A.J. back again with all things New Girl. Last week, I listed the five best episodes of the series in preparation for the Season 5 premiere, and this week, I return with a recap and review of Season 4 for all you viewers not quite caught up yet. I won’t be covering the first three episodes (4×01, “The Last Wedding”; 4×02, “Dice”; and 4×03, “Julie Berkman’s Older Sister”) as TYF’s own Camille Espiritu covered those when the season first aired. Be sure to check her coverage out before diving in here. As this is a recap and a review, there will be spoilers, so proceed with caution!
4×04, “Micro.”
In an effort to convince Nick, Schmidt and Winston that she’s not as shallow as she may let on, that she wouldn’t discredit a guy’s romantic potential based on how he looks, Jess takes a shot at gorgeous-but-dim Matt. At the offset, things seem to be going peachy, until he reveals that he is less-than-fortunate in his endowment. This, of course, sends the boys into a fit of laughter as they devise a bet: Jess can’t last one month dating the Man with the Micro-Penis, and if she can, Nick will donate $500 to her charity of choice. Jess insists that his “ailment” doesn’t factor into her lack of connection with him; instead, it’s his awful personality, denseness, and – surprise! – his infidelity to his girlfriend.
Meanwhile, Cece and Winston are cooking up their own dubious plan: persuading Coach and Schmidt into believing that they’ve got what it takes to become successful male models. They eventually discover it was all a ruse, but to Schmidt’s delight, he ends up on a billboard in Korea as the handsome face of “Jewish-Korean relations.”
Rating: 8/10
4×05, “Landline.”
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When Jess is on an important phone call with her superior, Principal Alan Foster, the connection crackles and cuts off. This is a light-bulb moment for Jess: the gang should install a landline for the apartment. Everyone’s personal lives become entangled thanks to the new addition, and the situation is hardly alleviated when Nick becomes honorary secretary of the landline and begins taking messages. He learns that Winston is involved with a woman named Judy, Schmidt is contemplating fitting the back of his car with a spoiler, and Coach is in a sexual relationship with the school nurse and Rose, another school employee. This causes Vice Principal Jess to enforce a strict policy banning any school faculty from dating one another. Unfortunately for her, an attractive new teacher, Ryan Geauxinue (Julian Morris), joins the school staff the very same day. Can you spell “trouble”?
Rating: 10/10
4×06, “Background Check.”
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From my list of best New Girl episodes: The gangs apartment is subject to a thorough search by Winston’s superior, Lieutenant Tess Durado, and (not surprisingly) tensions proceed to run high. Jess is left convinced she’s in the possession of a generous amount of crystal meth (hidden in the second-hand ottoman she keeps in her bedroom), Nick is on the verge of unconsciousness as he’s forced to lie and Coach roams the streets of Los Angeles looking for a boy named “Duquan.”
Rating: 10/10
4×07, “Goldmine.”
After the Nick/Jess split we saw in Season 3, things have been going quite differently for the pair. Nick’s living with his ex works exceedingly well in his strictly-casual, one-night escapades with women, but for Jess, it proves to be a real obstacle. She’s dating kind, sweet, and in-the-dark about her living situation Ian (Michael Stahl-David) and pleads for the boys to be less gross and more normal as when she invites him over to (hopefully) break the news. In true Nick fashion, he thinks up a ridiculous plan to become “Gay Nick,” in hopes of alleviating any awkward tension that might have arose when meeting Jess’s new guy. (Because really, what could go wrong?!)
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On the flip side of the gang, Schmidt learns that Cece is contemplating a breast reduction – which sends him on a comical rollercoaster through the five stages of grief – and Winston is caught up in his “long game” with the building’s newest tenants, Viv (Amber Stevens) and Michelle (Alexandra Daddario).
Rating: 7/10
4×08, “Teachers.”
Jess and Coach take Palmdale! For a teachers’ workshop led by free-spirited education guru Brenda Brown, who is described as a woman that convinces other women to have home births. At the workshop, Jess sweats it trying to avoid any interaction that is less than strictly business or totally platonic with Ryan (whom she describes as an “angel like Denzel Washington from The Preacher’s Wife”), fearing that she will be unable to mask her emotions or prevent her feelings for him from deepening. Coach has his fair share of stress as well, doubting his abilities as a health teacher and citing his apprehension that if he messes things up, his students will get pregnant. The pair have separate breakdowns as a result, leaving Coach crying on the roof of the hotel’s pool-house and Jess drunk and unable to cope with her romantic attractions. It ends well for them both, however, as Coach feels ready to teach and Jess (whom Ryan calls “beautiful and insane”) finally gets her kiss.
When the rest of the group is away, the boys will play. Nick, Schmidt, and Winston plan to have a ball during their boys’ weekend, but it quickly turns into something much different after Schmidt spills sangria on Jess’s beloved blanket, forcing him to do something he hasn’t done: laundry. Just as Coach and Jess spun out, the boys follow suit. Schmidt is thrilled at his new-found love of laundry and Winston is compulsively measuring things in the apartment. Drunk off sangria, singing “I Want to Know What Love is,” Nick joins the Hot Mess Express and admits that he doesn’t know how to love.
Rating: 9/10
4×09, “Thanksgiving IV.”
Leave it to Schmidt to turn Thanksgiving into “Bangsgiving,” a perverted twist on Thanksgiving in which everyone must invite over someone with whom a member of the group can have sex. And leave it to Coach to invite Ryan, pushing Jess in a tailspin. At the decree of Schmidt, everyone will get laid, no matter any previous self-imposed restrictions.
For Winston, Jess invites Pearl, the school’s lunch lady. For Coach, Winston brings Pepper, an attractive and athletic future policewoman. Coach feels instantly intimidated, wishing Winston would have told him he was inviting “one of the Guardians of the Galaxy.” For Schmidt, Cece invites Lucy, a woman Nick briefly dated three years prior. For Cece, Schmidt invites Geoff – with a ‘G,’ which indicates his wealth, according to Schmidt. And finally, Nick was the luckiest of the bunch, inviting his old Asian friend Tran for himself.
It’s unanimous among the group that Jess and Ryan “bang one out” and rid their dynamic of any sexual tension, but Jess disagrees: “I don’t think I can even look at him without getting pregnant. He just oozes sex.”
Though it takes some wine and some courage to warm up to their dates, it doesn’t all end badly for the gang. Jess and Ryan decide to give their relationship a chance, and kiss in honor of the “American tradition of Bangsgiving,” Pepper lets Coach win an arm-wrestling match, and Nick meets Tran’s beautiful granddaughter Kai, with whom he hits it off.
Rating: 8.5/10
4×10, “Girl Fight.”
Nick is nervous about his first date with Kai (Greta Lee), the granddaughter of the quietly wise Tran, one of Nick’s more eccentric friends. As most first dates go, the pair’s is awkward, and Kai offers that she’d rather do nothing, though she knows that option “isn’t hot.” Nick says it is to him, and they proceed to eat pizza and watch TV at the gang’s apartment. For three days straight. This piques Winston, who is unsuccessfully studying for his LAPD entrance exam, into suspecting Kai may be homeless. After all, she and Nick do have a lot in common – they both get batteries from the smoke detector and both think the best part about America is “Kentucky women.” At the relief of Nick, it’s revealed that Kai became insanely wealthy after developing and selling a company that sells bottled water to rich people.
Over on the girls’ side, after witnessing a DVR spat between Schmidt and Coach get resolved with a single punch, Jess and Cece open a once-closed wound: the case of the yellow purse neither of them purchased but both really wanted. Schmidt gets tangled in this already messy web, as he has seen the very purse before – in Jess’s closet. Jess insists that this stay hush-hush, as she and Cece have grounded their decades-long relationship in the avoidance of confrontation in favor of passive-aggression. Typical of Schmidt to crack under weakness, he steals the bag and gives it to Cece. This leads to a catharsis of pent-up grievances between the best friends at Cece’s roommate Nadia’s baby shower. Topics of discussion include the time Jess told Cece’s crush she was on her period when he wondered why Cece was wearing sweatpants in the pool, the time Cece bailed on Jess during senior ditch day, and when Cece left for Paris to model and Jess had to move in with Spencer (hello, Season 1 throwback!). Things escalate quickly into a fist fight, landing both girls in the hospital, physically battered but their friendship bettered.
Rating: 8/10
4×11, “LAXmas.”
Christmas just got less merry, as each of the gang run into some traveling troubles in the Los Angeles International Airport at the hands of a Midwest snowstorm.
Cece is headed to New York (her mom wants to see news reporter Matt Lauer and give him a Christmas card), Schmidt is off to Long Island, Nick and Winston are tag-teaming it to Chicago, and Coach is taking a one-man vacation to Hawaii rather than visiting his family in Michigan. As for Jess, she’s headed to England to meet Ryan’s family – an invitation that “skips seven steps” in her relationship plan and causes her to worry that she may not be good enough for his posh family. This fear doubles as she begins to believe she’s not good enough for Ryan either.
Before his red-eye flight with Cece, Schmidt pulls a classic Schmidt-ism and pretends he’s a man of status in LAX’s first class lounge. Things go surprisingly smoothly as he chats with an older gentleman named Robert (Barry Bostwick). That is until Schmidt is outed as a “first-timer” after oddly fondling the lounge’s decorative pillows. Robert then makes a pass at Cece, and Schmidt’s Long Island roots come out as he calls Robert a “dirty old bitch.” Elsewhere in LAX, Nick and Winston make multiple attempts to be moved up on the fly list, even going so far as to rip up other passengers’ tickets and imply that two pilots were heavily drinking at the airport bar.
After run-ins with a man who looks eerily like Santa and a cynical airport clerk named Barry (Billy Eichner), Jess’s worries get the best of her and she decides to cancel her flight to England in favor of relaxing on the couch and eating pizza. Just as she’s about to board a taxi home, the whole gang comes rushing out of LAX to convince Jess to take that leap of faith.
Rating: 8/10
4×12, “Shark.”
Construction happening right outside the group’s loft puts a damper on the celebration of Winston officially becoming a part of the LAPD. Understandably, Nick and Coach are worried about Winston’s ability to protect himself (he gets headaches from paper cuts); those fears only intensify when Winston is assigned a petite training officer named Ally (Nasim Pedrad). Though she is less-than-amused by the boys’ antics at first, Ally softens by the end of the episode, taking Nick and Coach to a support group for families of officers.
In the meantime, Jess and Schmidt butt heads when discussing what should be done about the noise from the construction work outside. While Jess would like to speak with their district’s councilwoman Fawn Moscato (Zoe Lister-Jones), Schmidt insists he take her out to dinner and smother her in compliments, both impressing her with his important political connections and charming her into solving their woes. This unfortunately flounders, but Schmidt is surprisingly deeply attracted to Fawn’s harshness (and not bothered by her prejudiced comments like, “Tone down the ‘Jewish thing’”). He buckles under his desire, agreeing to argue pro-noise at the council meeting.
Cece and Jess, knowing that Schmidt is being played, get inside Schmidt’s head and tell him that his suit sleeves are uneven mere seconds before he’s about to take the podium. Hyper-aware and self-conscious of looking foolish, Schmidt is unable to articulate an argument, forcing Fawn to recommend construction be moved to days. Still reeling, Schmidt begs for forgiveness, citing the girls as the reason for his blunder: “Please forgive me. I was duped by a doe-eyed pixie and her Indian hench-woman.” He agrees to be nothing more than her arm candy.
Rating: 6/10
4×13, “Coming Out.”
Coach’s jealousy sparks a motivation that helps Ryan and Jess’s relationship. Nearly every school faculty member ogles Ryan, leaving Coach receiving hardly any female attention. And in Coach’s world, that simply won’t do. He digs into the paperwork behind the no-dating policy and (hurrah!) finds out that Jess and Ryan no longer have to date in secret. Thrilled by the news, Jess takes the paperwork to Principal Alan Foster who, not able to be bothered with reading it all, allows her to be public with Ryan. Her only worry? Favoritism. When she must decide on the best of some pretty awful options for school field trips, Jess withdraws her vote for Ryan’s pick (a trip to the space museum to talk to a Russian astronaut about the Mars rover) in a bid to save face.
The morning of the field trip, Coach is on a mission to show a softer side and impress the school nurse. He’s in a full Ryan get-up, tie and glasses and all. However, it’s less suave and more “murderous” and “creepy” in her eyes. Way to knock Coach down a peg. The trip itself is actually quite creepy as well, considering the fact that Jess soon realizes the leaf raking and trench digging the students are doing is child labor and that they’re at the biology teacher’s farm. Said teacher panics as he’s found out and knocks down a wasps nest, the cherry on top of a certifiably horrible field trip.
Things aren’t looking so sunny for Schmidt either, as he’s forgotten to take his ulcer medication and is required to take a day off work. Knowing he will try to go anyway, Nick and Kai team up to “babysit” him, which turns out to be a string of hilarious moments in which Schmidt attempts to still get work done. (One in particular involves Schmidt in a bathrobe clacking at the keys of an almost ancient Apple processor.)
In Winston’s neck of the woods, he’s taken to wearing a large crystal around his neck, given to him by his fellow officers. Though he insists it’s not part of a hazing ritual but rather to increase his luck with ladies, the boys don’t buy it. Winston tells Coach of its additional power; it can aid you in overcoming your fears.
The episode ends at the bar with Ryan and Jess saying “I love you” for the very first time, and with Coach conquering his biggest fear: country-line dancing.
Rating: 7.5/10
4×14, “Swuit.”
Schnick (a portmanteau of Nick and Schmidt, that is) Industries have concocted a revolutionary new product: a sweatsuit-suit hybrid called the “swuit.” They’ll pitch this idea to QVC queen Lori Greiner (as herself) in just four days. Anxious to get their presentation perfect, tensions flare up between Nick and Schmidt, causing Jess to intervene. She believes they are each struggling with “man problems” and gently suggests that they allow the other to take creative control. After a flurry of exaggerated compliments and a questionable product that results from a brainstorm session, the boys realize their miscommunication and get their heads on straight for their meeting with Lori. She rejects their idea, as QVC already as a scrub/suit called the “scrut,” but gives the boys ten grand to destroy their prototype. Nick’s girlfriend Kai is none too impressed with his new ambition and how busy he is working with Schmidt, as she’d much rather do nothing with him.
Meanwhile, Winston and Coach decide to invest in Cece’s education, loaning her money to cover her tuition under the stipulation that she pay them back in three years with 10% interest. To their horror, however, they learn that her course schedule includes courses like Post-War British Art History and Afrikaans. Disappointed, Coach states that her classes mean “Screw You, Investors,” but eventually comes to his senses and apologizes to her later at the bar.
Rating: 8/10
4×15, “The Crawl.”
Kai’s dissatisfaction with Nick turns sour, as she ends their relationship. Nick goes into hiding, emerging from his room a dirty mess. He expresses a desire to go on a bar crawl that is completely unrelated to his breakup with Kai. While he was M.I.A., Jess spent a week with Ryan’s family, developing a fake accent and a smug attitude. The two are “Jyan” now, and have made dinner reservations for Valentine’s Day. Nick interjects and declares that the Valentine’s Day bar crawl is a go and that all members of the group must attend.
During the bar crawl, Cece attempts to drink Nick under the table, Coach struggles in getting the attention of an attractive girl named May (Meaghan Rath), and Ryan and Jess get fake-drunk so they can still make their dinner reservation. After spending so much time together, and on arguably the most romantic night of the year, “Jyan” is faced with the reality of a new job offer that came Ryan’s way. His dream job, in fact, as headmaster at Wellington Prep in England. Being the optimist that she is, Jess tells Ryan to accept and that they will make long-distance work.
Rating: 8/10
4×16, “Oregon.”
Jess’s dad (Rob Reiner) is getting married (to Julie Berkman’s older sister, Ashley) in their hometown of Portland, Oregon. It would be all merriment and cheer and a lovely nuptial, if only Jess hadn’t been ignored by Ryan for over a week. Matters are made worse when he fails to show up for the wedding, leaving Jess heartbroken after having planned a tour of the city ending at her childhood home, which she decorated in Union-Jack style. Jess sobs into her mother’s arms (Jamie Lee Curtis) and Nick says what we all were thinking: “Ryan bailed and that’s a dick move and that’s the truth.”
Cece is having an equally difficult time, as she’s made aware her childhood crush Jake Apex is set to attend the wedding. She’s all fumbled words and sweaty palms when she sees him, having a “full kid stroke” as she struggles to hold a conversation with him. When Jake reveals that he’s always had a crush on her, Cece reveals a secret of her own: she’s in love with someone who has a girlfriend. (Wonder who that could be …)
After a fire-alarm altercation and a situation of lost rings, the wedding ends with a slow dance between Ashley and Mr. Day and a group reflection at “Crush Pond,” where Jess states that she ended her relationship with Ryan.
Rating: 9/10
4×17, “Spiderhunt.”
The unthinkable is happening: Fawn Moscato is visiting the loft. The not surprising is also happening: Nick only knows how to cook one thing, a mix-and-match blend of odd ingredients that he fondly calls “The Sauce,” and he decides whipping up a batch will help Schmidt impress Fawn. On the girls’ side, Cece reveals that she is hiding away from the loft so she can avoid Schmidt and mask her feelings for him, but Jess is beginning to think Cece is angry with her. That misunderstanding is heightened when Cece, after persuasion from Winston, agrees to attend the dinner party.
While Nick is adding increasingly weird ingredients to an over-sized pot, Jess brushes a spider off of Schmidt, sending him into a fit of childlike terror. Thus commences the Spiderhunt! The gang is paired off into groups of two, one member being the “Jar Man” to capture the spider and the other being the “Smoosher” to, well, smoosh the spider. During such a hunt, Nick offhandedly mentions Cece’s relentless discussion about purchasing a popcorn machine and Cece is pressured into admitting that she likes someone (but doesn’t name names) in the loft. One giant, tangled web – not unlike a spider’s – of miscommunication later and Jess is convinced that Nick and Cece are star-crossed lovers, forbidden to show their true feelings. The spider is finally spotted and Schmidt makes a valiant (but unsuccessful) effort to destroy it, but instead hits Coach’s laptop, sending every email draft he’d written to May. Unlikely hero Fawn Moscato eventually vanquishes the eight-legged fiend, enjoys Nick’s sauce, and even admits to liking Schmidt.
Rating: 10/10
4×18, “Walk of Shame.”
After one good hair-do and one raucous night at a guy named Bearclaw’s party, Cece and Jess endure a walk of shame from their worst nightmare involving a run-in with an ex-boyfriend (who turns out to be a party clown), crashing a child’s birthday party, drinking hose water, and one very inspirational pep talk.
Back at the loft, Nick and Winston do their best to convince Coach to allow them to tag along to watch May’s cello performance at an art exhibit. Coach’s world and May’s world don’t seem to align just right, until the end of the episode when she learns the ESPN theme tune on her cello.
Rating: 8/10
4×19, “The Right Thing.”
Breaking news: Jessica Christopher Day has sent her first sext. Admittedly, it’s not all that risque, as she’s fully clothed with a bra on the outside of her top. High off the adrenaline of doing something so “daring,” Jess primps for her date with the man in question, a guy named Pete whom she met at the guy, but he never shows. Things go from iffy to awful when Jess learns Pete died after falling on a showroom floor. She does “the right thing” and attends Pete’s memorial with Coach and Winston who fawn over athlete JJ Watt, Pete’s supposed best friend. It quickly turns ugly when Pete’s girlfriend finds Jess’s sext on his cell phone. Yiiikes.
Meanwhile, Schmidt is sweating it as he prepares for his mother’s visit, knowing he needs to ask her his bar mitzvah money, a total of $10,000, to invest in the purchase of 10% of the bar. The boys’ day is spent sending personalized thank-you cards to those who attended Schmidt’s bar mitzvah. After a trip to the nail salon and a meaningful conversation with Cece, whom she does not know (she refers to her as a “Mexican woman” who gave her an epiphany), Schmidt’s mother hopes to be less demanding of her son and agrees to give him the money he needs. At the bar during the episode’s end, plus Winston’s partner Ally joins the gang for a drink to celebrate the new investment.
Rating: 9.5/10
4×20, “Par 5.”
Frustrated by the shortage of funding and lack of technology at the school, Jess asks Fawn for a favor: to butter up the school board at a charity golf tournament in hopes they’ll send computers the school’s way. Surprisingly, Fawn agrees and brings Jess and Schmidt along, giving them each a task. Jess must maintain composure in front of the prominent board members and Schmidt must look “less pale,” as Fawn wants a photo with someone “more ethnic-looking” to diversify her campaign. A lot of glittery bronzer and ghostly-white foundation is involved, and Fawn’s chance at a photo op takes a turn as she exposes her commando status when reaching for a golf ball.
Winston’s luck with the ladies is rocky at best, proven true when he meets a beautiful but anti-police woman named KC. Too embarrassed to admit his profession and too afraid it may drive her away, Winston pretends he’s a stripper who often wears a cop uniform as part of his act. He breaks down to Nick, who offers to help him come clean to KC, but Winston admits that Nick can’t understand the complicated relationship and tensions that exist between law enforcement and black people. Finally, Winston lays his cards on the table to KC. Though she’s upset he lied, Winston gets his just desserts when KC asks him to perform a striptease in public.
Rating: 7/10
4×21, “Panty Gate.”
We’re hit with a double whammy in Season 4’s penultimate episode when not one but two couples call it quits. First up is Coach and May. The reason is similar to what severed Jess and Ryan: one half of the pair is moving (May to New York) and long-distance just isn’t realistic. Unwilling to show emotion over the split, Coach insists that he is fine, but eventually begins sobbing as he gives a health presentation to his students. May puts on a tough exterior that fades quickly as well, and the two end up professing their love for each other. She asks him to move with her and he agrees, knowing he’s made the right decision.
Next come Schmidt and Fawn, who go their separate ways after Fawn swindles Schmidt into falsely admitting his perverted desires at a press conference in order to repair her “pantygate” disaster. Still madly in love with Schmidt, Cece decides she must take her mind off her feelings and find herself. She leaves to embark on a three-week trek up Mount Shasta before she learns that he and Fawn are no longer together.
Rating: 7/10
4×22, “Clean Break.”
In the Season 4 finale, we say our goodbyes to Coach and he is firm in his insistence that they be unsentimental, stating that memories are “nonessential.” Schmidt takes on the same no-emotion attitude and rids his room of all mementos that remind him of Cece. Thankfully, the macho men’s facades crumble as Coach makes his tearful departure and Schmidt musters up the courage to propose to Cece.
Rating: 10/10
REVIEW TIME!
What I loved: This season was a true bounce-back for the show, with super-strong episodes like “Landline” and “Background Check” reminding the audience why we love the show in the first place. Season 4 definitely contained some defining moments for the show and its characters as well. These include Jess’s personal growth in her time spent with Ryan, discovering what she can and cannot take in a romantic relationship as well as Schmidt and Cece dropping the act and answering the “will-they/won’t-they” question.
Speaking of Cece … Cece freakin’ Parekh! More screen time for her! Though I’ve always enjoyed Hannah Simone’s performance as Cece, she’s proved that the character is more than just Jess’s beautiful sidekick, especially in Season 4. She’s witty, strong, and multi-faceted, and I so look forward to seeing what’s in store for her in the season to come.
What (or rather who) I struggled with: Fawn Moscato.
I wasn’t a huge fan how the Fawn Moscato storyline panned out. Episodes that heavily centered on her motives and her behaviors (particularly “Par 5”) were dry, and her relationship with Schmidt verged on the unrealistic. I sometimes felt the urge to psych myself up to power through their scenes, and I definitely felt uncomfortable watching Schmidt endure her mistreatment. And that’s not a gripe with Zoe Lister-Jones’s portrayal of the fame-hungry councilwoman. I think she captured the role the way it was written well, but the writing and direction of the character was a bit lackluster. There’s not much flair you can inject into something that feels intentionally one-dimensional.
I would have loved to see the business-oriented alpha-female let down her guard during an evening in the gang’s apartment playing True American, or revealing a softer side on an overnight trip that would inevitably lead to all-in-good-fun trouble. We saw a bit of that in “Spiderhunt” and “Panty Gate,” but just barely. A deeper kind of development would have been warmly welcome. Overall, I was left feeling that there was virtually no actual chemistry, just a lot of weird dynamic, between Fawn and Schmidt.
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