How Seinfeld Newman actor Wayne Knight really feels about the ending

It’s been more than 25 years since the “Seinfeld” series finale aired, but the episode itself remains as controversial as it was when it first aired as a one-hour special in 1998. Co-creator Larry David, who left “Seinfeld” at the show’s creative height in season seventhe ending takes an unexpected turn by having the show gang go on trial for violating the Good Samaritan Law after they taunted and photographed a carjacking victim instead of helping him. Sitting in the courtroom, Jerry (Jerry Seinfeld), Elaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus), George (Jason Alexander), and Kramer (Michael Richards) are forced to listen as a series of likable supporting players – including a Soup Nazi. Bubble Boy and the woman give Kramer a defective wheelchair – to put their grievances about self-absorbed individuals on the witness stand.

The finale divided critics, audiences, and even those involved with the show. Entertainment Weekly called the episode “Off-key and bloated” while USA Today described As a “depressing” way to end the series. Although he often defended the ending, Even Seinfeld admitted he had regrets at least once About the way it all played out. David, for his part, went further Use the “Curb Your Enthusiasm” conclusion to basically apologize For his misguided choices with the episode more than a quarter century later.

Likewise, actor Wayne Knight, who played scheming mailman Newman on “Seinfeld,” expressed his disappointment in the series finale at a Steel City convention in Pennsylvania in 2022. “I think I’m like the rest of the audience as far as the final ending is concerned.” No. I think you can end this show on a successful note,” the actor admitted (via ComicBook.com). You made a great point. How do you end a show that prides itself on being about “nothing”? Are you throwing the neurotic quartet into another clown situation? How big and brutal do these antics sum up nearly a decade of their friendship?

Knight explained that David wanted the show’s characters to have “the worst possible time” and get retribution rather than glory; “(It’s) a successful concept, but I don’t know if it would work as a finale,” Knight mused. Again, a fair point made. “Seinfeld” fans loved to laugh at these despicable characters pushing old women out of the way during fires or faking disabilities to avoid work assignments, so the way the ending suddenly turned into a finger-twisting morality lesson wasn’t funny, and worse, anyway. I was bored. The episode’s courtroom scenes aren’t silly in a sitcom way but rather seem half-baked and unrealistic. While the series always went to extremes with its outlandish shenanigans, it was also grounded in everyday humor facts, so the final trial (which would never happen in real life) didn’t work. Finally, watching the series finale with the foursome in prison was very depressing.

The ending would have been better if it had been structured like a typical episode, with some sort of weird twist to end all the antics. Instead, the “Seinfeld” finale comes off as a trite, nostalgic retread of better stories from the past. Although he returned as Newman himself in the episode, Knight disliked the large number of guest stars and callbacks at the end because “the idea of ​​doing a retrospective feels like a clip show.”

So, as Knight noted, “Seinfeld” was probably always doomed to end on an unsatisfying note, which is why the finale remains, to this day, our top contender for Best Picture. The worst episode of Seinfeld ever David turning it into a weird moral lesson made the series take a really bad turn.