Well, this episode, “Control,” was not my favorite. Don’t get me wrong, there were some really great one-liners and some nice moments, but overall I did not like this episode. It could be that I just wasn’t in the mood for it last night, but for some reason I was not feeling this one. I thought it was mostly really juvenile and annoying. And it made me really dislike Nick. (I KNOW.)

So, the premise of the episode was “What happens when Schmidt stops being Schmidt?” which occurs when Jess, wearing ridiculously over-sized hipster frames that not even I, her biggest fashion fan, likes, decides to help him give up some of his OCD tendencies after they have a squabble over a very nice found hutch that she brought into the apartment, much to Schmidt’s chagrin. He hated it so much that he KNOCKED IT OVER and broke it all to pieces. Which is just bonkers. And such a selfish, bratty thing to do. Seriously, if you can’t deal with a roommate who pays to occupy a space with you bringing in a lovely piece of furniture into the apartment, you don’t need to have roommates.

Anyway, in an effort to help Schmidt be less uptight, Jess tortures him by taking him to the hippie beach (Venice Beach? LAists, help me out here!), the place he loathes the most. We get a little montage of Schmidt doing things that are typically considered fun, but are things that he hates to do. They ride bikes. They eat ice cream. Schmidt freaks out and runs away from the annoying still life artist person. (I don’t blame him on that front.) Schmidt tells her that his OCD is his mother’s fault because she told him Santa wouldn’t come to see them (which he wouldn’t anyway because they are Jewish) because he didn’t make his bed. The show sort of dives deeper with this thought, with Schmidt admitting that the reason he got fat was because food intake was the only thing he had control over, and Jess commiserates with him on that before telling him to just do something spontaneous. So he joins a drum circle.

In joining the drum circle, Schmidt completely stops caring about everything, including work. At one point he tells Jess that he hasn’t been to work in three days, which in normal world would mean that unless he’s dead or in a coma, he is now no longer employed. And because Schmidt has stopped caring, the apartment is now fucking disgusting because Nick and Winston refuse to clean. Because they think they are still in college. Then they lecture Jess on how she shouldn’t help Schmidt try to be more laid back because it will just upset the balance and things will only get worse, and we get a flashback to when they all first moved into the apartment and what they all looked like immediately post-college. Then, when Jess was like, “Ok, I’ll clean if you’ll go to the grocery store.” they were loathe to do that! I would have flipped shit on them. (Maybe I need to be more laid back. Maybe that’s the lesson we’re all learning here.)

So Winston and Nick, who have been having their own issue because Nick owes Winston a shit-ton of money, including $487.00 from playing poker the night before, and refuses to pay. It also turns out that Nick has refused to pay Winston back any money borrowed for YEARS. Winston says he’ll forgive all the debt if Nick will give him $200.00 in cash. Nick agrees and then tries to bargain the price down, or subtract the money he spent on gas or drinks or whatever. Ok, I guess he has a point when he says that he allows Winston to drink Cognac and Cokes at the bar for free. The cost of the drinks should be subtracted. But still. Be a man and pony up the money, Nick. Goddamn. Anyway, while Winston and Nick are at the grocery store, we learn that they a) have no idea how to stick to a budget, b) they are selfish idiots, and c) do not understand how to have a proper slap fight. They should watch HIMYM and take some serious notes.

The roommates end up having an intervention with Schmidt, who has taken to eating street meat wrapped in street meat, wearing ponchos, and playing his conga drum all day. Winston tells him that he misses Schmidt’s “hair chut-e-ney,” Nick tells him that he can clean his health code violating room (Schmidt says “THE WHITE WHALE.”), and Jess bribes him with a pair of shiny, gray, flat front, Calvin Klein slacks.

And of course Schmidt returns to his normal, bizarre, crazy-ass, control freak of a self. He cleans the kitchen, criticizes Nick’s hair, and says, “Nick. Winston. We have a urinal. How are you still missing?” (I second that, boys.) I don’t think he had any Jess complaints. He probably did. *shrugs*

So at the end of the episode, Cece breaks into the apartment and wakes Schmidt up for some sexytimes because they are still hiding their relationship like stupid 17-year-olds. That’s really starting to get on my nerves, too. But as they’re about to get their freak on, the camera just shows Schmidt’s door and we can hear all of the weird shit he is saying to her and I really thought that the camera would show us that Jess and Nick and Winston were sitting in the living room listening to them. But that didn’t happen.  *harrumph* (Show, how DARE you not do what I think you should do! [BTW, I'm joking here. Promise.])

Quotations (aka, the things I liked about this episode)
“He’s clearly New Homeless.”—Schmidt

“So that’s not a mossy cave.”—Jess in regard to the penises drawn on Nick’s back

“You lost your kite. Have fun flying your string all day.”—Schmidt

“I feel great. I’m gonna go take a shower with Nick’s bar soap like a common ranch hand.”—Schmidt

“Calvin. You magnificent wizard.”—Schmidt

So those are my thoughts on this week’s episode. I hope people out there enjoyed it more than I did. This episode was just not for me at all. So, please defend it til you’re blue in the face in comments. Or let me know that I’m not a heinous, judgmental bitch. Either way is good with me. :)