What makes this episode stand out among the general preposterousness of late Seinfeld is the dream sequence with which it opens. As the series progressed, Jerry, George, and Kramer increasingly became empty, cartoonish parodies of the original characters, while Elaine -- intelligent, self-aware, an aspiring writer -- became increasingly embittered, even gripped by a kind of existential horror at her intimate cohabitation with these three chuckleheads, as symbolised in her dream of being trapped, suffocating, under a duvet with all three of them forever. It was almost as if the series' writers went out of their way to come up with storylines that would torture her, e.g., sleep deprivation caused by an incessantly barking dog or, as in this episode, a loud alarm clock that a neighbour has forgotten to deactivate after going on holiday. The dream sequence therefore lends a fleeting sense of depth amid the two-dimensional silliness, even a glimmer of tragedy (a character becomes tragic only when he or she gains a deeper awareness of the agonising ineluctability of his or her situation -- Oedipus, Elektra, Hamlet, Hedda Gabler...). One might even draw a comparison with Flann O'Brien's 'At Swim-Two-Birds' (1939) or Gilbert Sorrentino's 'Mulligan Stew' (1979), comic novels in which a fictional writer's characters develop a painful awareness of their absurd ontological situation of being forever trapped inside the text of a caricatural bad novel. This episode opens with Elaine dreaming she is metaphorically trapped and closes with her literally trapped inside her apartment, dependent on the three others outside in the hall, who, ludicrously, are using Kramer's slicer to feed her slivers of meat under the door. And therein, the episode provides almost a metafictional commentary on the situation of the character herself.