Seinfeld: What Was Wrong With Ellen & Why Did Jerry Break Up With Her?
Ellen seemed like the perfect love interest for Jerry in Seinfeld, but he abruptly broke up with her — and the show left the reason for the breakup strangely ambiguous. Jerry dated Ellen in one of the later seasons of Seinfeld, after co-creator Larry David had left the show. In season 8, episode 14, “The Van Buren Boys,” Kramer has a run-in with a New York street gang named after former U.S. President Martin Van Buren and Elaine is hired to ghostwrite J. Peterman’s memoirs with anecdotes he bought from Kramer (including the Van Buren Boys story).
Jerry’s storyline sees him dating a woman named Ellen, played by Christine Taylor. Ellen seems to be the perfect girlfriend for Jerry, and Jerry himself can see it — he’s infatuated with her. However, by the end of the episode, after introducing her to his friends and family, he breaks up with her. It remains a mystery why Jerry broke up with Ellen, and it’s been somewhat debated among the Seinfeld fan base. So, what was the real problem with Ellen that made Jerry break up with her?
Ellen Seemed Like A Perfect Girlfriend For Jerry Seinfeld
She's Kind, Beautiful, Interesting, And Easy To Talk To
Ellen seems to be the perfect match for Jerry in every way. She’s kind, she’s beautiful, she’s easy to talk to, and she shares Jerry’s observational wit. However, when Jerry meets Ellen’s friends, he’s surprised when they thank him for dating her, as if she’s a charity case. After George and Kramer meet Ellen, they have an intervention, encouraging Jerry to break up with her, because they think she’s a loser. Jerry still can’t see anything wrong with her, but ends up dumping her anyway.
According to the DVD extras, the cold open for "The Van Buren Boys" was originally filmed for the previous episode, "The Comeback."
In this case, the ambiguity is the joke; the audience is supposed to be just as confused as Jerry. It’s a commentary on the social phenomenon that no matter how a given person feels about their own relationship, the way the people around them feel about that relationship can impact those feelings. If Jerry thinks Ellen is great but all his friends seem to think there’s something wrong with her, then he’ll start to doubt whether he actually likes her.
Why Jerry Might Have Broken Up With Ellen
Jerry's Parents' Approval Seems To Be The Straw That Broke The Camel's Back
The episode leaves it ambiguous, but Jerry had to have had a definitive reason for breaking off his relationship with Ellen. His doubts started to build from the moment he met her friends, but the straw that broke the camel’s back seems to be when his parents gave her their stamp of approval. Morty and Helen liking Ellen seemed to make Jerry not like her. It fits with the usual style of Seinfeld — a self-proclaimed “show about nothing” with a no hugging/no learning policy — to make it that Jerry has no real reason to break up with the perfect woman.
Seinfeld
- Release Date
- 1989 - 1998
- Network
- NBC
- Showrunner
- Larry David
- Directors
- David Steinberg, David Owen Trainor, Art Wolff, Jason Alexander
- Writers
- Darin Henry, Bruce Eric Kaplan, Bill Masters, Bruce Kirschbaum, Steve O'Donnell, Tom Leopold, Don McEnery, Greg Daniels, Jon Hayman, Kit Boss, Lawrence H. Levy, Matt Goldman, Matt Selman, Billy Kimball, Fred Stoller, Charlie Rubin, Steve Lookner, Steve Skrovan
Cast
Jerry Seinfeld
Jason AlexanderGeorge Costanza
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