show was renewed for the a third season, Jerry and Elaine went back to being just friends.
An NBC press release preceded the broadcast of this episode. It stipulated that Jerry and Elaine "will not expect anything more of each other than they did when they were just friends."
While promoting this episode, Julia Louis-Dreyfus described Elaine as "sort of like myself, except that she's got a little more edge, and she's a lot more neurotic than me."
ELAINE:
"I mean, really, what is the big deal? We go in there. We're in there for a while. We come right back out here. It's not complicated."
