New Girl: ‘Models’

After being put on hold last week due to an MLB postseason rain delay, New Girl returned with another solid effort. While the Jess/Cece story fell flat at times, I loved everything about the story of Nick and Schmidt’s friendship and all the weird little details that circled around it.

First, on the Jess side of things, we saw her do her best to be a part of Cece’s birthday celebration by hanging out with the rest of Cece’s model friends. The best portion of this was that we got to see Cece’s crazy Russian roommate Nadia again and got to hear her plan for the birthday: “We go party tonight. Let dogs out. Catch gypsy.” Also, we got a nice call back to Nadia’s love of Wilmer Valderrama, first introduced when she listed off all the things she liked about America on her date with Schmidt last season. Besides a couple of okay gags mixed in, I could have done without so much time devoted to this plot; however, I’m glad that if the show was required to have blatant product placement for financial reasons that they didn’t try to force into a great overall episode where it didn’t belong.

But over on the guys’ side things? That was really funny and delightful. I loved that the whole questioning of Nick and Schmidt’s friendship was completely sparked by the fact that Schmidt simply brought Nick back a cookie because he was thinking of him. Pure and simple genius. Max Greenfield and Jake Johnson have become so good at expressing every emotion that their characters are going through that they don’t have to be on a big adventure or life changing dramatic moment for us to enjoy their screen time. In fact, it’s gotten to the point where the smaller the scope the better. The evolution of their friendship and the intricacies of their give-and-take relationship were fantastic to watch and moments like that make New Girl a must watch comedy.

Some of my other favorite moments:

• “Oh that’s make-up? I would take that off. You look crazy.” –Nick’s confusion on the shoe polish eye-liner she put on to go out.
• “The only time a man is allowed to think about another man is when that other man is Jay Cutler.” – Nick. Two Chicago Bears quarter back references in one night as Max tried to live out one if fantasies with Jim McMahon over on Happy Endings.
• “It’s official. We’ve got to turtle-proof this loft.” – Nick after he decided he was going after a turtle for a pet.
• “That wasn’t a cookie, damnit. That was a piece of his heart.” – Winston on what the cookie represented for Schmidt.
• “What’s going on? Did you guys watch porn together again?” – Jess on seeing the guys awkwardly sitting around together.
• “You’re the only turtle I want.” – Nick doing his best to describe his love of Schmidt.

What did everyone else think? Comments are always welcome.