New Girl - 1x21 - Kids

Everyone's babysitting tonight!

Jess starts freaking out when Russell asks her to watch his daughter for an afternoon. Not so much about being responsible for, or bonding with, the kid, but because, well, everyone else in the apartment has a tendency to alienate and frighten outsiders. Hell, last time Russell was there, he straight-up got stabbed. Honestly, it shows a surprising level of trust for him to send his only child into such a den of bloodshed. Maybe he doesn't like her very much. Kids can be annoying, you know?

Not so much this one though. I mean, she's bratty and self-absorbed and has absolutely no boundaries, but approximately five minutes into her visit she gets the most adorable crush on Nick ever and that instantly puts her in the rare group of child/tween actors that don't make you want to stab yourself in the eyes and ears.

Also, it gives her half the best lines of the episode.

"I want to rub my face on his face"
"That's stupid. Your eyes are so brown. They look like poop."

Random aside: I feel like I missed an episode where they introduced Russel's ex. I mean her name is Ouli, and that doesn't even earn a raised eyebrow from a single person. Also, Jess shows some surprising genre-awareness by repeatedly asking for straightforward clarification on Ouli's whole "he'll always be my husband" thing without seeming like a jealous child about it. So good for her.

So, surprisingly (given what we've seen of her classroom technique), Jess is actually a pretty decent baby-sitter. She's planned some fun activities, incorporated interesting lessons into them, answered as many of Sarah's question as she could, ducked ones she really shouldn't touch, and just all around avoided being patronizing or annoying.

"I save my good stuff for the students who have hot dads."

It's all the more impressive considering she's also kinda babysitting Cece, who's freaking out because her period's late. Well, TV Late, so you know, she's guaranteed to get it before the episode's over (spoiler?). Even though it's still too early to take a pregnancy test, she can't help but morbidly contemplate a Half-Schmidt creature nesting inside her. So, in typical Cece fashion, she deals with her FUBAR'ed lovelife in every single worst way possible. First by audibly crying like two doors down from Schmidt and refusing to tell him why, then, when Schmidt asks her out on a real date (albeit to the Italy Capades or something), she blows him off and tells him to take another girl. Then gets mad at him for taking another girl (spoiler: not really another girl). Also she yells horrible things at a child.

It's really weird when Jess is the level headed one in a given episode.

Despite this super cool mellowness, it doesn't take Schmidt long to figure it all out. To his credit, he immediately steps up, no hesitation  I mean, admittedly, he does spend 90% of the episode worrying about whether further sex would lead to a Russian Nesting Doll dilemma. And letting out a string of aggressively guttural names that I'm 80% sure aren't actually Jewish. And having conversations with the 6-cell cluster the hypothetical child would be at that point. Also the wording of "maybe this is God's way of telling me I'm never going to find anyone better than Cece" is a little suspect (cause really, you felt that was a possibility up until now?). But, in the middle of all that he also drops some hardcore awesome, telling her "[nice quote]", which, fucking AW, man.

You know who else was surprisingly competent through most of this ep? Nick. While Cece and Schmidt are running Jess ragged yelling about condoms and periods and tantric sex, Nick is kind of just going with the flow, barely screaming at anyone (Schmidt doesn't count) and throwing down some hilariously understated comebacks. He takes Sarah's nervous outbursts in stride ("Be honest with me [Schmidt], do my eyes look like poo?" "They do have a poop-ish hue"), and even rolls with Schmidt's creepy call to "Nicole", without even really knowing what's going on. Maybe sex with twenty-one year olds mellows you out. I should give that a shot

Is...is there like..do I get to choose?

Jess and Nick are so often this predictable pit of sanctimony and neuroses, both separately and together, that it was refreshing to see them acting like adults for almost half an entire episode. Which just made it all the more jarring when, out of nowhere, they start screaming and throwing raspberries at each other across the dinner table like five year-olds. Even Sarah was like "dude."

Pictured: "Dude."

See, Jess had one rule for Nick while Sarah was visiting: "No bringing home college girls, Berlusconi".

So what does Nick do? He brings home the "girl he's hanging out with", Chloe, "cause she's real mature and cultured". Protip: You only ever choose the words "mature and cultured" to describe someone if you have to buy their beer for them. That may not apply to everyone, but it seemed like a relevant observation. Also, it makes it all the more hilarious when Sarah reveals she knows Chloe from school.

Then Jess recognizes her from when she subbed in Chloe's 8th grade class.

Now, I'm not gonna do all the math on this, because math is for Nazi rocket scientists and Mayans, but that adds up to ...oh, eighteen. The show said it adds up to her being eighteen. To be fair to Nick, she didn't necessarily look eighteen. But according to all the neighbors I had to introduce myself to last month, that's not an excuse.

By the way, Burn of the Night goes to Schmidt's "She doesn't even know what Netscape is." Gold.

On the one hand, it's good to see Jess and Nick interacting outside of the show formula (she annoys him, he yells, she pouts, he apologizes), but on the other hand, crazy yelling/bickering risks turning their relationship into every other will-they-won't-they sitcom couple. All too often it's a contrived way to showcase "passion" and a lazy shorthand for "keep an eye on them! they're going to end up together".

That said, while they're no Schmidt/Cece, the Nick/Jess pairing admittedly does have a certain inherent shippiness to it, and seeing them fight as equals only makes you want to see them together more.

In fact, this episode really made the strongest case for Jess/Nick yet. Honestly, two minutes of Jess and Nick trying to talk down a freaked out Sarah did more to sell them as a future couple than half a dozen end-of-episode grand gestures.

Nick has this just brutally honest moment where he confesses that he's just really felt numb all this time, which has lead him to doing all these strange "weird things" (so I guess, the show?). The look Jess gives him isn't the usual pity and sympathy we get after a usual SadNick moment. It's a genuine understanding, a touching empathy.

Then Nick talks about people putting tennis balls in their shirts and pretending they're boobs, and they both crack up like six year-olds.

And that's the real emotional money shot. It's a touching little moment that stands out, because up until this point, we never really got the feeling they had *anything* in common, that they had anything to build on except Nick being crazy and Jess dropping the occasional hard truth. It was real. It was...sweet.

"I swear to God, I see a fulfilling storyline over there!"

Winston, meanwhile, is never more separated from the rest of the cast than today. While literally, everybody else is pinballing around that apartment, having awesome dialogues, Winston is off on his own, chauffeuring his horrible boss around, because no reason that anyone cares about. I mean, aside from that "The Strahan Narrow" pun, there wasn't a single part of this whole subplot that made me laugh. Is that what we're going to get from the Winston's Job arc? Cause at least with the nanny thing, we were getting touching and funny moments. This was neither.

The only bright spot of this mess was that it really got to show off how well the show is shot. I don't think I've ever mentioned this, but man this show is a beauty to watch in HD.

You can really see the sunlight reflect off the gang banger's bling.

Random Quotes of Awesome:

• Sarah's sex questions: "Have you ever dry lumped? Is sexting cool? Have you done a 99? Given anyone plowchops? How do you make love to a person animal style?"
• Sarah's "You're pregnant! You're pregnant!" song.
• "Drea de Matteo is scheduled to appear, but they're not liable if she doesn't"
• "Poppocornoooo"
• "...even if he says it's tantric and you're Indian and you should know better, you're just going to end up pregnant anyway!"
• "Sarah! Nick has one tie! See if you can find it!"
• "I might as well call you Bridge to Terabithia cause you make children cry"
• "Do something weird, Mussolini, we love ya!"