Season 1, Episode 2: The Stake Out

My Rating of this episode: 7/10 stars
IMDB Rating of this episode: 7.8/10 stars http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0697784/?ref_=ttep_ep2

I was torn on which episode to consider as episode 2. IMDB has this episode listed as the second episode, but the Seinfeld dvd has this episode listed as episode 3. I was tempted to follow the Seinfeld dvd order, but decided to follow the IMDB order when I noticed that the IMDB order was based on actual air dates of the episodes. This episode aired May 31, 1990, almost 11 whole months after the Pilot episode aired.

Jerry's storyline: Jerry agrees to go to a birthday party for Elaine's friend if Elaine will go to a wedding with Jerry later that week. Jerry meets a girl at the party. He did not get her name at the party and only knows where she works. Therefore, at the suggestion of his father, and with the aid of George, he stakes out her work in order to bump into her. Also, tension with Elaine arises as we are introduced to their past relationship.

Favorite Jerry part: Jerry plays a great role with George as they perform the actual stake out and he has a few good lines. I liked his line to Elaine at the end about whether during a stake out if she prefers to stand up tall against a wall or crouch down behind a big plant. But my favorite is probably when the girl at the party tells Jerry to relax and take his jacket off, Jerry says he can't because he has the "tendency to get chilly." The girl quips, "How masculine..." Jerry recovers by saying, "Plus I'm wearing short sleeves, I don't want to expose my tattoos."

George's storyline: George helps Jerry with the stake out. Jerry and George have the classic conversation where they make George's pretend identity as well as the identity of the friend they are pretending to meet at the building.

Favorite George part: I love how serious and detailed George gets with Jerry when they come up with their false backstorys. George coming up with fake names for a friend, a detail that shouldn't matter much, becomes something of great thought. "Burt Harr.....binson, Burt Harbinson." That name "sounds made up" and so he moves to "Art Core.....[long pause].....velay." He eventually, in classic George fashion, goes from confidence to panic once the girl comes off the elevator: "I forgot who I am, who am I?!"

Kramer's storyline: Kramer shows up once very late in this episode while Jerry is at his apartment with his parents, playing scrabble with his Mom.

Favorite Kramer part: Kramer of course has to lend a hand to Jerry's Mom during the scrabble game. He confidently comes up with the word "quone" and says "to quone something" when using it in a sentence. Kramer protests that "we need a medical dictionary!" when the word is not found when Jerry looks it up. "When a patient gets difficult, you quone 'em."

Elaine's storyline: Elaine brings Jerry to her friend's birthday party. Elaine is bothered by Jerry's flirting with the girl at the party and the fact that Jerry only gave Elaine courtesy responses as though she were "trying to sale you aluminum siding."

Favorite Elaine part: Elaine is at her funniest when she gets annoyed over little things. She does this perfectly in the cab ride with Jerry as they are leaving the party. Jerry claims he was listening to Elaine by bringing up her dream she shared and remembering that she had wooden teeth in the dream. Elaine freaks out and says, "No! No! You had wooden teeth! You had wooden teeth! I didn't have wooden teeth, you did!"

Supporting characters in this episode: One of my favorite things about Seinfeld is the many great supporting characters throughout the episodes. This episode introduces us to Jerry's parents. Although his Dad changes later on in future episodes. This version of Jerry's Dad is the one who does the "huge sweep across" to cover his baldness because, as Jerry says, "he doesn't think anyone can notice." A good one is when the parents are telling Jerry that he shouldn't be so picky with girls and the Dad says, "You know Jerry, it's a good thing I wasn't so particular." The Mom elbows him and says, "Idiot!"

Favorite character in this episode: George. The episode didn't have a good flow until George's appearance half way through. I love when he begs Jerry, "Let me be the architect! I can do it!" George, of course, out of nowhere has to inform the girl that he's an architect. Ha ha. He of course gets stumped when asked about what he designs. He says railroads. The girl says, "I thought engineers do that." George says, "They can..."

Since Elaine was not in the Pilot episode, this is our first introduction to her character. The episode begins with her and Jerry riffing inside a video rental store. Elaine also makes comments about how her and Jerry used to go out. Jerry also has a fairly lengthy conversation with his parents about Elaine. Jerry and Elaine establish at the end of the episode that if they are going to be friends then they have to feel comfortable talking about other people. So we are introduced nicely to their past as well as current relationship. It was a smart intro to the Elaine character to show that there was an initial awkwardness, but that they moved past it and can now have a normal friend relationship even though they used to date.

This episode has George wanting to pretend to be an architect, but Jerry is skeptical that he could pass as a fake architect. The fake name of "Art Vandelay" is introduced when George impulsively switches it to "Vandelay" from "Corvelay" at the last second for no apparent reason. This fake name along with the fake jobs of an importer/exporter and architecture all resurface in several future episodes. The scene with George, his only scene, really saved the episode. It was a 10-star scene in a 6-star episode. Thus, the episode as a whole gets 7-stars. One more George scene likely would have bumped my rating from a 7 to an 8.