New Girl: First Date, Review
Another awesome and somewhat frustrating New Girl.
Ok, I took three things from the latest New Girl episode. Number one: in L.A., all homeless men are apparently extremely musically talented. Number two: this “will they or won’t they” Nick-Jess crap is past getting on my nerves and into “WTF?!” Territory. Finally, number three: Jake Johnson in a loosened tie and white button down is H.O.T. Like, seriously.Omg, I was drooling. Drooooooooling.I may just flash back to that image as I write this. Excuse the interruptions of my mind recalling insanely attractive male behavior.Which, in a way brings me to the point of the episode (or what I assume is the point of the episode): people who are made for each other are attracted to each other in weird ways. For instance, Nick thinks it is hot that Jess can’t open jars by herself and needs his help (sort of understandable). Jess thinks Nick’s beer gargling is attractive (this is less understandale).Basically, falling for your best friend is strange and funny and not at all easy to navigate, but hey, that’s just life. It may be all soft focus and rose tinted close-ups in the movies, but in real the world of New Girl (and reality) falling in love is probably the stupidest, most awkward, insane thing you will ever do.Wow. It just got serious up in here. Heerrah. Here-ah.I don’t know how to dialect that… Moving on.All good comedy is based in tragedy (or at the very least, pain) and when we get to watch two talented actors such as Deschanel and Johnson bring that to life… well, you have television gold. This isn’t to say that the episode wasn’t infuriating. It was. JUST GET THEM TOGETHER ALREADY!!!Waaaait, flashing back to the loose tie moment aaaaaand…sigh.Ok, I’m back.So, what happens in this episode? Well. Nick and Jess find it weird that they can’t figure out what they are to each other. Nick sophomorically touches Jess’s boobs. Jess lets him. Winston and Schmidt fight over the common cell phone charger, which is something no roommates do in real life, but clearly just sitcom convention.Nick goes to his mentor, an old Asian man on a park bench who only sits there and looks at him while Nick fills in the blanks. At some point, the mentor gets a pretzel. I don’t know how. One minute, he has an empty hand. The next minute, a pretzel is there. It is an absurd and magical moment.The end result of this is that Nick decides he has to ask Jess out on a date. He marches to her bedroom, knocks on her door, and she answers…in a bath towel. He predictably loses his train of thought and sort of asks her to dinner…?Nick gets clothing advice from Schmidt and manscaping from Winston and then goes on his date. With Jess. Winston and Schmidt put two and two together and realize Nick is going on a date. With Jess. They immediately decide to try to derail it, because without single Nick as a roommate, they as friends don’t work. Cue a hilarious past-fat-Schmidt and cornrow-Winston college moment. Nice.Therefore, Winston and Schmidt recruit the homeless man outside their alley (who, incidentally, has a guitar) to go and sing at Nick and Jess on their date. Why? Because Winston’s worst date was when a random homeless man marched up to his table and danced and sang 80s love ballads for the entire time. Yes, we get a flashback. Yes, it is hilarious. Yes, I wanted that scene to just keep going. Sadly, the rest of the episode had to happen.Winston and Schmidt bargain with the homeless man and get him to say yes by offering 25 minutes of TV time and a homemade sandwich. They decide to pay him before he sings, which is ridiculous, and results in the homeless man locking himself in their bathroom. They can’t call the cops, because in the phone charger fight, Schmidt put it in the bathroom, and both of their phones are dead.Basically, this storyline ends up with Schmidt getting his calf shaved by the homeless man, he and Winston realizing they are good friends on their own now (a nice conclusion to their season arc), and the homeless man taking a deuce while eating a sandwich.Lovely.Meanwhile, Jess and Nick are on a date, but not on a date, but on a date. They get ticketed by a police officer three times for jaywalking. They run into Jess’s ex, Russell (Dylan McDermott), who is on a date himself. Russell, being an adult, forces the two of them to write what they are to each other…and then reading it, says it’s a bad idea.Hold on…loose tie Jake Johnson moment. Yum, yum, yum.Where’d I leave off? Right! What did Nick and Jess write to each other? Who knows? They don’t tell each other. Jess decides any contact between them should just be three feet apart, middle school dancing type of stuff. Nick agrees, then immediately negates this by touching her boob again. He can’t help himself.They’re squishy. Jess concedes this point.They get back. They eat snacks. Jess needs help opening the jar. Nick gargles his beer. They walk back to their rooms, stare at each other with great sexual and emotional tension. Jess’s eyes are bigger and bluer than ever. Nick/Jake Johnson has his shirtsleeves rolled up and has loosened his tie.OMG THE HOTNESS IS INSANE!!! I may have to take screenshots and make them my new desktop. Or do a tumblr tribute. Or make a YouTube montage. OR ALL THREE.Do they kiss again? No. They each close their respective doors of their respective bedrooms. Nothing gets resolved, and everyone is left unfulfilled.But, hey, we’ll always have that rolled up shirtsleeves, loose-tie Nick moment. Especially because the Internet is now around, that image is probably going viral as I write this, and everyone knows that the world wide web is the better than a time capsule. It’s a LIVE CAPSULE.
Whaaaaaaat? Shazaaaaam! Totes YOLO.Yes, I just discovered yolo is a thing. No, I don’t remember what it means. I’m trying to be 11 months from relevant people. For realz. (Editor’s note: YOLO is so-called-hip-speak for “You Only Live Once”. Except people who say YOLO are usually the ones about to die in a horrible car crash while driving drunk and high and texting “yolo” to their besties. You’ve been warned, readers. And if you didn’t laugh: I’ll get you…)
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Lisa likes to think of herself as an Expert in Words and Geekery. In a grossly optimistic mood, she even put that on business cards she…