Welcome back to my (almost) weekly New Girl recap/review! You can check out my coverage of episode 11 here. As usual, there are some spoilers in this week’s review, so read at your own risk.
It was the best of times and it was the OK-est of times in the past two episodes of New Girl. The best being episode 12, “D-Day,” which focused on Cece and Schmidt’s pre-wedding to-do list, an equal-parts scandalous and repulsive rendezvous and a job swap between Winston and Nick. And that leaves the “OK” to episode 13, “Sam, Again,” which delivers the consequences of the night of heavy drinking we saw in episode 11, “The Apartment” — a semi-unemployed Jess gets the chance to secure a position at the “super crunchy,” ultra-progressive Academy of Banyon Canyon. While one clearly trumped the other, both episodes had some pretty great lines. My favorite eight are listed below!
From episode 12, “D-Day.”
“This looks like an ad for a bong company.” Schmidt is knee-deep in wedding planning — he’s got a tux fitting and a meeting with a “napkin ring genius,” and there’s chairs to be picked and cakes to be tasted — and he calls to Winston, Jess and Nick for their input on the invites. (Also, note the strategically-placed finger over Schmidt’s first name. The world may never know it!) Jess offers her two-cents on the calligraphy options in the Jess-iest way possible.
“It was a crime turducken.” After skipping out for the third time on he and Nick’s “oldest and proudest tradition” of Meat Lunch, Winston explains the Matryoshka-doll-like conundrum he had to crack at work — a poker room was the front for a cocaine den, which was the front for a brothel. Plausibility aside, Nick is none-too-pleased with Winston’s excuses, and the boys bicker about whose job is more demanding — a recipe that inevitably leads them to a kind of chaos from which can only come some clarity. And it does! Aly tells Winston Nick was never serious in thinking running the bar was more taxing than being a cop, he just wanted Winston to acknowledge how much he has grown and changed, which Winston does in a heartfelt moment.
“I prefer my wine sparkling, pink and under $11.” Jess is the mouthpiece for a great deal of us 20-somethings in many ways, but her taste in wine perhaps resonates deepest. It seems that this statement could be said in almost all circumstances and manage to be cutesy and oh-so #relatable, even when said at the high-end Cherry Blossoms Wine tasting room in front of silver fox Gavin (Peter Gallagher). The Schmece wedding errand extravaganza just got steamier.
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“You just made out with my dad.” All aboard the Yikes Train, because that aforementioned stud Gavin turns out to be daddy dearest to our very own Schmidt. An innocent mistake made by Jess, as she had difficulty navigating Schmidt’s system of organization on his precious flash drive and just assumed “Gavin in Calabasas” was the go-to guy for wedding beverages. This realization leads to a string of feral/guttural groans of disgust followed by a silence so tense you could cut it with a knife, finished off with a Jess-is-my-new-mom innuendo, you know, for good measure. While this scenario is likely taken straight from Schmidt’s personal nightmares, it ends surprisingly sweetly, with Schmidt’s once-estranged father promising to attend the wedding.
“Chairs are color-coded under chartreuse, because it sounds like ‘chair truths.'” Salmon mongers are filed under fuchsia, because I “re-fuchsia” to serve salmon at this wedding. The groomsmen tuxes are under magenta, because “‘ma-genta-men’ will be wearing the dope tuxes.” Said by Schmidt, regarding the roundabout logic of his organization system. I don’t think any additional commentary is needed on this line; it’s pure, unadulterated Schmidt-ery, and I love it.
Episode 12 rating: 9/10
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From episode 13, “Sam, Again.”
“No germ can live in a body that is 65 percent beer.” While shoveling contraband raisins (he’s got an obsession with them, as Schmidt reveals Nick has “like, 7,500 raisins all over [his] room”) into his mouth, Nick insists that he is immune to whatever kid germs Jess brought back to the loft after her day at “nondenominational Eden” hanging with a child named Williamsburg who gets picked on for having a mom and a dad. Nick argues that his B.A.C. is simply too high, and he believes himself impenetrable by any virus. That is, until, the sticky sweets infect his body immediately and the germs spread like, well, germs to the rest of the gang. Cue a semi-bottle episode!
“He’s just the most throat-punchable boy in all the world.” After realizing her potential new boss Genevieve (Lucy Punch) is dating ex-boyfriend — and apparently ex-pediatrician as well — Sam (David Walton), Jess scrambles to hold her job prospects up. Post-breakup, Sam spiraled out, gaining 85 pounds and then losing 100, growing a full-on Jim Morrison beard, wearing shoes made from other recycled shoes. It’s clear that, though he released some anger way back when he took a swing at Nick’s jugular — he’s still hurting from the infamous Nick/Jess kiss that caused his relationship with Jess to end. The only way to resolve his emotions is to sit down for an apology session with the man who just received quite possibly the worst superlative in the world.
“Address the chair and I’ll make you some soup.” Jess suggests that a Genevieve-style “Feelings Farm” will settle the tension amongst the weird current-and-former love square, but Nick isn’t buying it. He’s got a 103-degree fever and a head filled with the musings of Poppycock Palace, the puppet show he and Cece have been nonstop streaming during their sickness, and simply can’t talk about his feelings to an empty chair. Jess’s attempt to bribe Nick with soup is so on-the-money for his particular brand of weirdness.
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Episode 13 rating: 6.5/10
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