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.

New Girl - 1x24 - See Ya

It's moving day for Nick, and while Winston and Schmidt are content to crow passive aggressively about how much money they're going to save (and then spend on licensed plumbers), Jess is resorting to direct insults, sabotage, haranguing, and eventually just straight up pleading to get Nick to stay.

And then she goes back to sabotage again.

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.

New Girl - 1x22 - Tomatoes

Nick (maybe as a consequence of his soul searching last week?) decides to seize control of his crapper of a life and he starts by...planting some tomatoes. Or is it one tomato? He plants one plant is what I'm saying. Who knows how many tomatoes are supposed to come from there. Do I look like a goddamned philosopher?

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?

New Girl - 1x20 - Normal

Ironically THIS feels like the real Part 2 to Fancyman Part 1, much like last week felt like the Part 2 to Fancyman Part 2. If it wasn't for the fact that FM2 explicitly showed Jess and Russel's first date, I'd recommend shuffling the viewing order a little.

Jess spent an entire week at Russell's GIANT MANSION, and it all went splendidly. But Jess gets scared by how good it's going. And who could blame her? I'm 98% certain her line about living in a romantic comedy montage where she tries on floppy hats is from an actual Zooey Deschanel movie. So, she tries to get the relationship on a more even keel by asking Russell to spend the weekend at her place. Not surprisingly, a middle aged man spending a weekend in a loft with drunken twenty-somethings ends in nothing but tears and blood.

New Girl - 1x19 - Secrets

So right off the bat, that whole Cece/Schmidt conspiracy/secret lasts all of two minutes. Winston, unable to live with unholy knowledge, is compelled to exorcise it from his very soul, by expelling its dark cloud from his lungs and forcing it to infect the nearest living soul, Nick.


What? That's totally what I got out of the bizarre grapple that preceeded the secret.

New Girl - 1x18 - Fancyman Part 2

Hey, we get out first two part episode! That's what "Part 2" means, right? Cause apart from a shared guest star, these two eps have like nothing in common. I mean, yeah, they're both about "growing up", but half of all episodes (everywhere!) are about growing up.

Don't get me wrong, it's a good ep. And what we do get is classic New Girl: relatable Jess, adorable Cece/Schmidt, screamy-drunk Nick, Winston doing ... good work...out there by himself. Unfortunately most of those arcs are largely suffer, perhaps unfairly, from the fact they don't build on almost any of their counterparts from last week. Especially Nick's. That dude had an earth shattering revelation about himself, on top of finally letting go of the woman he loves (likes? kinda crushes on?) and there's absolutely no follow-up. Considering the abrupt way Part 1 ended, it's especially maddening.

Alright, enough bad stuff though. Let's focus on the good.

New Girl - 1x17 - Fancyman Part 1

It's an episode full of surprises. Jess is thrown into a tizzy when she's unexpectedly wooed by a more sophisticated, older man. Meanwhile, Nick comes to a shocking revelation about himself when confronted with the reality of Jess' new suitor. And Winston and Shelby get closer with a little help from Schmidt, which is, unfortunately  oddly enough, not as dirty as it sounds.

All put together, it's one of the more fun episodes in a run of a great ones. It doles out the deep character insights that we've come to expect from a lot of episodes in the second half of this season, but without the bittersweet overtones that have typically pervaded them.

New Girl - 1x16 - Control

Last week we spent an evening helping Nick sort out his existential crises (again), so it's only fair this week we get an overdue trip into Schmidt's Dark Night of the Soul.

Despite a silly premise that's kind of ludicrous on its face, this episode delivers some solid laughs and a much deeper insight into Schmidt than one would've thought. Certainly deeper than what we got in The Story of the 50, though it compliments it nicely. It's also the rare episode of New Girl that could do with more explicit emotional denouements, what with certain folks motivations remaining a mystery all the way through the very end. 

New Girl - 1x15 - Injured

Nick grapples with mortality in his trademark rabid pitbull-esque way while gang try their best to be there for him in their typical manner: baffling outbursts of emotion, inappropriate nudity, and the sweet dulcet tones of freestyle rapping.

Injured showcases everything that this show does great while deftly hiding all it's usual flaws. We get a Jess that's quirky but not annoying, and even sympathetic. We get to run through the whole emotional gamut of Nick-freakouts. We have Schmidt being hilariously douchey and vulnerable. Winston gets a decent subplot and even takes part in the main story line. Cece pulls some awesome out of nowhere, as usual. Foremost though, the story rings emotionally true, skillfully weaving conversational humor and sight gags with familiar quarter-life crises, along with a great guest star or two. This is what New Girl does best.

New Girl - 1x14 - Bully

Nooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!


Julia's gone! Lizzie's left! Where is the justice in the world? I give up on TV! Forever.


Okay I don't. But that's only because I'm weak.

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.

New Girl - 1x12 - The Landlord

...what just happened?

New Girl - 1x11 - Jess and Julia

Someone finally calls Jess out on her hyper annoying twee bullshit. And it's none other than Lizzy's new character, Julia. Which is why it's kind of a shame the premise of this episode isn't nearly as satisfying as it would've been a few weeks ago. Unfortunately it happens now, about three episodes after said hyper annoying bullshit got toned way the fuck down, so it just comes off like petty cattiness on Julia's part. Despite that though, we actually get another pretty great episode. Caplan's great as always, Jess is not only tolerable, but sympathetic, and even socially saavy to a degree we haven't seen before. Winston, honest-to-god-this-time, gets something to do. And of course, Schmidt douches it up hilariously, once again.

New Girl - 1x10 - The Story of the 50

Lizzy Caplan (!!!!) joins us on what's hopefully the beginning of a long, long guest stint. And she couldn't have picked a better episode to hop on, because this week, we get a little bit of everything that makes this show work, and nothing of what's made it so frustrating in the past.

We get a hilariously douchey, but ultimately loveable Schmidt (and his d-bag Schmiddy friends). We get a neurotic, curmuddgeonly, screamy Nick. We even get an legitimately enjoyable Jess! A Jess who's quirky and sweet, but doesn't make you wonder why they don't make her wear a helmet when she leaves the house. We get a Winston that's...there. And we get a potential game changer I legitimately didn't see coming.

New Girl - 1x09 - The 23rd

Now this was a much better episode. I liked this a lot. Jess is quirky, but believeable, with a legitimate problem that she handles maturely though not perfectly. The guys continue to be the high point of this show, and even Winston gets something awesome to do. And most importantly, cause I'm a huge damn wussy dork, we get more of the awesome Cece/Schmidt. Overall, pretty damn cool.

New Girl - 1x08 - Bad in Bed

Yeah I'm not buying this. I didn't buy this in the Pilot, I didn't buy it in Kryptonite or Thanksgiving or basically any of this show. So please, for the sake of this show, stop trying to convince us that Zooey Deschanel is ...whatever kind of incompetent you're trying to portray her as. It really just immediately sucks any enjoyment out of the show. What you're doing is not making her seem like an approachable, wacky girl we'd all love to meet. You're making her look like one of those damaged children that were lost in the woods or locked in a psych experiment for 23 years, and have only recently become acquainted with other people.

You're doing bad, is what I'm saying.

New Girl - 1x07 - Bells

A surprisingly pretty sweet ep considering the cliche-sounding plot. Jess helps a group of wayward kids, Winston finds a way to reclaim his self-esteem and learns an important lesson about being competitive, and Nick and Schmidt hash out money issues. And yet, we end up with the best screaming matches this side of Philadelphia, and a few awesome bell recitals (Eye of the Tiger for fuck's sake!). Seriously I can really barely remember anything except for bells. I didn't know you could play bells that awesome. Is this what I miss when I don't have ESPN? Is there a US Bell Ringing Championship? Playoffs? Is this a thing?

Oh, apparently it is

New Girl - 1x06 - Thanksgiving

Continuing the trend of deflecting Zooey's annoying "adorableness" by bringing in some extra Crazy, this episode we get the male version of Zooey Deschanel, Justin Long, playing the male version of Jess. Actually that may be mean to Zooey. I imagine even at our most bitter, we still love her a lot more than Justin Long. Sorry dude. If it makes you feel any better, I'm probably the one person on the planet that didn't think you came off as a smug asshole in those Apple commercials. Ironic, huh?