Living in the Darkness, Like You

At the end of the second season and the beginning of the third something very strange begins to happen to the show, just as it begins to hit an incredible stride.  This strangeness, that from here begins to become consistent, makes the show brilliant, and not just hilarious—that at every moment it reaches a definition of itself, it turns in someway, by parodying itself or attacking what others may define it as, and deconstructs any objective, definable form of “Seinfeld.” If in the first thirty-nine episodes it can be said that Jerry (in his stand-up routines and in the episodes), Elaine, George and Kramer wield the jokes—which is hardly a stable conjecture—then, beginning with episode forty, this position of power, principally of Jerry, becomes the subject of a larger meta-joke against these characters and their efforts at humor. 

            In “the Keys” Jerry revokes Kramer’s in-and-out privileges, asking that Kramer return his spare keys.  This forces the show to define itself, and, through Kramer, rebel against that definition: why is Kramer always coming in and out Jerry’s apartment?  Why does he seem to accept this power relationship that puts him beneath a neurotic, heartless neat-freak? What does he do when he’s not in Jerry’s apartment?  This uncertainty spreads to George in the coffee shop when Kramer confronts him with the same existential evaluation:

Because you see, George, having the keys to Jerry's apartment. That kept me in a fantasy world. Every time I went over to his house, it was like I was on vacation. Better food, better view, better TV. And cleaner? Oh, much cleaner. That became my reality. I ignored the squalor in my own life because I'm looking at life, you see, through Jerry's eyes. I was living in twilight, George. Living in the shadows, living in the darkness—like you. 

The way Kramer describes his relation to Jerry is not far off from how the viewer might describe his relationship to Seinfeld, or television in general: we may go into the next room—to which, with the spare keys, Kramer always has access—where we find “a fantasy world,” which, if focused upon, allows us to “ignore the squalor in [our] li[ves],” because the lights are off, and the television is on—our attention is on Jerry’s apartment, and we are “living in the shadows, living in the darkness.”  It is important that Jerry’s address is 5A to Kramer’s secondary 5B.  Hints of Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” seem at work here, that Kramer has broken free from his chains and recognized that Jerry’s apartment is simply the play of shadow puppets on a wall, though this, like all of the show’s references, doesn’t really make sense and is not the point, just another joke in the fabric.  

            At this point in the series we haven’t seen inside Kramer’s apartment, except for a brief moment through the doorway where behind him there is a framed glamour shot of Jerry, for to show us 5B would be to specify something that a situation comedy cannot begin to depict: the infinitely messy, often unfunny, real world.  We retreat into the “much cleaner” world of television, where problems are solved at the end of the episode, and its gist is clear, not bothering us with the undecidability of meaning that plagues us in the real world.   That Jerry has a “better view” and “better TV” illustrates that even the visual objects and texts of televised reality are in turn better at diversion from their own “realities.”   

            Kramer senses that George bridges these two worlds, that of Jerry’s apartment with that of the shadows, and for this reason wishes to exchange spare keys with him and bring him out of “the shadows” as well.  Kramer decides to answer his newfound “yearning” by going to Los Angeles and invites George to come with him, saying that “it’s time for [them] to grow up and be men. Not little boys.”  Death of Salesman has entered into the series explicitly in the series twice already, both with George cast as Biff Loman, and its themes of men who never grew up is omnipotent in Seinfeld.  However, George, in this instance, would be Happy Loman, with Kramer as his brother Biff excitedly talking about moving out west to live the more authentic life, which, ironically, consists of acting.  And, similarly contrary to Happy’s blind enthusiasm, George is unmoved and “freak[ed] out” by Kramer’s tirade.   And so, for the time being, he remains in the shadows, and Kramer rebels against Jerry, Seinfeld, and the fantasy world it entails to go to LA, where, of course, the show is written, produced, acted out, and filmed, and its writers, producers, actors and filmers live.