Seinfeld’s One and Done New Year Episode “The Millennium” Made All of Us Scratch Our Heads in Confusion

While Seinfeld is a self-proclaimed show about nothing, they seemed to have outdone themselves in the department of confusion with Season 8 Episode 20 of the show, The Millennium. Consider it so confusing on the scale of 1 to 10, that it required a rewatch just for the sake of writing this article. 

A still from the 1989 sitcom Seinfeld | image: NBC

Believe it or not, you won’t be blamed if your minds have just magically shut out this particular episode. But meanwhile, considering that The Millennium is technically Seinfeld’s only official New Year’s episode, it won’t hurt to take a look at it. So let’s dive right into it and figure out what was so confusing about this particular installment. 

Why was The Millennium so confusing for fans? 

While you might know Seinfeld’s Season 8 Episode 20 by the title, The Millennium, we know it by the name “confusion”. Being the show’s only official New Year’s episode, no one had expected it to be so baffling as it turned out to be. Aired in 1997, as the episode revolved around the idea of a millennium year, it was already confusing enough for fans, and on top of that show added other technicalities that left people scratching their heads. 

Even though most people watch sitcoms as a source of entertainment and relaxation, Seinfeld’s above-mentioned episode simply took things to the next level with their premise of the millennium year. Beginning with Kramer’s (Michael Richards) excitement about arranging a New Year’s party to ride into 2000, the episode further follows Newman’s plan to ruin Kramer’s party by pre-arranging his own millennium party. 

So what happened was, when Kramer was bringing in chairs and napkins for his millennium party, Jerry (Jerry Seinfeld) asked him if he knew that New Year’s was still two and a half years away. Now, given that the episode aired in May 1997, two and a half years meant 2000. But then by the end of the episode, when Newman and Kramer reached an agreement about their party, Jerry dropped the bombshell on Newman about how the millennium was actually 2001. 

Jerry, George, and Elaine in a still from the Seinfeld episode The Millennium | image: NBC

According to the episode, Jerry asked Newman about his hotel reservations and the year he scheduled it for. To which Newman responded that it was for the millennium year, and that’s when Jerry opened up the Gregorian calendar in his mind and slammed Wayne Knight’s character with facts. Explaining that since there was no “Year 0” in the Gregorian calendar, the millennium year is celebrated in 2001, which would make Newman’s party a year later and lame. 

Wait what? So did Jerry lie to Kramer in the first place? Or was he himself unaware of the events? This particular lack of continuity mixed with confusion about the exact millennium year ended up turning the Seinfeld episode into one of the most chaotic installments. Meanwhile, apart from the obvious element of confusion, there were other significant events that kept piling up in people’s heads, while they tried to navigate through what seemed like a high school history class.

Hilarious events that happened throughout the episode 

Meanwhile, the Season 8 Episode 20 of Seinfeld also featured a few of the most hilarious events including George’s desperate attempts to get fired from the New York Yankees to be the head scout for the New York Mets. Surprisingly, despite being often known for messing things up, when he actually needed to wreck his reputation at his old workplace and get fired, he somehow failed to do so. All his dramatic attempts to get fired only ended up making him look better. 

Eventually, after multiple failed attempts although George (Larry David) managed to destroy a World Series Trophy, and hurled insults to the ball club with a megaphone, Mr. Wilhelm ended up taking the blame for the whole mess. It led him to get fired instead of George, who then took the job with the Mets. The amount of chaos and shenanigan that George causes only to end up losing his position at the New York Mets, was just over-the-top hilarious. 

Further, who can forget Elaine’s attempt to run an ethnic-themed clothing store called Putumayo out of business after receiving bad customer service? Apparently, after being ignored by the cashier at Putumayo, Elaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) tried shopping at a competing store, Cinco de Mayo. However, after raising the second store’s sale, she discovered that the cashier at Putumayo owned both stores. 

Julia Louis-Dreyfus’ Elaine In a still from episode The Millennium | image: NBC

This led Elaine to get really petty and hire Kramer under his alter ego H. E. Pennypacker, to change the price tags on the labels at the clothing store. But Kramer being Kramer, he accidentally destroyed the pricing gun before he could finish. However, with his desire to help Elaine, Kramer took out the desiccant packs from the clothing, which would have undoubtedly ruined the clothes in about a few years. But again being who he is, Kramer accidentally dropped the desiccant packs in the free salsa, available at the counter. 

Hold on, for it’s Jerry’s turn. Caught in a war over speed dial rankings between his girlfriend, Valerie, and her stepmother, Jerry witnesses the biggest mess. Realizing that his gestures towards Valerie could propel him to number one rank on Speed dial, Jerry did everything he could. Now this, later made his girlfriend’s stepmom jealous, who then tried to sabotage Jerry and Valerie’s relationship. But then ends up getting poisoned by eating the salsa at Putumayo. 

What are the other strange episodes from Seinfeld? 

While we’re already discussing the most confusing and strangest episode of Seinfeld, let’s take a look at what other episodes from the show seemed borderline surreal. Well, the first in line has to be The Finale (S9E22), which came as a slap in the face for fans who wanted a simple conclusion, as it showed Jerry, George, Elaine, and Kramer landing in jail for the terrible things that they have done. Instead of being a happy ending, the episode maintained the show’s surrealism and wrapped up in a particularly clever way. 

A still from The Finale S9E22 of Seinfeld | image: NBC

Further, with the episode The Invitations, Seinfeld outdid themselves as it brought a surprisingly dark twist to the show. While the episode dealt with George and his girlfriend Susan’s relationship and their decision to get married and George’s anxieties about being a married man, it surprisingly put an abrupt end to George’s tensions by killing Susan. This was undoubtedly one of the strangest creative choices that the show ever made. 

Well, while we must wrap this up, here are a few of the other shocking episodes from the show that cannot go unsaid—The Jimmy (S6E19), The Soup Nazi (S7E6), The Marine Biologist (S5E14), and The Puffy Shirt (S5E2). 

Seinfeld is currently streaming on Netflix.