Seinfeld (TV Series) The Pool Guy (1995) User Reviews

Separation of Georges

[Samuel-Shovel · 9/10 · 7 June 2018]

In "The Pool Guy", Jerry accidentally befriends the pool guy from his gym. George's two worlds collide as Elaine and Susan become friends and start hanging out. Kramer gets a new phone number that is similar to the movie directory hotline so he begins giving out showtimes. George's anger and frustration boils over when he explodes in a theater on a rant, getting kicked out of the multiplex. Susan stops hanging out with George's friends, finding them weird. Jerry pisses off the pool guy by telling him they can't be friends. Him and Newman accidentally send the pool guy to the hospital and are subsequently kicked out of the gym.

This episode is really centered around friendship and making (or not making) new friends. George does his best to separate his relationship from his friends but at a certain point, these types of things are bound to spill over into one another as they do here. George's response to all of this is quite within his character.

I'm a big fan of this episode. We get to see what Kramer's doing while everyone else is off doing their normal lives. Hey, he's not busy doing anything!

One of my favorites

[jazzfi · 9/10 · 24 April 2022]

Good comedy is based on good writing but Larry and Jerry really IMO had a knack for keeping an eye open and finding humor in every day situations ("nothing" situations) and bringing them out to the public. Everyone can relate, and this is the same with the characters. We, especially the baby boomers all "know someone like that," we say. But Seinfeld can make the littlest things or remarks funny, and that's because they're true. Many women have no girl buddies, and Kramer points it out so matter-of-factly as only he can do so perfectly. The world's collide theory bears true for so many people, especially insecure, neurotic men with domineering girlfriends/wives. Then there's Ramon who, like Kenny Bania, longs to have Jerry as a friend after they run into each other (with Kramer) at the theater. Jerry immediately tries to discourage him, even telling Kramer to lean in and pretend they're talking so that Ramon will keep on walking. Jerry perhaps perceives the two as having nothing in common, and it's confirmed when they ride the subway and Ramon seems to be bent on talking constantly about his experiences while working as a pool guy. Later, when Ramon almost drowns after Newman cannonball's into the pool, Seinfeld and Kramer, true to shallow and selfish form, refuse to give Ramon mouth-to-mouth and get banned from the health club. George, meanwhile on the other end of the script, is upset that Elaine and his fiancé have become friends and the usual foursome have become a fivesome, which squeezes George out. George is quite miserable in this episode, but only because Susan has entered his sacred sanctuary of Jerry, Kramer, and Elaine, and he doesn't know how to act. It's as if his personality must change in order for him to adapt to his life with Susan vs, his life with his friends, and he is unable to do that. Luckily, Susan is unable to adapt to the Jerry-Elaine-Kramer world after she goes to the movies with Jerry and Elaine and annoy Susan by talking all through it. But Susan then expresses her displeasure with the way they go to Jerry's apartment and just talk, and then they go out to eat and just talk... and in a succinct nutshell summarizes what makes the Seinfeld show so successful. Excellent.

When Worlds Collide

[Hitchcoc · 8/10 · 3 February 2023]

It is another Seinfeld episode where a particular archetype is completely made up and the characters live in it. Here it is the idea that an outsider (Susan, in this case) can move into the inner circle (the independent George) and cause irreparable harm to the universe. George's paranoia takes over big time as he feels he is off on an island by himself. The interesting thing is that the other principle characters recognize this as a reality, even though they will never admit to it. There is a great scene where George is going to confront the gang and goes to the wrong movie theater and makes an ass of himself.

When worlds collide...

[martin-intercultural · 10/10 · 26 June 2017]

This story captures intelligently and poignantly the unexpected yet very real pain brought on by our friends from previously separate 'zones', circles and time periods getting to know each other. For no apparent or logical reason, we feel torn apart, even dishonest: There just isn't any accommodating at one time all the different aspects of our personality that have been suddenly thrown together. And who better than George to leap into this collision head first, then grapple with it to the bitter end?

Susan

[bevo-13678 · 10/10 · 23 June 2020]

I like the bit where Kramer gives advice on all the movies

The Zone of Interest

[safenoe · 9/10 · 12 February 2024]

The Pool Guy is a very insightful episode that really is not about nothing at all, because it's about the zones of friendship that we experience in life, and which we sometimes try to jealously guard, and here it's George who's world is turned absolutely upside down when Susan (played by Heidi Swedberg) and Elaine become friends and hang out together. In fact, at the diner George is pushed is the fifth person, the fifth Beatle so to speak, when Susan, Elaine, Jerry and Kramer sit at their usual table. Definitely George is pushed outside his zone of interest.

Carlos Jacott chews the screen as Ramon, the pool guy who is offended by Jerry. Russ Leatherman chews the screen at the end as Mr. Moviefone.

"2 adults... 1 child"

[juanmaffeo · 6/10 · 10 August 2016]

I'm kind of split over this one. It has great and bad ideas and a mediocre execution.

The good things about this episode come from the George-Susan-Elaine's storyline. At this point, there's no doubt that the George-Susan arc is the best part of this season. Whenever they don't use that, the episode falls flat. Here we get a great side of the long term relationship when Susan starts to invade George's friend zone. So, everything about this story is great.

The problem is the rest. Jerry's story has its fair share of good ideas, with everything concerning the fact he can't make new friends, but the narrative is boring. And the pace is as languid as it can get. You can see they didn't have much material to work with because every scene lingers for too long and nothing substantial happens.

And concerning Kramer's contribution, there are things I like and things I don't like. In the beginning it seems that Kramer we'll go back to have a more related-with-the-gang lifestyle (considering how apart from them he has being from the start of the season). We get a great conversation with Jerry, he actually goes to the movies with him and he gets together with the gang and Susan at the coffee shop (the first time the full gang got together in there). But inevitably, the writers think of something to exclude him from the normal world by giving him a storyline in which he gets his new phone line confused with the movie phone service. And that's a shame.

So, yeah, an episode with good ideas but a turtle pace and an isolated Kramer.