28 Years Ago Today, 'Seinfeld' Released Its Controversial Final Episode

On May 14, 1998, Seinfeld, written and created by Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld, aired its final episode. The critically acclaimed success ended on an unfortunately sour note. Even now, nearly 30 years later, the finale remains controversial.

After nine seasons of the main characters ultimately getting away with their antics, the finale piles consequences on the group. Jerry (Seinfeld), Elaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus), George (Jason Alexander), and Kramer (Michael Richards) are arrested, put through a trial, and sent to jail for the crime of indifference. Many of Seinfeld's most popular guest characters returned to tell the court just how awful the core four were.

The episode did not wrap up neatly and was a shift in tone, which bothered many fans. Seinfeld spent nine seasons showing the characters getting into trouble and digging deeper and deeper holes with their own actions, but by the end of each episode, everything worked out; there were no real, lasting consequences.

The show was centered around people who did not have everything figured out in life and made heaps of mistakes because of it. Despite it being a "show about nothing," the fact that in the end everything would be okay is strangely hopeful. Regardless of how awful the characters behaved sometimes, regardless of all the second-hand embarrassment, the antics are resolved.

The structure of the finale also bored the audience. The finale plays almost like a clip show, with flashbacks to every bad act detailed during the trial. Not unheard of for Seinfeld, except that the two-part finale directly followed a clipshow retrospective episode looking back on 9 years of the show's best moments. It felt redundant, not to mention the runtime was double what it normally was.

Seinfeld and David both have had mixed responses over the years about the finale. Seinfeld told Vulture in 2017 that "there was a lot of pressure on us at that time to do one big last show, but big is always bad in comedy." David, on the other hand, has defended the episode. However, he went on to "fix" the Seinfeld ending in Curb Your Enthusiasm, a show that parodies his own life, much as Seinfeld did. The Curb Your Enthusiasm finale is nearly identical to Seinfeld, but in the end, David's sentence is cut short, and everything goes back to normal.

Controversial ending aside, Seinfeld remains one of the greatest sitcoms of all time. Seinfeld became a foundational model for sitcoms that followed. Plus, it gave Dreyfus her first Emmy win; she is now tied for the record for most acting Emmys by a female actress. Even a divisive ending did not stop the impact Seinfeld has had on television.

This story was originally published by Men's Journal on May 14, 2026, where it first appeared in the Entertainment section. Add Men's Journal as a Preferred Source by clicking here.

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This story was originally published May 14, 2026 at 7:00 AM.