In the “Seinfeld” finale, Jerry, George, Elaine, and Kramer are arrested in Latham, Massachusetts. Their private plane makes an emergency landing there, placing the four friends in the middle of the episode’s central legal farce.
While waiting for the plane to be repaired, they watch a man named Howie being carjacked. Instead of helping, they make jokes and record the incident. A local officer arrests them under a Good Samaritan-style law requiring bystanders to assist someone in danger.
The arrest leads to a trial in which the prosecution presents the camcorder recording and calls witnesses from the characters’ past. Those testimonies turn the finale into a retrospective catalogue of the group’s selfish, unethical, and often bizarre behavior across nine seasons.
The finale originally aired on NBC on May 14, 1998, as the two-part conclusion of the series. The four friends are found guilty of criminal indifference and sentenced to a year in prison. Lowell, Lexington, and Lenox are Massachusetts place names, but none is the town used in this episode.