David Sims of "The A.V. Club" wrote, "Kramer decides to live in his shower because it's Kramer and he does silly things like live in the shower. I do like the setup he creates for himself—it reminded me of George's under-desk paradise when he worked for the Yankees," referring to the episode "The Nap". Sims added, "The only real misfire in "The Apology" is Jerry's naked girlfriend of the week who is naked so much that Jerry becomes desensitized to it. This is just a concept that never gets going, as right as Elaine may be about how male nudity is always 'bad naked'." Sims chiefly discusses the guest actors: "If nothing else, this is a great Puddy episode... Puddy is the hero of "The Apology"—and that's in an episode where James Spader guest stars. Spader is a funny actor for "Seinfeld" to feature in its ninth season, but his turn here comes at the start of his fallow period, after he was in "Crash" and then basically never appeared in a commercial movie again, but well before his career revival in "The Practice" and "Boston Legal". He's actually perfect casting for the role of sarcastic recovering alcoholic Jason Hanky—it's never hard to buy Spader as a jerk, and his recovery clearly hasn't quite cured him of his jerkdom. So we're sort of on George's side, even though his problem with Hanky is pretty dumb, and (surprisingly for season nine) very Larry David..."