It’s hard to believe that
this was the season finale, mainly because I feel like the season really flew
by, but I say that in a good way. Now that season two has ended, I can
definitely say that I love season two even more than I loved season one, which
is something that I’ve been thinking for quite a while now. This episode was
the perfect way to end what I think was an absolutely amazing season.
If the previous episode
didn’t make me absolutely hate Jess’ dad, Bob, this episode definitely did.
Thankfully, he was barely in it. At the beginning of the episode Jess, Nick,
Schmidt and Winston were getting ready to go to Cece’s wedding, and Jess wanted
her dad to take a picture of them. Bob very quickly tried to kick Nick out of
the picture by telling him to move further and further out of the camera frame
until he left the apartment. This quickly led to Jess, Nick, Schmidt and
Winston fighting with each other before everybody but Jess stormed off. Once
everybody else had left, Bob took a picture of Jess, and I have to say that I
love the way Zooey Deschanel posed and smiled for the picture. I thought it was
cute, and it definitely made me chuckle.
That being said, even if Bob
doesn’t really like Nick all that much, I don’t think that gives him the right
to be as rude to Nick as he was in both that scene and the previous episode.
After all, he’s not just staying in Jess’ apartment, Nick, Schmidt and Winston
live there too, so I think he should at least act polite towards each of them
since he’s a guest in their home. Besides, it wasn’t just this episode that he
acted rude to the guys. I also thought he was being pretty rude to Winston in
the previous episode, calling him “Wilson” and making him feel guilty about
eating the birthday cake that he had bought for himself. If I were Nick,
Winston or Schmidt, I would definitely have told Bob to take a hike if he was
going to act as rude as he was being.
This episode once again reinforced
my belief that both the writers and Lamorne Morris have really found their
grove the character Winston after having him come across as being rather
forgettable in season one. If you ask me, this episode was probably Lamorne’s best
performance yet on the show. After Schmidt accidentally walked in on Cece
getting ready for the wedding when he was trying to find the men’s restroom, he
came to the conclusion that Cece wanted to get out of her wedding to Shivrang.
He was repeatedly insisting the Cece had told him this with her eyes. This
prompted him to team up with Winston to play a series of pranks designed to
sabotage Cece’s wedding. Naturally, since it has already been well established
that Winston is terrible at playing pranks, this led to a series of disasters.
Nick was initially
determined to stop Schmidt and Winston from playing any pranks, but Jess
mistakenly came to the conclusion that he had been working with them from the
beginning after they played a prank that involved playing the song “Cotton Eye
Joe” by Rednex on speakers, which was on a CD that belonged to Nick. Once Jess
refused to believe him when he said that he hadn’t been involved in the prank,
Nick decided to join Winston and Schmidt and help them carry out their next
prank since Jess thought that he was already involved when he actually wasn’t.
It’s pretty clear that Nick was thinking that if Jess was going to be mad at
him for the whole prank with playing “Cotton Eye Joe”, he might as well do the
crime, and I can’t say that I blame him for feeling that way. It always sucks
when someone accuses you of doing something that you didn’t do and refuses to
believe that you’re not guilty.
All of the scenes with Nick,
Winston and Jess in the air ducts were definitely among the best highlights
from this episode. The whole thing began with Winston and Nick crawling through
the air ducts with a badger in a cage, because Winston’s plan was to drop the
badger on the priest’s head. However, Schmidt soon went to Jess and told her
that their pranks had gotten out of control. Schmidt told her about the badger
in the air ducts, and he also told Jess that Nick hadn’t been involved with
their pranks in the beginning and that he’d only gotten involved in the whole
thing after she had refused to believe him when he said that he didn’t have
anything to do with their earlier pranks. Once Jess knew the truth about the
sabotage, she went up into the air ducts so she could talk to Nick.
What made the scenes in air
ducts so funny for me was Winston and how he was saying the most random things,
such as that he thought this might be how they were all going to die and that he
didn’t think that he’d ever truly been in love with anyone before. That line
was rather random in the my opinion since he was completely unaware of the
conversation that Jess and Nick were having about whether not she thought her
dad was right for thinking that he’s too much of a mess for them to ever work
as a couple. Jess started to answer Nick’s question, and it sounded like she
was going to say that there’s a part of her that thinks that Nick is too much
of a mess, but it also seemed like she was about to say something about that it
might not be that big of a deal to her when she and Nick fell from the air duct
and into the room where Cece and Shivrang were almost done with the last part
of the wedding ceremony. Jess awkwardly addressed the wedding guests, telling
them about the badger before she told the priest to go ahead and finish
ceremony. However, Cece ended up telling Shivrang and all of the wedding guests
that she was sorry, but she couldn’t marry him, not because of any of the
pranks that Schmidt and Winston had tried to play throughout the episode, but
because she was in love with someone else (Schmidt). Shivrang took the
situation surprisingly well and told her that he was in love with a woman named
Elaine, who was played by Taylor Swift.
Shivrang told Elaine that he
didn’t care what his parents think; he wants to marry her in a Presbyterian
church and have kids with her. Elaine told Shivrang that she’s been in love
with him ever since she was in the first grade and that she also writes about
him in her diary every night, calling him “Shivy”. Shivrang quickly carried
Elaine out of the room as she cheered with excitement.
When it comes to Taylor
Swift’s appearance in the episode, I was really surprised by how brief it was.
I wouldn’t say that I’m disappointed that Taylor Swift’s appearance on the show
was so brief, because I’m not. That being said, I was expecting her to have a
more significant role in the episode given the way Elizabeth Meriwether and the
cast hyped up the whole thing. I’m guessing they were just really starstruck
getting to work with Taylor Swift, and that’s why they talked up her appearance
so much. I also can’t help, but wonder if everything Elaine said was the
writers’ way of playing poking fun at Taylor Swift’s songs. Despite how brief
Taylor Swift’s appearance in the episode was, I thoroughly enjoyed it,
especially considering the fact that they had mentioned her on the show several
times throughout the season.
Sometimes I think having
characters on a TV show constantly say things that are very random can be a bad
thing, because I think it’s a major sign of bad writing if characters on a show
are constantly saying very random and bizarre things that seem out of character
for them, especially if the show is a drama. Two really good examples of TV
show that I can think of where the writing is very random, but random in a bad
way, are 90210 and Gossip Girl. The writing on 90210 and Gossip Girl was
frequently random when it came to character and storyline development, and it
was those kinds of moments that really highlighted some of the things that were
bad about those particular shows.
That being said, it’s been
my experience that when characters on shows like New Girl or Happy Endings do
or say very random things, it typically works to the show’s advantage and adds
to the humor on the show. This was definitely the case with the writing for
Winston in this episode. Although, I have to admit that I was a little thrown
by the whole thing with Shivrang telling Cece that he wants to be with Elaine.
After all, Shivrang seemed to be pretty into Cece and never once gave any
indication whatsoever that he was interested in someone else too. I thought
that what Shivrang said about wanting to marry Elaine in a Presbyterian church
was also pretty random, but in a funny way. Does that mean Elaine is supposed
to be Presbyterian? Regardless, that aspect of Shivrang’s confession was pretty
funny, if you ask me.
A part of me can’t help but
think that the whole thing with Shivrang wanting to be with Elaine was a bit of
a cop-out on the writers’ part, so they could have Cece leave Shivrang at the
alter without making her look too bad. That being said, I definitely wouldn’t
mind it if the writers brought Shivrang back at some point in the future,
because I really came to like him, especially when he was interacting with
Jess, Nick, Winston and Schmidt.
Going back to Jess and
Nick’s conversation about their relationship, they decided to “call it” and not
try and take things any further between them beyond what has already happened.
Nick went to the bar at the wedding to get drunk in order to get over the
situation with Jess, but Winston who crawled out of an air vent quickly joined
him. What really made that part so funny to me was that Winston was now wearing
a makeshift tourniquet on his arm and his arm was bleeding because the badger
had apparently bitten him at some point, but they hadn’t showed it. Anyway,
Winston told Nick that he didn’t have to be like his dad and get drunk to deal
with his problems, which prompted Nick to go look for Jess, and as soon as Nick
left Winston asked the bartender to call an ambulance because he thought that
he was about to bleed out.
Towards the very end of the
episode, Jess ended up confronting Nick, saying that she knows he thinks they
should give up on pursuing a romantic relationship, but she begged him to not
give up on the idea of them being together. They shared a kiss and decided to
run off together, but they quickly started arguing about which way to drive
despite the fact that they hadn’t even decided where they wanted to go as the
episode came to an end. I have to say that I love how Jess and Nick quickly
started arguing about which way to drive, because it felt very true to their
relationship since they are constantly arguing with each other about the
stupidest things, which is a big part of why I love their relationship so much.
The writers really surprised
me with how they handled the end of the episode. I was really expecting the
episode to end with a cliffhanger regarding the Jess and Nick relationship, but
instead the cliffhanger for the episode revolved around Schmidt, Cece and
Elizabeth. Elizabeth confronted Schmidt about the fact that he had been trying
to sabotage Cece and Shivrang’s wedding when he said that he wanted to be with
her (Elizabeth). Schmidt insisted that he had only been trying to sabotage the
wedding as a friend, but Cece soon joined them and told them that she was
talking about Schmidt when she told everybody that she wanted to be with
someone else, and not Shivrang. Elizabeth and Cece both told Schmidt that he
needed to decide who he wanted to be with right then and there, but he quickly
ran off, so it looks like the viewers will have to wait until next season to
see what happens next with the whole Cece/Schmidt/Elizabeth love triangle. That
being said, I really like that the cliffhanger didn’t involve Jess and Nick,
because that’s what I had been expecting, so it was nice to be surprised by the
writers like that.
All things considered, this
episode was definitely the perfect way to end what I think was a truly
fantastic second season of New Girl. This episode had more funny moments than I
can count, especially when it comes to Winston’s material in the episode. Both
Winston as a character, and Lamourne Morris as an actor has really grown on me
throughout New Girl’s second season. The whole cast did a stellar job in this
episode though, especially Zooey Deschanel and Jake Johnson when it came to the
more dramatic moments between them. It will definitely be very interesting to
see where the writers take Jess and Nick’s relationship in season three since
it looks like they will probably be dating next season.
Having the season ending
cliffhanger revolve around Schmidt and his relationships with Cece and
Elizabeth rather than have it revolve around Jess and Nick, was perhaps one of
the most surprising things about the season finale. I think a lot of other
people had also been expecting a cliffhanger that revolved around the Jess and
Nick relationship too though. I can’t wait to see what happens next with
Schmidt’s current predicament, but I for one am hoping that Merritt Wever will
be returning for season three and that Schmidt will still be dating Elizabeth when
the new season starts. I suppose a lot of that depends on Merritt Wever’s
availability since she’s a series regular on Nurse Jackie though.
While I definitely think
that Elizabeth Meriwether and the cast of New Girl totally overhyped Taylor
Swift’s appearance in the season finale, mainly because her appearance was so
brief, I still thoroughly enjoyed it. Taylor Swift did a much better job than I
had been expecting when they first announced that she would be guest-starring
in the season finale. It definitely seemed like she was kind of poking fun at
herself and her music, which was fun.
That being said, I give the
season finale a rating of an A+.
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