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The Rye

"The Rye" is the 121st episode of the NBC sitcom Seinfeld. It was the 11th episode of the seventh season, originally airing on January 4, 1996.^[1] It was the final episode of the series to be written by American comedian Carol Leifer. In this episode, Elaine's relationship with her saxophonist boyfriend is complicated by the issue of oral sex, George tries to avert a feud between his parents and his fiancée Susan's parents over a loaf of marble rye bread, and Kramer takes on a temporary job as a hansom cab driver.

Elaine is dating jazz saxophonist John Jermaine, but complains to Jerry that John does not give her oral sex. Jerry meets Clyde, one of John's bandmates, and describes the relationship to him as "hot and heavy". When Elaine learns of this, she becomes upset with Jerry, fearing that the phrase made her seem more invested in the relationship than John might be comfortable with. At a concert, John and his band perform a new song entitled "Hot and Heavy", embarrassing Elaine.

George's parents Frank and Estelle meet his fiancé Susan's parents for the first time at the Ross apartment. Frank brings a loaf of marble rye bread. After an uncomfortable dinner, Frank takes the rye back home because the Rosses did not serve it. Fearing this incident may create a rift between the families, George plans to sneak an identical loaf of bread into the Rosses' kitchen to create the illusion that the bread was simply misplaced. He plots to send Mr. & Mrs. Ross on a hansom cab ride (driven by Kramer, who is picking up the usual driver's mail) as a wedding anniversary present, while he and Jerry sneak in the bread. At the bakery, an elderly lady in line in front of Jerry gets the last marble rye. After trying unsuccessfully to get it from her with bribery and appeals to sympathy, Jerry robs it from her.

Kramer, having overbought at the warehouse club, feeds the horse "Beef-a-reeno". This makes the horse flatulent, and the Rosses cut their cab trip short due to the stench, preventing Jerry from entering the Ross apartment. After trying unsuccessfully to toss the bread up to George at the third floor window, Jerry hooks it to a fishing pole George found in the apartment. George reels the rye bread up, but the Rosses catch him.

Elaine explains to John that she never called their relationship "hot and heavy". John, however, tells her that he was happy with the idea of being "hot and heavy" with her, and offers to give her oral sex. After overexerting in the bedroom, he cannot make a note during a showcase for record producers, producing a series of off-key whistles instead. Embarrassed, Elaine leaves the show.

Writer Carol Leifer got the story of visitors bringing a rye bread and then taking it back after the hosts forgot to serve it from a high school friend.^[2] The plot point of Jerry having to steal a marble rye bread from the woman ahead of him in line at the bakery was contributed by Seinfeld co-creator Larry David.^[2]

Elaine's voice-over in the opening scene was recorded by actress Julia Louis-Dreyfus beforehand and played back during the filming of the scene so that she could synchronize her facial expressions and movements with the narration.^[3] Many of the outdoor scenes were filmed at Paramount Studio, where Jerry Seinfeld started a massive snowball fight with the entire cast and crew using the fake snow.^[2]

In initial drafts of the episode's script, Kramer fed the horse excessive amounts of Chef Boyardee Beefaroni, causing its flatulence. However, Boyardee refused to allow their product to be portrayed in such a fashion, leading to the creation of the fictional product "Beef-a-reeno".^[4]

Sara Lewis Dunne, in the book Seinfeld: Master of Its Domain, comments on possible reasons why the Costanzas and the Rosses clash:

Dinner party "rules" seem to baffle all the regular characters on Seinfeld... [I]n this episode we see a peculiarly New York culture clash between the schlubby Costanzas and the ritzy Rosses. Much has been written about whether the Costanzas, whose name "sounds" Italian, are really Jewish, with George, according to both Carla Johnson and Jon Stratton (in this volume), as the ultimate schlemiel. A food called Schnitzel's Marble Rye certainly would seem to fit into the ethnic tradition that would offer it as a dinner-party gift, and its rejection by the Rosses seems an affront, which could easily be read as an ethnic affront, to Frank Costanza. When I first saw this episode, I (and probably many other viewers as well) was reminded of Jackie Mason's summation of the difference between Jews and Gentiles: Jews eat and Gentiles drink, and the Rosses are usually seen with a drink in their hands.^[5]

David Sims of The A.V. Club was underwhelmed by the characterization of the Rosses in the episode, "especially with the juicy setup of them meeting the equally bonkers Costanzas." He felt that the season four episode "The Cheever Letters" was stronger in this regard, and that "the whole thing feels more like your classic in-law dinner from Hell rather than the special kind of crazy we might come to expect. But 'The Rye' redeems itself somewhat with the much wackier sight of Jerry stealing a marble rye from an old lady and trying to toss it to George on a second-floor [sic] window..."^[6]

• "The Rye"atIMDb