The Heart Attack

Plot

After watching a science-fiction B movie (featuring a cameo by series co-creator Larry David), Jerry goes to bed, but wakes up in the middle of the night laughing. He scrawls a joke for his stand-up comedy act. The following day he is unable to read what he wrote down.

While Jerry has lunch with George and Elaine at Monk's Café, hoping they can interpret his scrawl, George becomes alarmed and thinks he is having a heart attack; they have him transported to a hospital. Once he's there, it is discovered that he actually needs a tonsillectomy— his second one, as it turns out, as he had had his tonsils removed when he was younger, but now they have grown back (this is possible; it allegedly happened to show writer Larry Charles). Kramer recommends a holistic healer as a better and less expensive alternative. Jerry warns George that the healer Kramer is recommending had spent time in prison, but, because of the large difference in price, George decides to take Kramer's advice.

Meanwhile, Elaine becomes attracted to George's doctor and goes on a date with him, only to discover that he has a fetish for tongues, which causes her to dump him right away as soon as the date ends.

George, Kramer, and Jerry (who is there only in the hope of collecting comedy material), meet Tor Eckman, the holistic healer (Stephen Tobolowsky). Eckman performs a number of unorthodox methods to determine George's real ailment, which he concludes has nothing to do with his tonsils, but with his "imbalance with nature". He then concocts a tea containing "cramp bark", "cleavers", and "couch grass" that would remove his ailment, also prescribing that George is to stop using hot water entirely. Upon drinking the tea, George becomes purple and has to be transported to the hospital again. On their way, the EMT (John Fleck) and the driver get into an altercation over a missing Chuckle, causing the two men to fight outside. Later, Jerry, Kramer, and the driver are debating whether or not they should bring the EMT back, when the driver, who's trying to pick a fight with Kramer while not looking at the road, causes a crash. Later, George and Jerry are found in the hospital in neck braces. George indicates that he had the tonsillectomy, and Elaine is in the hospital only briefly, so as to avoid "Doctor Tongue", to give George some ice cream. The hospital television shows the science fiction movie again, and Jerry remembers that what he wrote down was a line from the movie (Flaming Globes of Sigmund). As he realizes this, he notes "That's not funny."

Reception

Critical responses to the episode were mixed; Mike Flaherty and Mary Kaye Schilling of Entertainment Weekly graded the episode with a D, writing "What Seinfeld excels at is finding the eccentric in the apparently normal. A kooky New Age doctor? That's hitting the broad side of a barn." The Sydney Morning Herald critic Robin Oliver felt that, though he did not think the episode was bad, it was among Seinfeld's lesser episodes. However, Andy Patrizio of IGN considered "The Heart Attack" one of season two's best episodes. St. Louis Post-Dispatch critic Eric Mink also reacted very positively on the episode, praising the Shakespeare reference and Michael Richards' performance in particular.