In a TV season where quite a
few of my favorite TV shows are suffering from a creative slump, it’s nice to
see New Girl be on such a creative roll this season. New Girl has especially been
on a roll creatively ever since Jess and Nick kissed in episode 2x15 “Cooler”,
and the writers’ creative streak continues in this episode.
Schmidt was planning a party
to celebrate the ten-year anniversary of Nick and him being roommates. Schmidt
referred to their anniversary as their “tin anniversary”, and after Jess
pointed out that the chemical symbol for tin is Sn Schmidt declared that the
theme of the party would be “TinFinity”. This episode once again showcased just
how weird Schmidt and Nick’s friendship really is, and I thought that the
episode “Models” made their friendship seem as strange as the writers possibly
could when Schmidt bought Nick a cookie and Nick spent the whole episode trying
to figure out the meaning behind the cookie.
The character Schmidt has
already pretty much completely played out and almost all of the novelty of the
character has worn off for me, so I don’t find his antics all that funny anymore,
especially in this episode. Nick and his behavior in this episode is what made
that storyline so funny to me, especially when it comes to the whole thing with
Nick buying an old Porta-Potty and was really excited about it after Nick put
him in charge of getting Porta-Potties and balloons for the party.
Personally, I thought it was
pretty risky of the writers to have Jess and Nick kiss each other so early in
the show’s run, but I have to say that I think it has really paid off for the
writers to take that risk. The aftermath of Jess and Nick’s kiss has led to
some really great material on the show, and this episode is definitely a very
good example of their kiss providing some great material between Jess and Nick.
Jess told Cece that she hasn’t been able to stop thinking about the kiss that
she shared with Nick. She also told Cece about the fact that she kissed Schmidt
in the previous episode (“Parking Spot”). I loved Cece reaction to Jess telling
her that she and Schmidt had kissed. What made that scene even better in my
opinion was when Nick came in the room and was acting really weird, asking Jess
if he had anything on his mouth after he ate a cupcake and got frosting on his
mouth. That moment was perfectly timed given the fact that Jess was in the
middle of telling Cece about how she hasn’t been able to stop thinking about
having “Nick’s mouth on her mouth” as she put it.
Cece suggested that Jess
find a new boyfriend, saying that dating Shivrang had helped her get over
Schmidt, so Jess decided to go try and meet a guy at the bar where Nick works,
which led to a sequence of Jess talking to guys that were all extremely weird
in their own way. Things took a turn for the better when Winston showed up with
a football player named Jax, which he had interviewed for his job at the radio
station. Jess immediately decided to talk to him. Winston was adamantly against
the idea of Jess dating Jax, so he spent most of the episode trying to come
between them, because he was determined to be best friends with him. Most of
his attempts to come between them only backfired on him, making Jax think that
he was weird.
At first Jess really liked
that Jax was very open and honest about telling her how he felt about her.
However, as the episode continued it became very clear that Jax was a very
emotional person and a total nutcase, especially after he gave a speech at
Schmidt’s “TinFinity” party telling everybody that Jess was a “heart thief” and
that she was going to be his third wife. Jess was completely freaked out by
Jax’s declaration and hid from him. The situation did kind of work out for
Winston though, since he was the one who comforted a sobbing Jax towards the
end of the episode.
I have to say that I’ve
loved each of the love interests that Jess has had throughout the show’s run. I
say this because I feel like each guy that Jess has been with at this point has
helped her to grow as a character in some way. For example, when she first met
Sam, it was very hard for her to have a casual relationship with him that
initially consisted mainly of sex without developing feelings for him before
they broke up the first time. Personally, I thought it was very refreshing to
see Jess get freaked out by Jax’s behavior and walk away from the situation
rather easily instead of getting swept up in his emotions and reciprocate them.
I’ve been a big fan of Steve
Howey’s for a long time now ever since he was on the show Reba, and I love him
on Shameless, so it was really fun for me to see Steve on New Girl. I thought
that Steve played the role of Jax perfectly. Although, I have to say that I’m
not a fan of his current hairstyle or his goatee. I used to think that Steve
was really hot, but the way his hair looks these days as well as his goatee
just make him look rather gross in my opinion.
Speaking of Cece, her
relationship with Shivrang seems to be really progressing rather quickly.
Shivrang told her that her mom and his mom had talked to each other about the
possibility of them getting married, saying that they had given them their
blessing. Shivrang then proceeded to propose to Cece in what has got to be one
of the least romantic ways a guy could ever propose to a girl. He simply asked
her, “When do you want to do this thing?” and “So, we’re doing this thing?”
Cece was obviously very
disappointed that Shivrang was proposing to her in such an unromantic way, and
I don’t blame her at all for being upset that Shivrang would ask her to marry
him like that. I would be absolutely pissed off if a girl decided to propose to
me, and then asked me to marry them like that.
Anyway, Shivrang proposed to
Cece again later on in the episode when they were at Schmidt’s TinFinity party,
only this time his proposal was a bit more romantic and Cece accepted his
proposal. It wasn’t too much more romantic than his first proposal though, but
I did think his nervousness was kind of sweet since he was proposing in front
of everyone at the party.
Schmidt was devastated to
see Cece get engaged to Shivrang, Nick comforted him and they had a nice talk.
Nick told him that it was moments like that that made their friendship worth
celebrating. I have to say that I really liked that scene, and I loved the
flashbacks of Schmidt and Nick when they were in college that they had in this
episode. I’ve always thought that the flashbacks of their college years were rather
funny. Although, I absolutely hate the moustache that Jake Johnson always wears
in those flashbacks. It just looks flat-out gross.
All things considered, this
really was a truly great episode. This episode was full lots of funny moments,
as well as quite a few heartwarming moments as well. I really like that this
episode did a great job of progressing the drama between Jess and Nick
regarding the aftermath of their kiss, as well as the whole storyline with Cece
having her mom set her up with guys for an arranged marriage. While I’m really
starting to view Schmidt’s behavior on the show as being more bizarre than it
is funny, it’s definitely very consistent with the way the character has always
been written, which I can definitely appreciate. As I mentioned earlier, it was
definitely great to see Steve Howey on the show since I really am a huge fan of
his. He definitely played the role of Jax very well.
That being said, I give his
episode a rating of an A-.
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