New Girl - 1x12 - The Landlord

...what just happened?


No, seriously, what was that?

Okay, so let me just get through the recap real quick so we can get to fully dissecting the squick as fast as possible.

When shit gets broken in the apartment beyond even Nick's Anton Jackson-ian ability to fix, Jess gets the Scary Ass Landlord involved (against everyone's wishes). Scary Ass Landlord, aka Remy, aka Totally Not Lowell From Wings, completely misinterprets Jess' niceness and starts putting the moves on her. Nick tries to play chaperone, and Remy misinterprets THAT as an invitation to menage their trois. So, naturally, Jess and Nick deal with it in the most reasonable way possible: by playing threeway chicken with the creepy landlord until Jess finally balks and cancels the whole thing.

To be fair, I can see how they were tempted.

Also! Schmidt is dying to make a move on that totally inappropriate boss of his from the Christmas episode. After some advice from Cece (I will NEVER not love those two), he decides to cowboy up and make a play. Unfortunately for him, consensual, welcomed assertion of sexual dominance looks a bit like horrifying assault when picked up by a parking garage security camera and he gets viciously tackled by security.

Man, if I had a nickel for every time this happened to me.
Did I say "had a nickel"? I meant, "do a nickel."

Alright, let's take this baffle-by-baffle.

First of all, it looks like this episode was aired out of order. Emotional-continuity wise it looks like it should be somewhere between The 23rd and The Story of the 50. There's no mention of Nick's newly-exclusive girlfriend Julia. There's the sudden return (and escalation) of the whole Nick-crushes-Jess arc. And, perhaps most explicitly, it's totally following up on the weird harassment/flirting dynamic between Schmidt and his boss. Most sitcoms have episodes that can easily be aired in any slot, but this one was really jarring after we spent all of last week learning how crazy I am Nick is about Julia.

Speaking of jarring, how in the hell did we get to Threeway Chicken? I mean, ostensibly it got that far because Jess and Nick were locked in some stubborn argument where Jess says that all mean people just need someone to be nice to them, whereas Nick thinks "Everybody is the worst!". Don't get me wrong, I haven't laughed that hard since the Great Shared Towel Kerfluffle of last week (and Jeff Kober deserves awesome kudos for his creepy-ass, yet gentle and vulnerable depiction of Remy), but I still can't trace out a logical path of actions that leads from their Mean People Suck argument to the emotional/sexual equivalent of nuclear brinkmanship.

A vise-like grip applied firmly to the base of the skull is a gentleman's
preferred method of victim compliance kissing.

The thing is though, all those wacky escalation hijinks was really lovely misdirection for the biggest elephant in the room: Nick just totally went for it with Jess. Twice. And got shot down. Twice. Yeah yeah, it was all under the cover of "winning the argument", and he seamlessly recovered from each rejection, but dude. Either Nick's as good an actor as Jake Johnson is or he was way too into that whole "let me romantically help you pick up that mug" schtick, and later, God help us, the almost kiss. Man that almost kiss. He just grabbed her face and dove in. That was not hesitant brinksmanship. That was "Okay, totally not how I thought this would happen, but let's burn this candle!" While, again, the seamless recoveries were impressive, they didn't really fool anyone (not named Jess).

Maybe it was just because he wouldn't stop gyrating his hips...

And let's talk about those rejections for a minute. She is completely, totally, without hesitation or reservation *not into him*. That was not the body language of awkwardness. That shit was disgust. Look at her face at the beginning of the "mug training" bit. She's amused, it's funny, he's made his point. Then she realizes that whoa this is getting intimate and bam. Look at that face. That's a straight up grimace. That's disgust right there. Same with the kissing. That wasn't conceding defeat. That was fleeing. She screamed "Nooo!". Screamed. She was more willing to sleep with a Creepy Landlord out of a misplaced sense of kindness and pity than she would have been to kiss Nick under any circumstances. That is some rough shit.

Seriously, it's almost like Nick should have been the one tackled to the floor by security

Now as depressing as that might sound on the surface of it, I'm actually kind of really glad. This isn't going to be Ross and Rachel. This is gonna be something new(ish). Presumed romantic leads irrecovably breaking the others hearts has been tried on and off on TV, but it's far from the norm. Scrubs and Bones are the only ones that come readily to mind, but even they demonstrate that if a show goes on for long enough, it probably won't take. But man, I love it when things don't go according to the trope. There is just something I like about the idea that this is going to blow up in Nick's face spectacularly and give us something other than the same old bullshit.

I am also a horrible human being.

Few other things I loved:

• Schmidt's list of new years resolutions. Do they have a single writer on staff whose entire job is to just come up with randomly ridiculous things for Schmidt, or is it a team effort?
• Their emergency drill when the landlord shows up is awesome. Reminds me of one of my favorite bits from Titus.
• Lil'Nick's getting shoved by a stranger on the happiest day of his life.

Jesus, I really am a horrible person, aren't I?