After the fantastic episode “Cooler” both the writers and the cast have once again outdone themselves with this episode. In my humble opinion, this episode was an excellent follow-up to the previous episode, and there’s definitely a lot to love about it.
For starters, I’m really glad that this episode picked up pretty much right where “Cooler” ended so the viewers could see the immediate aftermath of Jess and Nick’s kiss. The episode began with Nick lying in bed freaking out about the fact that he had just kissed Jess, while Jess was just lying in bed in a state of shock. The next morning Jess was still in shock over Nick kissing her and was unsure of how to tell Sam about it. Sam was being really cute, saying that she always looked so beautiful in the morning that he couldn’t even look at her. Jess tried to confront Nick about the fact that he had kissed her, but he simply “panic moon walked” away from her, because he apparently has a habit of doing that in situations in which he feels uncomfortable. The writers even did a cutaway of several other situations where he has done that. Personally, I thought the whole running joke throughout the episode about Nick’s habit of panic moon walking out of uncomfortable situations was hilarious.
Still unsure of what to do about the situation, Jess sought refuge at Cece’s apartment where she vented to Cece. Jess told her that she was mad that Nick kissed her because he breaks things that are just fine, while Sam fixes things. In order to illustrate Nick’s tendency to ruin things, they showed a cutaway where Nick was pulling apart something that Jess was knitting for her grandma until he pretty much completely ruined it. The fact that the writers do cutaways on the show in order to illustrate something that the characters are talking about is something that I’ve always loved about the writing for New Girl. It also reminds me a lot of the show Family Guy, which is something that I’ve both loved and found annoying at times when Family Guy does cutaways. Personally, I think the writers for New Girl handle that technique perfectly in the sense that they are short and always help enhance what’s going on in the scene. With Family Guy, sometimes I’ve found the cutaways to be more annoying than they are funny in the more recent seasons. At times I feel like the writers simply do cutaways now because they’ve always done them, and that they aren’t doing them in a way that enhances the episode, especially when they just drag on a bit too long, but I digress.
Jess wanted to spend the day with Cece, but she had plans to go to an Indian marriage convention, so Jess went with her to the convention. I have to say that I’m still not sure what I think about this whole arranged marriage storyline with Cece. It just seems like a pretty weird plot device to keep Schmidt and Cece apart, and I still have very mixed feelings about it. It’s had some pretty funny moments, but for the most part I’m ready for the writers to move on from that storyline.
It turns out that Schmidt had found out about the convention and had signed up to participate in the convention a week before, so Nick and Winston both tagged along with him. Jess was upset to see Nick there, and he reacted to seeing her by panic moonwalking away from her. She confronted him and said that their kiss must have meant something to him since he kissed her, but he denied liking it, saying that it was a “nothing kiss” and was “like kissing a cousin”. Jess was still mad, so she stormed off.
I don’t know if they actually have Indian marriage conventions in real life, but I really have to question the people running the convention’s methods of assigning people to tables. They basically used people’s résumés in order to determine which table to place people at. I guess I can kind of understand the logic behind that because people with similar educational backgrounds and careers could be very compatible, but at the same time people with very different educational and career backgrounds could potentially be equally as compatible. Using this system, Cece ended up at the same table as Nick, table 34, which is apparently the table for people who don’t have advanced degrees or only have part-time jobs. I have to say that both Cece and Nick’s reactions to being placed at the same table were absolutely priceless. Cece was horrified, saying to herself that the situation was like hitting rock bottom for her, while Nick seemed absolutely oblivious to Cece’s horror regarding the situation.
As silly as the convention’s methods for assigning people to tables may have been, Nick and Cece being placed at the same table led to them having a very interesting conversation. Cece told him that she believes they were both placed at table 34 because they don’t think things through and that she knew about the fact that he had kissed Jess. Cece also told him that she basically just fell into a modeling career after someone told her they would pay her for being pretty. Nick, on the other hand, believed they were both placed a table 34 because they are bad at life. I would say that could potentially be true about him, but I thought it was a little harsh on Nick’s part to say that Cece was bad at life too.
Once away Jake Johnson did a fantastic job in this episode. Pretty much everything that he did in this episode made me laugh. I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again, Jake definitely deserves to win an Emmy for his acting New Girl. Despite the fact that Nick had originally claimed he didn’t like kissing Jess, he later told her that their kiss must have meant something to her, otherwise she wouldn’t be so upset. She continued to deny that their kiss meant anything to her, but that only caused Nick to playfully taunt her. Jess still denied that the kiss meant anything to her, which eventually made Nick kind of mad saying that their kiss was “like a damn fairy tale”.
The writers once again really showcased their talent for writing the Jess and Nick relationship in this episode. While they were arguing about their kiss at one point in the episode, Jess and Nick were paired up for a table building exercise where they built a table out of newspaper and masking tape. The objective of the exercise was to make a table that was strong enough for a phone book to be set on it without the table breaking. Despite not really paying attention to what they were doing and arguing the whole time they were making their table, the table ended up being surprisingly strong and sturdy. Nick freaked out when the lady running the convention said that building a strong table represented having a strong relationship, and he was determined to break the table. He even tried to break the table that he and Jess had made by jumping on it, but even that didn’t cause the table to break.
Jess had called Sam after she discovered that Nick had come to the convention with Winston and Schmidt, because she wanted him to come get her, but he only got roped into participating in the convention. While I’ve always liked the character Sam, I always knew that in the long run he and Jess weren’t completely compatible with each other. While the writers did a great job of demonstrating how strangely perfect Jess and Nick are for each other, they also did a pretty good job of showing that Jess and Sam aren’t perfect for each other in this episode. Before the table building competition, everybody participated in an exercise where they were all standing in the form of a circle as they passed a hula hoop from one person to the next by using only their arms. The point of the exercise was to show how compatible two people’s bodies were, and when it came time for Jess to pass the hula hoop to Sam, they weren’t able to do it without being very clumsy.
Jess finally came clean with Sam and told him about Nick kissing her during an exercise that was a lot like most speed dating events where the guys all took turns talking to the women for several minutes before moving on to the next woman. Sam instantly got upset and stormed off, telling Jess that he thought she knew that he had asked her to take him back because he wanted to have a committed relationship with her. Jess tried to explain that Nick had initiated the kiss, but he refused to listen to her. Nick even tried to convince Sam to not be mad at Jess since he was the one who had initiated the kiss, but he simply responded to Nick by punching him in the chest. He also told Jess that while Nick kissing her might not mean anything to her, the situation meant something to him.
I thought that Nick’s reaction to Sam punching him was priceless, and I would also say that Jess’ reaction to Sam punching Nick was very revealing in terms of other people being able to see the connection that Jess and Nick have. Jess instantly rushed to Nick’s side, telling Sam that Nick is in such terrible shape that he could have killed him. Sam apologized and told Nick to ice his chest for twenty-four hours before he walked off.
It definitely sucked to be Nick in this episode, because earlier in the episode Winston responded to Nick telling him that he had kissed Jess by punching him in the crotch. Before he did that, Winston told Nick that if things end up blowing up in his face that he would be the one who would have to move out of the apartment. Winston also mentioned that Nick had apparently named both of his testicles Sharon at some point, which I think is just weird, but it’s also funny.
Speaking of Winston, this episode was also a great follow-up to his storyline in the previous episode where he was having trouble talking to women. At the beginning of the episode, Winston told the guys that he’d just had the best sex of his life the night before and that he had gotten his mojo back. He even declared himself “The Mojo Man” and referred to himself as that several times throughout the episode. The lady running the Indian marriage convention ended assigning him a seat at her table and was repeatedly hitting on him throughout the episode. However, she ended up freaking him out after she gave him a compliment about his butt, so he went off and found another guy for her that he thought had a body that was similar to his for what he referred to as “an arranged bang”. That definitely made me chuckle. Personally, I didn’t think that there was anything about the guy that looked even remotely like Winston though, and I’m not just saying that because the guy was white. I just didn’t see anything about him that reminded me of Winston/Lamorne Morris.
After watching this episode, I feel like I haven’t given Hannah Simone enough credit for her acting on the show, and I think that’s probably because she and Lamorne Morris play the straight men to the characters Jess, Nick and Schmidt who are all very goofy and sometimes over the top hilarious characters. Their position as playing the straight men to the other characters definitely causes them to frequently be overlooked by most of the viewers, myself included, but they are definitely very important to the show and they do have their funny moments. Without Hannah Simone and Lamorne Morris to play off of, I don’t think the other characters would be nearly as funny as they are.
It really was fun to see Nick and Cece interact with each other a little more than they usually do in this episode. As I’ve said in several of my other reviews for New Girl, the novelty of Schmidt as a character has definitely worn off for me, but I did really like Schmidt in this episode, especially when it came to the scenes at the Indian marriage convention. As most regular viewers know, Schmidt has a tendency to be a major douche bag at times, but I thought the speech he gave at the convention about how great of a girl Cece is and what idiots he thinks the people at the convention were for ignoring her and for putting her at the same table that Nick had been assigned to was great. Personally, I thought Schmidt’s dig at Nick was kind of mean, but other than that his speech about Cece was really sweet and funny. Unfortunately for Schmidt, his speech worked a little too well and a bunch of the guys went over to talk to Cece all at once, much to Schmidt’s dismay. The episode ended with Schmidt and Cece hooking up, while Cece was telling Schmidt that she got a lot of phone numbers at the convention thanks to his speech.
I thought the way the writers left things between Jess and Nick was pretty interesting. Towards the end of the episode, Jess was sitting in their apartment drinking wine while she listened to some of Taylor Swift’s songs, and Nick was dancing to the music in an attempt to cheer her up. Jess admitted that she didn’t know how to deal with the situation since she would usually try to figure out what she did wrong to make a guy want to breakup with her, but in this case she didn’t have to do that. Apparently, Sam had always liked to fist bump with her in the morning, which she told Nick she hated. Nick told her that he felt like she was trying to forgive him. He also told her that he’d never been a home wrecker before, saying that he liked the way it felt and liked that Sam had felt threatened by him. However, he acknowledged that he also felt bad about the situation, especially since he was at least partially responsible for her breakup with Sam.
It looks like Jess and Nick are just going to try and ignore the fact that they kissed and go back to acting like they did with each other before the kiss. They shared a rather awkward hug before saying goodnight to each other. I know that they said they were going to just try and forget that they kissed, but I think it’s pretty safe to say that will be easier said than done given the spoilers I’ve read for upcoming episodes. As a fan of the Jess and Nick relationship, I can’t wait to see what happens next between the two of them, especially since it sounds like they will be forced to acknowledge the fact that they kissed again in future episodes, whether they want to or not.
Given how great the writing for Jess and Nick’s relationship has always been, I’m sure that regardless of whatever happens next, it will be hilarious. The only thing that I found a little disappointing about how the episode ended is that I kind of wish the writers would have ended the episode with Jess watching Dirty Dancing like she did in the pilot after she broke up with her boyfriend instead of having her listen to Taylor Swift songs. I don’t know if that’s something the writers had even thought of as they were writing this episode, but I just think it would have been a nice little nod to the first episode if they had done that. It’s not a big deal to me that they didn’t do that, it’s simply something that I’ve thought about as I was thinking about this episode in preparation for writing this review.
All things considered, this was a fantastic episode and a great follow-up to Jess and Nick kissing each other for the first time in the previous episode. I don’t know if it’s even possible, but I think I fell in love with the Jess and Nick relationship even more than I was before when I watched this episode for the first time. All of the Jess and Nick scenes in this episode were great and were beyond hilarious. When I was watching this episode, I couldn’t help but think that Zooey Deschanel and Jake Johnson must have had a lot of fun filming this episode. It definitely was a treat to see Nick and Cece interact with each other one on one in this episode. Winston and Schmidt were also a lot of fun to watch in this episode, and I definitely think that the writers did a great job of writing this episode.
That being said, I give this episode a rating of an A+.
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