New Girl - 1x23 - Backslide

Distraught about Russell (and maybe partly about Nick?), Jess backslides into Paul, and no one makes a crude pun, a fact that makes me both proud and disappointed in this show. Schmidt commits to Cece in the sweetest and most painfully disgusting way he can, because he's Schmidt. And Nick has a meaningful conversation with his past self that we will all cherish forever.

Forever.

So, Cece and Schmidt are enjoying the isn't-that-so-damn-sweet honeymoon phase of their new relationship, despite (or likely because of) the fact that his primary brain is still en-sheathed in bandages and "looks like a knotted wizard's staff". As we saw last week, any kind of sexy thought will physically debilitate him, and since he's Schmidt, everything from clouds to freshly baked bread turns him on. So when Cece brought him to visit her grandmother at a nursing home, I mentally braced myself for the wrongest, most horrifying Schmidt yet. But after speaking with Cece's predictably sassy, yet genuinely sweet nana, it turns out the only boner he gets is for emotional intimacy with Cece. And, like so many things with Schmidt, that's not a euphemism. The idea of building a future with her literally turns him on so bad he just straight up passes out from the pain.

Aw. Romance.

Meanwhile, Jess is bummed about her breakup with Russell, and while everyone is busy making sure she doesn't shoot him a drunk dial she'll regret, she finds her way back to Paul. Which, to her credit, she regrets it almost immediately. Because, you know, Paul.

This guy.

So what's Paul been doing since The 23rd? Well, he got a girlfriend. A "pretty serious" one at that, according to him. So serious, in fact, that he slept with Jess a few hours after they had a single fight, because he got "confused". Now I know that sounds like bullshit of the highest caliber, but when you consider that this girlfriend is a straight up doppelganger of Jess, maybe he deserves the benefit of the doubt? No, of course not. He's a douche. But I would've honestly paid good money to see him run with that excuse, full on Winehouse style. He could've made a decent case. Or at least a more entertaining one.

Seriously, there's having a type, and then there's this.

So seeing as cheating is a touchy subject for Jess, she chews Paul out and demands he tells his girlfriend or she will. But by the time she realizes what a horrendous idea that is, he's already told her, and you can see the poor girl's heart shatter into a thousand pieces. It's made all the worse once it becomes clear that Paul isn't the douchebag serial cheater that Jess' ex, Spencer was, but actually just a relatively well meaning moron that was actually planning on proposing to his girlfriend.

Actually, he's still kind of a dick. And an Olympic-level horrible crier, to boot.

Normally I hate it when a character trait comes out of nowhere,
but goddamn, am I glad I didn't have to see that before.

Regardless, somehow, through the magic of her innate MPDG-ness, Jess manages to help Jen (the girlfriend) see through Paul's betrayal and accept Paul's marriage proposal. So, happy ending?

This is totally the healthiest way to start a marriage.

It doesn't really matter, because the whole Paul subplot, boring, creepy, and unsatisfying as it was, is really only there to help Jess work through her issues about relationships, and come to a fundamental conclusion about the nature of love and her and Nick.

But not her and Nick.

Maybe.

We'll get to that later.

In the meantime, between Jess' passive-aggressive pouting and Winston/Schmidt doing that awkward thing where they abruptly-stop-talking-as-soon-as-she-shows-up, it's pretty obvious no one agrees with Nick and Caroline getting back together. But they're keeping their traps shut (well, not Jess), because they're respectful friends (cough, not Jess). For his part, though, all of Nick's arguments always start with him insisting that things are fundamentally different this time, but end with how he doesn't want to stay alone and depressed for the rest of his life. So you know, he makes a good case.

Luckily (for us), the guys have a backup plan: a singularly  awesome   perfect  beautiful video that Nick recorded two years ago for just this very occasion. Now, admittedly, Barney and Ted did this first, but Nick does it better, since Past Nick always rules.

Always.

Rules.

This thing has everything deemed awesome by the Lord Our God in the Holy Bible itself: collected jars of Nick's tears. Coach references. Even poetry:

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
No, a summer's day is not a bitch.

If the world ended tomorrow and the only thing left to the survivors was this DVD (and a DVD player. And power. And a television.), a new civilization could grow from the imparted wisdom and usher in a thousand years of peace and prosperity and finally take mankind to the stars.

Unfortunately, Nick disagrees. He is not swayed by the Holy Word and it's hoboesque wisdom, and in fact is pushed to make an important decision of his own.

We'll get to that in a minute, too.

Hurry...

But first, the big question that hung over this episode (at least for me) was whether Jess had finally figured out that she can get from Nick all the passion she was craved didn't have with Russell. Last week's ending left that ambiguous and this week doesn't make it any clearer. We get no sense from Jess that she had any kind of epiphany in that regard, or that she even sees Nick differently.

On the other hand, the few interactions they had this ep, including her breathless treatise on the nature of love, really hit those "shipping" notes crazy hard. Jess even tried to talk him into breaking up with Caroline by pointing her boobs at him. But there's still no overt indication from anyone involved it's even a fleeting thought.

I'm sorry, that's not even backsliding taken literally.
She's clearly trying to hide behind her boobs and trick him into
thinking they were talking to him, like perky Jiminy Crickets

Except, remember that big conclusion Jess came to earlier? It's that love "should be simple", because, you know, seeing your ex-boyfriend get forgiven by his fiancee after cheating on her with you, tends to show you how love is all about simple.

But regardless she breathlessly tells him all about how she and Nick both deserve true love, and he should wait for it and not settle for Caroline. She swears that he won't ever end up alone because he always has her and she's willing to yell at the crazy voices in his head and tell them how awesome he is, and it's just this great, genuinely sweet moment that you know is going to come crashing down any minute...

...and Nick decided to move in with Caroline. They already signed a lease.

Dun, dun, dun!

Oh and Winston! Winston is...fuck if I know. Something about an earring? Jesus, man.

At this point, I'm just admiring how Lamorne Morris is taking this all in stride.

Random Bits of Awesome

• "Wait no, 80 more times now! I get it, it's a river!"
• That Nick/Caroline Dance was supposed to be horrifying and annoying and not cute, right?
• "Caroline is way hotter than that voice in my head that sounds like Tom Waits and tells me I'm a failure and I look bad in hats!"
• "She's not as tough as she looks."
• "Coach, he's calling her again!" / "Be nicer to Coach or he's gonna take off! Live with a bunch of other white people!"
• "For someone with a soulmate, you sure did have sex with me."