New Girl - 1x13 - Valentine's Day

Lizzie's Back!

That's all that really matters. Review over. Get out of here, we need some time alone.

I guess some other stuff happened too. Jess enlists Schmidt and Cece to help her get her groove on (not in that way...mostly), and despite some questionable plot contrivances, it's actually pretty hilarious. (It doesn't exactly hurt that Cece and Schmidt bring their A-game to the plot.) Winston suffers through a girl's night in to reconnect with Shelby. And Nick and Julia's plan for an awesomely cliche Valentine's Day are waylaid by work.

It's Valentine's Day and Jess is dead set on going out to "find a little strannngeee" (as she annoyingly puts it). After six years with Spencer and that whole awkward mess with Justin Long, all she really wants to do is spend the night with a fun, meaningless one night stand. So, naturally, she's pressed Schmidt into service as her Gettin' Some Guru. Yes, I just made that up. Yes, that is the reason this is the only place they'll let me write. 

She's spraying her butt. I can't even make a joke out of that.

Asking Schmidt for help seems like the worst idea ever. Nothing we've seen or heard from him indicates to me at *all* that he's at all proficient at picking up anything more complex than a gourmet mixing spoon. But whatever. Nick would try to wrestle anyone who came near Jess and Winston has been packed off to his own completely seperate subplot once again, so I guess it's down to Schmidt. And Cece, who rolls down to the club to help Schmidt coach Jess on proper hunting techniques.

So, I'm totally not the only one who picked up that Cece was totes legitimately flirting with Schmidt at the bar, right? That was not the fake flirting they were pretending it was. That was the straight up opposite of The Landlord there. And it was cute. At least until that douchey boyfriend from the Christmas ep shows up. That was a little heartbreaking to watch. Also gross. Who says hello with their tongue? ...I mean, obviously everyone, but most of us have the polite graces to keep it in our mouths.

Jess ends up picking up some himbo, who doesn't have a car, and since she drove there with Schmidt, they need him to drive them to Himbo's place to bone.

Most irresponsible parent ever...

Now this is where Max Greenfield brings his aformentioned A-game. His concern for Jess (without a hint of icky jealousy or possesiveness) is touching, and yet crashing the one night stand and complaining about the sketchy neighborhood and it's attendent wild youths is just the height of douche. Most awesome though is the way he went out of his way to enounciate "youth-es" every single time. I am a little disappointed there was not one reference to yutes, though. Come on, guys.

When Cece shows up to give Schmidt a ride home so he can leave his car there for Jess, things get REAL. Himbo's ex comes home, sees him macking with another girl, turns around and starts making out with Cece's Asshole Boyfriend (who is completely shroomed off his ass/shirt), meaning Cece's got no choice but to throw down, y'all. That girl will fuck you up and I love her so much for it. My hands down favorite thing ever is how she flips from the most reasonable person in the room to straight up drop-your-ass-like-a-sack-of-potatoes-insane without blinking. We haven't seen a lot of that since Cece Crashes, but she brings it here, and it's glorious.

I would write to her in prison.

But really props has to be given to that entire scene. The timing was impeccable. The Ex shows up, laying the groundwork for a supremely fucked up and funny situation (fucknny?), then Cece shows up looking for Schmidt (and exacerbating everything by her very hot presence), Schmidt pops up out of nowhere, having spent the past hour hiding from the "youthes", Douchey Boyfriend bursts in asking everyone if he's peed his pants, yelling happens, makeouts happen, and then BOOM fight.

Not to mention some bonus points should go to the actress who played the jealous ex, if only for her delivery of "How does. it. feel. OLIVER??" Awesome. And the look on her face as she sat there, eating chips, while Oliver and Jess had one of those hot-if-you're-into-it-but-totally-uncomfortable-if-even-a-little-not couch makeouts. This was just one of those awesomely absurd situations shows like this were made for. It's fucked up in so many specific, yet believable, ways, you just know it had to have happened to someone on the writing staff.

The only catch is that I can't figure out why she thought it'd be a good idea to stay. That's just a standard plot contrivance that pulls you out of the show right away. Even just a line about how she wasn't thinking straight cause she was drunk would've helped. Then again, who of us has never been so swirly that we beared through excruciatingly awkward social situations for a slim chance at some awkward couch petting?

So, quick (hah) aside, have I been watching this show too long, or was Jess actually NOT as annoying as she could've been this ep? Even the "strannnggeee" line didn't seem forcibly quirky or anything. She's actually acting like a normal, appropriately socalized twenty something. Maybe I have been watching it too long...

Anyway, when the whole one night stand thing blows up in her face, Jess does the next logical thing and... tries to hookup with Schmidt? The buildup to that was one of those horrible moments where you know it makes perfect sense and yet you'd give your left pinky toe to stop it from happening. In retrospect, that moment in The Story of the 50 wasn't meant to be an isolated incident, but damn, did not really see that coming. So is that going to be /the thing/ now? A triangle between Jess, Cece, and Schmidt, with Nick somewhere in a corner frowning his little heart out?  I mean not that this had anything to do with Nick, but considering the sheer number of rejections she's sent his way, it's got to hurt just a little more that she goes after Schmittdy.

Then again, he seemed to be handling it okay when he caught her. I mean, he was his usual Nick hilariously judgy self, going so far as to literally carry her away from her mistake, but none of that seemed to be coming from a hurt or jealous place. He was more of an audience proxy. I hope that means that Julia's been good for him. Yay.

Someone pointed out to me that his face is permanently
an upside-down U, and now I can't unsee it.

But speaking of sneaking around, Schmidt and Cece happened! Yay? I mean it's good, but I like these two together so much that I don't want it to devolve into a whole "secretly sneaking around to have casual sex" thing. That's been done to death. I want it to be real, dammnit!

It's still real to me!

Oh yeah, other stuff happened!

Nick and Julia's Valentine's day. It was really sweet. I loved how into the whole cheesiness they were. He was really willing to roll with the punches of all the complications. Somehow his usual frown just stayed there, even when he was happy, and yet he was totally not the usual over reacting yelly self. It was all sweet.

Julia's assistant was surprisingly hilarious too. I was expecting a poor man's Jonah Hill, but I still laughed my ass off, especially when he was describing Julia; "I would just tear that up". That entire exchange between them was pitch perfect. It's one of those rare instances of an dialogue between two people that aren't quite on the same tempo/wavelength, but it still kind of works regardless. Part of that may because it fills in the blanks a little on Nick's whole law-school-mental-breakdown-origin story. Nothing really surprising, and we knew most of it already, but there's something about hearing that Nick drove down to Mexico and enrolled himself in a cock fight that really adds some depth the whole thing. Seriously, that single image was worth the price of admission right there.

Bucket list. On it.

And Winston, still seperated from the rest of the cast, but his whole storyline with Shelby is actually enjoyable and doesn't feel too shoehorned in. I'd still really like it to be more attached to the rest of the cast though. Julia showed up for Knit-and-Bitch a few episodes ago, why can't Shelby? I also kind of still feel like it's hard to get a reading on Winston. It's hard to be believe that this is the same guy who did all those douchey things she describes. Or that if he did, that he'd want to go through this much trouble now. Or that the guy who's doing these nice things is the same competitive ass we've occasionally glimpsed. I feel like we're missing that cockfighting moment in his backstory.

I am not making that joke...

PS - This is apparently my 69th post. Aw yeah.