New Girl, Season 2 Episode 13: A Father’s Love, Review

If I got anything out of the latest New Girl episode, it was that Schmdit and Robbie need to get married in a full on balls to the wall ceremony. With elephants. That they eat one bite at a time. And Cece could be the flower girl.

Does that make sense? In the real world, no. In the zany place they call New Girl land, yes, yes it does and it would make an awesome season finale.

In this episode however, Nick’s father (guest star Dennis Farina) surprises the gang with a visit, coming into the loft unannounced to first interrupt and then rule a game called “feely cup,” which consists of a cup, weird contents in said cup and a blindfold. Oh the shenaningans that take place in that apartment.

Nick, of course, is less than pleased with the visit, because in television, parents only show up to cause problems with the main characters. As Nick tells Jess as he angrily fixes/destroys their somehow always-malfunctioning-but-looks-perfectly-functional sink, his con-man father is more or less responsible for all the problems in his life. Oh, and his anger issues. 

In the B storyline of the episode, Schmidt is despondent that Cece is continuing her quest to find love and babies via her mother in a traditional arranged

Indian marriage. Spying on her one “date” at a restaurant, he runs into a baseball hatted Robby, Cece’s other ex. Robby, too, is still in love with Cece and he is trying to figure out a way to win her back. After Cece finds them and kicks them out of the restaurant, he and Schmidt join forces in an attempt to figure out a way to derail Cece’s intended marriage plan. Their brainstorms aren’t genius, but hey, it’s one more excuse to put ridiculous words into Schmidt;s mouth and I must say, Robby’s comebacks show him to be Schmidt’s idea loveable but zany partner-in-crime. Ah, true bro-love.

Back with the main plot, Nick’s dad (who Winston for some reason idolizes and calls “Pop-Pop”) quickly realizes that Jess is: (a) more gullible than water is wet; and (b) easy to use for his shady con man ways. Taking Jess, Nick and Winston to a racetrack, he puts Jess to work and enlists her in a plan to buy a horse for a con and five hundred dollars. Nick of course finds out and is naturally furious. When Nick learns of his father’s intention to “refund Jess” by selling the horse to Russian equine sperm dealers (yep) he insists on he and Jess coming along. Jess agrees, mostly because she thinks if Nick and his father just have a chance to talk to each other, things will magically all be smoothed out in their relationship.  Like I said, more gullible than water is wet.

Schmidt and Robby finally come up with a non-plan and crash Cece’s apartment by loudly yelling something vaguely offensive and knocking on her door a lot. She answers, clothed in a traditional sari. It turns out her date was just a meeting with her intended’s uncle and Robby and Schmidt have, according to the laws of sitcom timing, burst in on her in the worst possible moment. Cece is meeting her intended and all of his family as they are meeting hers. Schmidt and Robby are aghast, not so much at the situation, but at the fact that Cece’s potential husband is not the old guy they saw at the brunch date, but young, handsome and successful. But it’s ok. Robby and Schmidt hug it out with each other and immediately feel better. Then Cece kicks them out. 

Back with the horse-sperm team, the deal with the Russians does not go well. Nick, who sweats whenever he is lying (in a gross close up shot of a soaked back-of-his-shirt sort of way) completely derails the deal by first being unable to lie well and then spazzing out so the Russians think he’s crazy. The Russians skedaddle out of the parking lot (and the deal), quickly driving away in their evil henchman SUV. Jess also tries to run away with the SUV and horse trailer they came in, in an effort to make Nick and his father talk to each other. She succeeds in getting them to talk. She doesn’t succeed in driving away. Driving an SUV is hard enough, but driving one with a horse trailer attached at the end? Please. That’s asking a lot of a character who sometimes seems like she would try to tie the laces on Velcro sneakers. Still, Nick’s father promises to take Nick to a game, “any game he wants,” the next day for some father-son bonding time. So an emotional win, if not a vehicular one.

But the win quickly turns into a loss as the next morning, Jess catches Nick’s father sneaking out of the apartment before he and Nick can hang out. Jess tries to stop him. She fails, due to her inability to discern truth from lie and Nick Farina’s formidable charm. As she takes her turn, angrily using a tool on the sink, Nick comes out and assures her he’s ok. Jess assures Nick he’s not broken and it’s a wonder he turned out as well as he did considering his dad.

Nick, even though he’s been let down by his dad once again and is just getting over being dumped by Olivia Munn’s character from last week’s episode, does seem to be fine. Minus the fact that he hasn’t done laundry in five months and has no underwear so, as he tells Jess, he’s resorted to just wearing a big sock under his jeans. Like, a big one.  A really, really big one. Jess laughs, he grins at her and we are all again left wondering when these two, clearly made for each other characters will finally get together! And then break up in a spectacularly ridiculous fashion. Maybe at Schmidt and Robby’s wedding. During the middle of the ceremony. Using a karaoke machine.

Man, Zooey Deschanel, you should hire me as a New Girl writer just so I can write that episode alone. Or to marry Schmidt and Robby in a ceremony where they break the douchebag jar under their feet after the vows. Go cool bro power!

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