The Cheever Letters

Plot

Jerry points out the irony to George: Susan's father gave George fine Cuban cigars as a gift, but George gave those cigars away, and they ended up burning down Susan's father's cabin. Jerry and George sit down to work on the sitcom pilot they are pitching to NBC. Lacking any ideas, they embrace any interruption and get nothing done. Jerry phones Elaine at her office but has to fend off her receptionist Sandra, who launches into her usual pointless chatter.

Elaine tells Sandra to stop, which tips Sandra off that Jerry complained, and she quits on the spot, upset. Kramer, who used a cigar to buy his way into the Westchester Country Club, can no longer stand playing on public golf courses. With the cigars destroyed in the fire, Kramer searches for more, even though there is a Cuban trade embargo. Susan takes George to dinner to meet her parents.

Her father talks about the cabin's long history as a beloved family heirloom. When Susan and George finally tell them about the fire, the father leaves the table in shock, while the mother, drunk, just laughs it off. To help Elaine, Jerry calls Sandra to apologize and ends up agreeing to a date that leads to romantic foreplay. After hearing Sandra's extremely crude dirty talk—which he can only whisper to George later, unheard—Jerry tries to match her banter but blurts out the nonsensical line "the panties your mother laid out for you," which frightens Sandra away.

Knowing Elaine will never let him forget this if she finds out, Jerry insists that Elaine fire Sandra as soon as she returns to work. Looking for cigars, Kramer rushes to meet with the Cuban diplomatic mission at the United Nations. The head diplomat trades Kramer's hard-won jacket for the cigars. Kramer and the diplomats then go golfing at Westchester, cigars in hand.

Dropping by the Rosses' house, Jerry and George meet Susan's brother Ricky and her paraplegic aunt Sara, whom George supposedly resembles. Susan opens a stash of letters recovered from the cabin fire, which turn out to be explicit love letters to her father from the novelist John Cheever. The family is stunned as Susan's father openly defends his gay affair with the late Cheever.