Season synopsis
Contains spoilers for this season and earlier seasons.
After breaking up with women for trivial reasons, Jerry and George agree to take relationships seriously. George returns to Susan Ross and proposes; Kramer’s warnings about marriage send Jerry back to dating as usual, leaving George engaged alone. Elaine, newly in her own apartment, becomes so desperate to stop a neighbor’s barking dog that she recruits Newman and Kramer to take it away. Her envy of George’s engagement and his growing discomfort with the wedding keep Susan in the center of the season.
George tries to make Susan call off the wedding, but each tactic confirms how unwilling he is to confront her directly. When Elaine befriends Susan at Jerry’s suggestion, George feels the separate life he kept for himself disappearing. He also lies, hides secrets and pursues Marisa Tomei behind Susan’s back, while the friends’ smaller disputes keep colliding with the engagement: family dinners, the stolen marble rye, and Elaine’s resentment at being left behind all complicate the preparations.
In “The Invitations,” George buys cheap envelopes with defective glue, still unable to say he wants out. He hopes Susan will reject him after his smoking and prenuptial-agreement ploys fail. Instead, she licks the invitation envelopes, collapses, and is pronounced dead from toxic glue. The group cannot summon much grief, and George immediately phones Tomei, who hangs up when he says Susan is not yet buried. Jerry proposes to his own comic mirror, Jeannie, then realizes he cannot stand himself and is left unhappily engaged.