A Comedian Imagined How Seinfeld Would Deal With 9/11

The comedian Billy Domineau re-imagined Seinfeld characters by writing a script for how they would respond to the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

Titled “The Twin Towers,” Domineau’s so-called spec script—an unauthorized screenplay of an existing television show— captures the self-obsessive nature of Seinfeld‘s main characters, centering on how each one reacts in the aftermath of the attacks. True to form, Jerry becomes increasingly paranoid about dust coating everything in New York, Elaine tries to dump her boyfriend who survived the attack, George pretends he was a heroic first responder and Kramer realizes he was friends with one of the terrorists.

Domineau said he was careful to remain non-offensive and true to the voice of the show despite the sensitive subject matter.

“9/11 has always been this thing that is so firmly held in our collective consciousness and I think we’re all sort of wondering at different times, ‘What is appropriate? How soon is too soon?’—stuff like that. And I’ve always been tempted to find out what the line is with it,” Domineau told Entertainment Weekly. “Especially when I started writing this, it was less about where the line was or how far could I go, than how can I actually make this something that is ultimately not offensive, that goes up to the line but is actually no way intended to attack the issue, but to actually find ways to make positive light of it, and just in the context of the show.”

Read the spec script below.