Season's Feelings: New Girl - Season 1

Well this was just straight up the most surprising show of the season. If you had told me when the season started that my favorite, most intensely anticipated show of 2011 was going to be Zooey Deschanel in a wacky roommate sitcom, I would've slapped you across the face and demand you leave my lavish castle that instant. But when you slap together a solid writing staff, a stellar cast (headed by Ms. Deschanel herself), and even incredible production values (to this layman anyway), you get hands down one of the best new shows on television.

That's not to say it wasn't rough there for awhile. Everything up until The 23rd was pretty damn hit or miss. With a lot of miss. A LOT of miss. But once the show found it's footing and figured out the voices of its characters (especially Jess), it was pretty damn hard to mess up.

Not many shows manage to get to their lowest point
out of the way in less than ten episodes.

Specifically, once they stopped writing Jess as an emotionally stunted 13 year old, the character really came into her own, as did the show. Gone were the worst excesses of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl and in its place an optimistic, but grounded, genuinely joyful person. Someone pretty cool you actually enjoy letting into your house (or tablet or phone) and getting to know week after week. It felt like the last piece of the show finally fell into place. Characters and story lines could merge and interact in amazing ways. We could see her and Nick dance around the unspoken crush, or Jess and Schmidt fall into this oddly complimentary mentor/mentee relationship, or her and Winston...ring bells? Okay we'll get to that later. The point is that, much like Leslie Knope's transition from season one to season two of Parks and Rec, Jess becoming a competent and functioning human being, without losing her trademark optimism or love of the wackier things, makes her a genuinely great character to watch, and to watch other characters interact with.

And there are a lot of great characters to watch bounce off each other on this show. It's probably its greatest strength. Nearly every combination of characters produces some form of comedy gold, almost consistently. Nick and Schmidt just wreaking chaos with each other (best exemplified in Bells). Schmidt and Cece's dirty, shameful, adorable courtship. Winston and Nick prodding each other to grow up. All of it made for compelling television I couldn't wait to keep watching.

Nick in particular, was probably the most intriguing character for me to keep tabs on. A confused mix of self loathing and misanthropy wrapped up in chronic (and spectacular) breakdowns, the angry little man spoke to me on an elemental level. Maybe it's the unspoken bond between the Brotherhood of the Hirsute, but I think it's because out of all the characters the show, he obviously had the most shit to work through.

With a back story that involves a disastrous relationship with Caroline, abandoning law school, and fighting a chicken, Nick is easily the most messed up lead not currently in a cable drama. I wanted to see him clamber out of his deluge of issues and stumble towards some sort of a healthier (though perhaps not too healthy) new place. To my disappointment though, we got a lot of the former, but progress on the latter was stilted and repetitive. Every episode that ended with Nick realizing that he needs to let go of his anger and hunker down and grow up was followed by another with the same old Nick with the same old issues.

And you know, I get that that's normal. None of us grow up at the flip of a switch. We usually try and stumble and fall, and repeat the whole damned mess over and over again, until we finally get it right, and that's mostly by attrition. But Nick's episodes of self discovery were just so well crafted and emotionally investing, it was genuinely disappointing to see their promises of fundamental change never quite followed through on. It was most blatant in Fancyman Saga, where his character arc takes a 90 degree turn in between episodes, but was also fairly evident in places like Bells or the sublime Injured.

Speaking of not panning out, let's take a moment to talk about the whole Nick and Jess relationship. Everyone I've spoken to says that Nick's (still unspoken) crush on Jess was obvious and not at all subtle. Maybe I just like being a contrarian, or I'm really thick, or both, but I felt that it was handled in a shockingly subtle way for a network sitcom. All of Nick's actions and frustrations and end of episode gestures clearly indicated a hidden crush, but none of the direction, camera angles, or anything in the cinematography tried to cram that down our throats. There was never a second-too-long camera linger on a Nick sad face when Jess had someone new. There were never any hacky episodes about jealousy. And except for Cece Crashes, where the issue is never resolved one way or another (and, cleverly enough, was also the episode that introduced us to the idea that Cece was not always a reliable judge of character), it's never mentioned by any other characters. It's reliant entirely on logical inference from reasonable behavior, and the emotional arc is all the better for it. If you squint, I think you can even trace a line from Nick's infatuation (Pilot/Kryptonite), through his disillusionment (Thanksgiving, and alluded to in Injured), to finally his letting go of her (the Julia arc, Fancyman Part 1).

The biggest problem though, is that there's no resolution. I have no idea what we're supposed to infer from the end of See Ya, but it was clearly leaning pretty heavily on the Nick/Jess ship as an implied resolution. And yet, I'm still not sure if that's how we were supposed to interpret it. Don't get me wrong, a big Friends-style open-the-Central-Perk-French-Doors-Kiss-in-the-Rain would've betrayed the tone and spirit the show had spent the season establishing, but some manner of conversation wouldn't have been out of the question. As it is, it feels like a shippus-interruptus. A dropped ball. I'm hopeful they'll do it justice next season.

Then again, maybe the fact he made this face at her explains everything.

Speaking of dropped relationships -- actually no.

I refuse to believe that that stupid argument is how Cece/Schmidt ends. We have *all*, characters and viewers alike have invested too much in getting these kids to actually admit they like each other, to see it end over Schmidt being even stupider than usual. I officially refuse to believe it!

I will say however, that their courtship is easily one of the best subplots of the entire show. These two characters work so well off each other, it's nuts it took an entire season to finally get them together properly. A lot of that can be attributed to that stretch of episodes where their hookups are a secret, which is possibly the most infuriating sitcom romance device ever. But even those were at least handled with a modicum of believably (would you want to admit you were even talking with Schmidt willingly, much less sleeping with him?). And their eventual Declarations of Like over his broken penis were a romantic moment for the ages ("You like my personality?" / "I know, I'm surprised too!").

Maybe that's because it involved two of the best characters to premiere on broadcast tv in the past five years. Schmidt turned from Stereotypical Douche to So Douche He's Awesome in the span of about five episodes. Seeing him literally sheepdogging a drunk Cece instantly turned, at least for me, what could've been a tiresome character, into an inspired tableau of vulnerability and manic narcissism. Some of his subplots kind of fizzled (I don't think the whole work-plot ever quite jelled, despite it having potential, and I'm still not sure what Control was about), but the character always shone like a crazy diamond encrusted iPhone cover. I would love to be in the writers room when they were brainstorming Schmidt's non-sequiters. Max Greenfield infused such energy and earnestness into classic lines like "...it's next to my Irish walking stick", that you can't help but love him even as you want to punch him.

Which is what made him work so insanely great when paired up with Cece. Another character who appeared poised to be a one-dimensional archetype (the mature, reasonable, put-upon best friend), she also got infused with several dimensions worth of awesome little by little. The decision to take the sober, mature, straight woman to Jess' cloying naivete and infuse her with occasional batshit insanity was inspired. In one fell swoop they subverted a tired sitcom trope and give us a fully realized character with issues and problems that are interesting to watch, but also don't define her. It made her relationship with Jess more of a give and take as we see they need the other to help them down from their respective crazy trees (apologies to Paul Reiser). It made her relationship with Schmidt more believable, since we'd already seen her making staggeringly bad romantic choices as a matter of course. And it gave her normal straight moments more gravity, as we know this is someone who knows from crazy, and you best listen to her when she tells you to cut that shit out.

The only character that didn't hit its mark is Winston. And that's not the fault of Winston the character, or even Lamorne Morris. The character is great. A cocky basketball player who spent the past two years in Latvia and has to adjust to the United States and unemployment is a situation rife with potential. And that episode where he mainlines YouTube videos had such a great setup and visuals. Morris brings the requisite vulnerability and frustration that such a character needs to come to life. Winston can't match the loud crazy of his other roommates, but he brings a deadpan delivery and a commitment to occasional outlandishness that gives us amazing scenes like "The Down Low" and his babysitting adventures. The problem with Winston is that a full year later, the show has no idea what to do with him. He's kept on the sidelines for the majority of the plots. He's shuttled around jobs with limited comedic potential. As much as I love Shelby and what she brings to the show, I'm pretty sure she was written in just to give Winston something to do. When Winston is integrated into the main plot, the results are typically hilarious (see Bells or Thanksgiving). But it has to happen more often, because it's just ridiculous how often I forget he even lives in the loft. Oh and also, I can't believe they got rid of the babysitting job! That was adorable and awesome.

And finally the last thing I'll mention this show excels at is guest stars. The sociopathic Nadia, the wry Gynecologist, the little kid Winston babysits, Shelby, Julia, The Landlord, and The Waitress as Caroline. Almost every guest star this season is someone I desperately want to see come back. It's probably better some of them don't (The Landlord probably outlived his comedic potential in his one episode), but the show left me wanting more, and that's the mark of great writing and casting. Long live McMouse.