Although it managed to slip past the primetime censors for nine years and it attracted an enormous mainstream audience, Seinfeld occasionally went too far, but it usually struck a hilarious balance between the absurd and the outright bleak. No topic was off limits for the show.
10. The Trip
In the two-part season 4 premiere, Jerry and George head out to L.A. so that Jerry can make a talk show appearance. Meanwhile, Kramer, following on from the season 3 finale, is living out there, trying to make it as an actor as he es his script treatment around town. A serial killer has been targeting people around Hollywood, and since Kramer’s treatment is found on one of the victims’ person, he becomes the prime suspect. While Kramer is in custody at the station, the killer strikes again, so they let him go, and he rejoices about the grisly murder with Jerry and George on the front steps.
9. The Invitations
The season 7 story arc followed the inexpensive adhesive poisoned Susan and she died. As George and his friends are told about the death, they show no emotions whatsoever. George even seemed to be hiding elation behind a straight face. Larry David certainly left a grim impression with his departure from the series.
8. The Limo
In season 3’s “The Limo,” Jerry and George decide to take O’Brien’s limo at the airport, because Jerry saw O’Brien getting thrown off of his plane, so he knows he isn’t coming. The limo is headed to Madison Square Garden, so they think they’re going to a Knicks game.
However, as it turns out, O’Brien is the leader of the neo-Nazi movement and they’re on their way to a white supremacist rally, where O’Brien is slated to be the keynote speaker. As Jerry and George get found out, O’Brien’s associate pulls a gun on them and they’re all over the news.
7. The Checks
“The Checks” is a prime example of a Seinfeld episode where the central quartet do a bunch of terrible things and face zero consequences, while the innocent bystanders instead face the brunt of their actions. Kramer doesn’t understand how exchange rates work, so he gets his Japanese tourist friends to blow all their money. Then, he has them sleeping in drawers. Then, Jerry breaks them out of the drawers with an axe, terrifying them. Then, he hits Elaine’s boyfriend on the head with the axe. Then, her boyfriend dies during the ensuing surgery, just because the surgeon got distracted by a song. Meanwhile, George gets his boss brainwashed by a carpet-cleaning cult.
6. The Suicide
Suicide is always going to be a dicey subject to handle comedically, because it’s such a serious epidemic and it affects so many people. In the bluntly titled Seinfeld episode “The Suicide,” Jerry’s neighbor’s suicide attempt lands him in a coma after Jerry spent too long mulling over whether or not to wear a jacket to get him to a hospital in time to be revived. Then, while this man is comatose, Jerry starts sleeping with his girlfriend. He feels bad about it, but he still does it – and his conflicted emotions are mainly the result of being scared of her violently unstable boyfriend.
5. The Bris
Jason Alexander himself has said that he had problems with the uncomfortably dark subject matter of “The Bris,” in which a couple names Jerry and Elaine the godparents of their newborn child. There are three dark and disturbing plots going on in this episode: a mean-spirited mohel performs the titular bris and ends up butchering Jerry’s hand; George tries to get the hospital to reimburse him after a patient commits suicide from the roof and lands on his car; and Kramer becomes obsessed with a “pigman” he thinks he saw in the hospital who turns out to be “just a fat little mental patient.”
4. The Merv Griffin Show
There’s no way that the season 9 episode “The Merv Griffin Show” would fly today. The premise of the episode sees Kramer finding the sets from the old titular talk show in a dumpster and recreating it in his apartment. But the subplot saw Jerry dating a woman with a vintage toy collection that he wanted to play with.
She wouldn’t let him play with it, so he drugged her and then played with her toys while she was unconscious. It’s easy to see why the writers thought that the juxtaposition of ominously drugging a woman and childishly playing with toys would be funny, but it’s certainly dark.
3. The Opera
This episode revolving around Crazy Joe Davola plays out more like a horror movie than a sitcom episode. Jerry, George, Elaine, and Kramer going to the opera was a fun setup, but with scenes like Davola lifting weights to the sound of opera music, cornering Elaine in his apartment after she finds the walls covered in photos that he secretly took of her on the street, and showing up at the theater dressed as a clown just come off as disturbing and creepy. It’s more in line with Joaquin Phoenix’s new Joker movie than it is with an episode of Seinfeld.
2. The Parking Garage
On the surface, season 3’s “The Parking Garage” might not seem like a particularly dark episode. It’s one of Seinfeld’s classic single-location installments, as the characters spend the entire half-hour wandering at a mall’s parking garage, looking for their car. When they finally get to the car, it won’t start and they’re still stuck there. It’s like a comedic take on an episode of The Twilight Zone. (The ending wasn’t even scripted – the car actually didn’t start and then the producers realized it was the perfect conclusion to the episode.) Some fans have read this episode as a metaphor for arriving in Hell, which is pretty dark.
1. The Finale
Jerry, George, Elaine, and Kramer act horribly out of character in the series finale when they see a man getting robbed and just watch and laugh. It leads to arguably the darkest plot in Seinfeld history, which is part of why it was so unpopular with fans of the show, because it doesn’t suit the tone of the rest of the series. They’re put on trial for breaking Latham, Massachusetts’ recently ed “Good Samaritan” law, and in the episode’s closing moments, the jury finds them guilty and they’re sent to prison. The show’s final scene finds the characters silently walking into a jailhouse to be locked up.