Final Episode of Jerry Seinfeld’s Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee Features a Manic Michael Richards

Come­di­an Daniel Tosh, who isn’t known for his sen­si­tiv­i­ty, to say the least, has a seg­ment on his show Tosh.0 called “Web Redemp­tion” in which he allows peo­ple who became the butt of inter­net jokes to reclaim their dig­ni­ty. One might refer to the sea­son finale of Jer­ry Seinfeld’s free web series Come­di­ans in Cars Get­ting Cof­fee as some­thing of a “web redemp­tion” for his guest, Michael Richards, Sein­feld’s Kramer. Like Tosh, Richards had a high­ly-pub­li­cized and very ugly moment onstage at the Laugh Fac­to­ry in response to some heck­lers. I can’t say that I’ve felt a lot of sym­pa­thy for either of these guys, both raked over the inter­net’s coals. But does this final episode of Seinfeld’s breezy series redeem Michael Richards? Maybe a lit­tle? Well, it’s def­i­nite­ly fun to watch these two rem­i­nisce about their Sein­feld days, espe­cial­ly my per­son­al favorite episode, “Ken­ny Rogers’ Roast­ers.”

And it’s also very touch­ing. Seinfeld’s loy­al­ty and con­cern for his friend after that infa­mous melt­down always seemed gen­uine, and here Jer­ry’s gen­eros­i­ty of spir­it ele­vates him to some­thing of a per­son­al cheer­leader for the ram­shackle Richards—represented in this episode by the car Jer­ry choos­es: a rusty, beat-up 1962 VW van that dou­bles as a pick­up. My favorite exchange, hands-down, gives us a glimpse into the two come­di­ans’ souls: Jer­ry, sage of the every­day, and Richards, the man­ic absur­dist. Richards, a lit­tle shy or just clown­ing around, puts on a wig and dark glass­es:

Richards: “you should put on a hat and some sun­glass­es”
Sein­feld: “Oh, Michael, free your­self. We’re just rain­drops on a wind­shield.”
Richards: “I wan­na know who’s wip­ing me off!”

It’s got­ta be the kind of ban­ter you can’t script. Or maybe I choose to believe that. Once they sit down for cof­fee, Richards real­ly turns it on. He’s a bril­liant raconteur—tells the great­est chess sto­ry I’ve ever heard. No spoil­ers; you’ve got to see it.  Maybe it redeems him just a little–you decide.

Josh Jones is a doc­tor­al can­di­date in Eng­lish at Ford­ham Uni­ver­si­ty and a co-founder and for­mer man­ag­ing edi­tor of Guer­ni­ca / A Mag­a­zine of Arts and Pol­i­tics.