Episode no. Season 6
Episode 5 Written by Larry David Original air date October 27, 1994 | Directed by Andy Ackerman Production code 605 | |
"The Couch" is the 91st episode of NBC sitcom Seinfeld. This was the fifth episode for the sixth season. It aired on October 27, 1994.
Plot
Jerry buys a new couch, giving his old one to Elaine. George joins a book club to impress his girlfriend and is assigned to read Breakfast at Tiffany's. Elaine falls for Carl, the hunky man (David James Elliott) who delivers Jerry's couch.
Kramer plans to start a "pizza business where you make your own pie" (an idea introduced in Male Unbonding) with Poppie (Reni Santoni). Jerry and Elaine's discussion of abortion causes trouble at Poppie's restaurant when it turns out Poppie is pro-life. Later, Jerry casually asks Elaine what Carl's stance is on abortion. She breaks up with him after finding out that he is pro-life.
George struggles to read the book and tries to rent the movie instead, saying "If it's not about sports, I find it very hard to concentrate!" George visits several video stores in an unsuccessful attempt to rent the movie. After a video store clerk (Patton Oswalt) declines George's request to call the renters of the movie, George surreptitiously peeks at the computer screen to see who has the rental copy. He heads to the renter's apartment and, in typical George fashion, concocts an elaborate story in order to be invited in to watch the movie with the renter and his family. Later, George accidentally spills grape juice all over the family's couch and is kicked out of their apartment before he can see the ending of the movie.
Poppie pees on Jerry's new couch. Kramer assures him that the stain will come out, but Jerry declares that he can't sit on it anymore. He gives the ruined couch to George, who doesn't care about the stain as he can turn the cushion over.
Kramer's pizza business with Poppie ends because Poppie objects to Kramer putting cucumbers on his pizza. Poppie and Kramer get into an argument that alludes to the theme of abortion in the rest of the episode, where they disagree over whether a pizza becomes a pizza when it comes out of the oven, or when you first start to make it.
Jerry takes his old couch back from Elaine. While in her apartment to move the couch, Elaine offers Carl something to drink. She throws him a bottle of grape juice, but it breaks and spills all over the couch.
When George's book club meets, he remarks that Holly Golightly got together with her neighbor Paul "Fred" Varjak. Since this happened in the movie, not the book, George's girlfriend realizes that he didn't read it.