Why did Seinfeld write off Susan? Explained

The finale episode of season seven of Seinfeld titled The Invitations, showed the death of Heidi Swedberg's character, Susan. The character, who was Jason Alexander's character, George's fiancé, died after coming in contact with their wedding invitations' poisonous envelopes.

The show, which aired on NBC, showed Susan's death after she touched the cheap toxic glue on the envelopes that George was in charge of bringing. George ended up buying the cheapest wedding envelopes that had cheap toxic glue which caused Susan's death.

While Susan was killed off-screen, Jason Alexander had stated that the character was written off due to the cast's comedic off-timing and issues of working with Heidi. Swedberg made her debut on season four of Seinfeld as Susan Ross, an NBC executive who heard Jerry Seinfeld and George's proposal for a Jerry Show.

Soon, George developed feelings for Susan, and the two dated briefly in season four. However, they broke up only to unexpectedly reconcile in season seven. This was potentially because Jerry and George had agreed to marry their love interests at the start of that season. Following this, George asked Susan to marry him, only to see her die at the end of the same season.

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Seinfeld: Susan’s unexpected death due to the show’s internal affairs

Jason Alexander, who played the role of George said that neither Jerry Seinfeld nor Larry David knew how the season would conclude until they had a conversation with the show's creators. The humor and the comedic timing between the leads, including Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Michael Richards seemed evident to everyone. However, according to a January 2024 report by Collider stated that a few members of the supporting cast found it difficult to connect with the main co-stars.

Heidi Swedberg portrayed the role of Susan Ross, George's fiancé for 28 episodes. In the season seven finale, she was killed off by the show's creators. The decision to terminate Susan Ross from the show felt abrupt to most fans but according to the cast, it was the right decision, a report from Screen Rant noted.

Several cast members, especially, the main cast of the show, reportedly stated that Swedberg wasn't the most amiable cast member.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Jason Alexander told Howard Stern in an interview the reason behind his TV fiancé Susan's untimely death on the show. He said that while he loved her and called her a "terrific girl," he couldn't "figure out how to play off of her."

“Her instincts for doing a scene, where the comedy was, and mine, were always misfiring. And she would do something and I would go, OK, I see what she's gonna do, I'm gonna adjust to her. And then I would adjust. And then it would change!" He told Stern.

Although the main reason behind Susan being killed off was the comedic timing, Alexander did note that he didn't see any on-screen chemistry between the two. He had done three episodes with the actress and felt uncomfortable working with her. Alexander also stated that he was the only actor with the maximum scenes with Susan.

He was upset to learn that George would be marrying Susan even though the couple on screen lacked romantic chemistry. It appeared that the only reason Susan survived at all was because no one else had any scenes.

The creators of the show put on an episode with Elaine and Jerry where they had to work on a lot of materials with Susan. After a week the rest of the cast also had the same thing to say about Susan.

He revealed to Stern that both Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Jerry Seinfeld declared it "impossible" to work with Swedberg and that they intended to "kill" her character.

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Neither Jerry Seinfeld nor Larry David knew how that season would conclude before they had a conversation with the creators, writers, and producers of the show. It only took a vague reference to the death of a character that led to Susan being killed off with her own toxic wedding invitation envelopes.