‘New Girl’ Recap: Nick Or Treat 

The only people that must enjoy cash cow holidays like Valentine’s Day, Halloween and Christmas more than retailers have to be sitcom writers. Not only are their viewers well into the holiday spirit and gobbling up anything and everything holiday-related, but it provides easy plot points and the chance to dress their sexy stars up in costumes. Everybody wins.

Sadly, not everybody was a winner on last night’s Halloween-themed episode of New Girl. Not Cece’s sad trombone of a boyfriend Ronnie (guest star Nelson Franklin) who is more or less around to be comedy fodder for Schmidt, not Winston who came to a crossroads with his occasionally-seen-on-screen girlfriend Shelby, not Nick who found out the hard way that sometimes crushes are meant to stay crushes, and definitely not Jess who got rejected by Sam (David Walton) and accidentally punched in the face by Nick. 

While it would have been easy for New Girl writers to go for a more fun and festive episode last night, I actually appreciated that the whole thing was — as overhyped, high expectations holidays tend to go —a series of depressing disappointments. 

First let’s talk about Nick, who continued to be a series of depressing disappointments when he finally got to hook up with his college crush Amelia (played by Forgetting Sarah Marshall’s Maria Thayer), a woman who ping-ponged between certifiable (she made a pumpkin that resembled her and Nick’s likeness) and poetic (“I’m not an idea of a person, I’m an actual person”), only to screw things up with her and then accidentally attack one of his best friends. 

Quick sidebar: the only thing that must bring sitcom writers more joy than holiday themes is the opportunity to use college flashbacks. They all use the same comedy crutch that apparently in college, everyone gets terrible facial hair and was lame. See: Nick, Ross in Friends, Ted in How I Met Your Mother. End sidebar.

So did the perpetually effing-up Nick punch poor Jess in the face? Well, he’s scared of haunted houses, both literally and metaphorically. Literally, Jess was spending her weekends working at a haunted house and when he braved it to warn her about Sam, she jumped out and scared him (as one does in a haunted house) and as a reflex, he clocked her right in the eye. Metaphorically, haunted houses are like relationships because, according to Nick, “you walk in all confident and then once you get in its not what you thought it was gonna be and its scary.” 

Since both Nick and Jess are scared to walk through the haunted house of relationships together, they continue to go through them with other people. Nick (who had the best costume of the episode as “Bee Arthur”), temporarily with Amelia, and Jess with Sam. While Jess has been keeping it light and loose with the dopey Sam, things changed on a dime once she discovered that he is a pediatrician. That was the scariest thing in this entire episode, actually, that the same guy who professed his non-ironic love for Creed a few weeks ago, is supposed to be taking care of sick children. Well, that and he did Patch Adams-related humor when he put on a clown nose. If that didn’t make Jess run for the hills, nothing would. 

Unfortunately, unbeknownst to Jess, she had every right to run for the hills when it was revealed that FWB Sam was sharing his, er, talents with other girls in the Los Angeles area. After Jess had invited Sam to come see her at the haunted house in costume, which he obliged, Jess decided it was time to tell him how she really felt. When Nick’s attempts to warn Jess were thwarted, Jess confessed her feelings and was promptly turned down. It wasn’t much of a hit for viewers to watch Jess endure this split (we didn’t grow as attached to Sam as we did Paul), it did open the door for the show to dangle Nick and Jess in front of us again as Nick, with his arm around her, iced her eye and told her she deserved someone who is crazy about her. Trick or treat? I’m leaning more towards trick on this one. 

They did a similar thing with the inevitable reunion of Cece and Schmidt. Cece tried to deny her lingering feelings for her ex as he did everything in his power to show how just how much he wants to be around her. Schmidt, who dressed up as Abe Lincoln (as everyone seems to be doing these days), begrudgingly befriend Cece’s future ex-boyfriend and forgettable nice guy Robbie. And while Cece and Robbie are on the road to future Splitsville, Winston and Shelby (yep, they’re both still there) arrived during last night’s episode. Apparently these two weren’t having much sex and were on different wavelengths, but since we rarely saw them on camera together, we’ll just have to take their word on it.

“Halloween” episode highlights:

– The gang’s exchange about Zombie Woody Allen. (“These brains are terrible and such smawl portions,” “On Christmas I like to eat Chinese people’s brains, they’re the only ones that are open.”) 

– Winston’s line “I have nothing to add to this.” If that doesn’t perfectly incapsulate Lamorne Morris’ character and the actor’s place on the show, nothing does. 

– Nick’s girlish scream. “This is my nightmare!”- Shelby’s inspired Halloween costume Reigning Cats and Dogs. 

– Schmidt’s various brilliant one-liners: “Those costumes are for Purim!”, “The guy who shot John Lennon is dressed as a Ninja Turtle,” “I witnessed the emancipation of one black guy tonight.” And, of course, Schmidt dressed as Matthew McConaughey in Magic Mike. Alright, alright, alright, alright! 

Okay, so this wasn’t the best episode of New Girl by a long shot. It was mildly amusing, at best. But, isn’t that most things around the holidays? What did you think of the Halloween episode of New Girl?

[Photo credit: Greg Gayne/Fox] 

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(Celebuzz)