Every 'Seinfeld' Episode You Should Watch While Listening to Wale's New Album

Image via Complex Original

Watch while listening to: "The Intro About Nothing"

Why: What better episode to pair with the "Intro About Nothing" than the one where the series gets very meta and George and Jerry try to sell NBC a pilot for a show about...nothing. Of course, as we learned, Wale's album actually is about many things. 

Watch while listening to: "The Helium Balloon"/"The White Shoes"

Why: According to Jerry, Wale is helium and we're all just trying to get lifted and lightheaded off of his music, but we don't know how to embrace him: hold tight, or let him float? In "Mom & Pop Store," Elaine's eccentric old geezer of a boss Mr. Pitt is chasing his own balloon, literally: the chance to hold Woody Woodpecker in the Thanksgiving Day parade, a childhood desire denied by his father. And if that connection is too tenuous for you, shut up and enjoy the sight of Mr. Pitt crumbling under the weight of the balloon, accidentally deflated by Jerry.

Additionally, "Mom & Pop Store" relates to Jerry-IRL's anecdote about the good vibes of white sneakers. In the episode's main arc, a store vouched for by Kramer called Mom & Pop makes off with TV-Jerry's complete sneaker collection. With all of his kicks gone, Jerry's forced to resort to the only other pair of shoes he owns: cowboy boots. Needless to say, his vibes go way south.

Watch while listening to: "The Pessimist"

Why: This is the episode that lends the track its opening quote, but while the exchange about indifference is Classic Costanza™, really, you can watch any peak Seinfeld ep that finds George at his cynical nadir to match Folarin and Cole's theme here, especially seasons three and five wherein he's at his poorest (and jobless, and date-less). 

Watch while listening to: "The Middle Finger"

Why: Wale's No. 1 conflict is an over-enhanced engagement with his haters and an overvaluing of their opinions, something Jerry-IRL advises him to let go of on the opening skit of "The Middle Finger." Basing one's actions on what the streets are saying is a problem all too familiar to your boy Costanza, most notably when he stubbornly continued a relationship with a woman he intended to cut ties with after learning a mutual friend told her that he is noncommittal and would inevitably end up hurting her. We know how well TV-Jerry fared in giving sound advice to George. Will Wale actually take heed?

*See also: "The Comeback," wherein George's entire headspace is consumed with replying to the perfect burn a co-worker got on him in a public forum.

Watch while listening to: “The Girls on Drugs” 

Why: Because Elaine's on drugs! Well, accidentally. A routine drug test before leaving the country for a work trip reveals Elaine tests positive for opium, which she discovers comes courtesy of her favorite poppyseed muffins. But of course, J. Peterman doesn't believe her and tries desperately to help her, because of course, he's had an opium experience before. Elaine's crazy enough already, so just imagine what she'd be like if she dabbled in the substances Wale's lady friends like to try.

Watch while listening to: "The One Time in Houston"

Why: Jerry and the gang have never matched the raunchy peaks of whatever the hell Wale got up to that one time in Houston, but his unknowing dalliance with a phone sex operator came close. But if you're wondering which episode the interludes come from, that'd be season six's "The Face Painter." (If you really want to see Jerry S. in an honest-to-goodness strip club setting, though, Top Five is the way to go. It's better than you can even imagine.)

Watch while listening to: "The God Smile"

Why: In George Louis Costanza's unemployed despair, God smiled on him with severance pay, enough to fritter away the entire summer. A summer that was soon squandered when the sins of the previous year finally caught up to George, this time on the receiving end of an unforgiving invitation. As Wale raps, karma always comes back around, in both directions.

Watch while listening to: "The Need to Know" 

Why: This is probably the most Wale episode of Seinfeld that ever was, one of the very few times Jerry, Elaine, and, by extension, the series, wore it all on their sleeves. You know, the one where Jerry and Elaine try and resume just the sex part of their past relationship. The experiment inevitably bricks and they lay it all out there only to end up dating officially again.

Watch while listening to: "The Success" 

Why: Success is the enemy, according to Jerry-IRL, because it lets you get too comfortable. The ever-shifting tides of success and imagined comfort make for much of the hilarity in "The Opposite." A season five episode that finds Elaine and George flip-flopping in their good fortune. Meanwhile Jerry, ever the straight man, always breaks even in his luck. 

Watch while listening to: "The Glass Egg" 

Why: Wale and Jerry-IRL muse on the perennial, delicate struggle of maintaining a successful career. Jerry knows a thing or two about dropping the glass egg when he got tired of the balancing act and decided to end the show. And as we all know, reception toward the series finale was...mixed. It's almost as if this is exactly what was on his mind during the interlude in the middle of "Glass Egg."

Watch while listening to: "The Bloom (AG3)" 

Why: The great thing about Jerry is that he's an absolute player, with a new girlfriend or love interest in roughly every episode of the series, but he's never too cool to be sprung. If he could spit that poetry Wale-style, he'd definitely pen a few "Ambitious Girl" bars for the model he found himself serendipitously seated next to on a flight back from St. Louis. You know she's special because she actually makes it to the next ep.

Watch while listening to: "The Matrimony" 

Why: Jerry's had plenty of girlfriends, but he fell the hardest for Jeannie (Janeane Garofalo), the de facto female version of him in every way possible. Maybe it's because love was, allegedly, in the air at the time, what with George's impending marriage. But Jerry does the unthinkable and proposes to Jeannie in the same episode. It's a rare moment of earnest attraction in a show centered around borderline sociopaths, perfect to pair with Wale and Ursher's super lovey-dovey ode to the would-be wifey.

Watch while listening to: "The Body" 

Why: Special Guest Star Teri Hatcher has a body like a Benz, and Jerry just can't figure out if it's real or not. Is she all-natural or sporting silicone? Cracking the mystery is far from our hero's suavest moment. And when he finally finds out, it's in the most frustrating, blue-ballsy way possible.