Any unhappiness I expressed toward this show last week needs to be wiped from everyone’s memories RIGHT EFFING NOW. Because last night’s episode, “Wedding,” made me all kinds of giggly and happy. I do not care that it was formulaic and clichéd with its use of the CUTE KID! RANDOM WEDDING HOOK-UP CHICK! PRETENDING TO BE A REFORMED ALCOHOLIC TO IMPRESS THE GIRL OF YOUR DREAMS! DANCE-OFF! tropes. I liked it and it made me happy and I don’t care about your highfalutin eyeroll and comment for me to go watch Wedding Crashers or the Jim and Pam wedding episode of The Office or some shit like that. Because I LIKED this episode, dammit! *stomps foot indignantly*

And y’all. What I’m about to say shocks even me: I really liked Schmidt in this episode. (I KNOW. FINALLY, RIGHT?!)

The episode starts with Schmidt and Nick helping Jess pick out a dress to wear to the wedding of some random couple that all the guy-roomies know. Jess is going as Nick’s date/pretending to be his girlfriend because Caroline is going to be at the wedding. They all beg of Jess to act like a normal person at the wedding for Nick’s sake and that begins with agreeing to not do the Jess version of the chicken dance and wearing a normal outfit sans insertable-hick teeth. This ends up being an adorable one-shoulder eggplant colored dress and makeup that is stunning. Which begs the question, who did Jess’ makeup? Because there is NO WAY the girl who can’t figure out how to use a curling iron without burning her hair could apply the perfect smokey eye like that. BUT I DIGRESS.

So at the wedding, Jess hangs all over Nick and pretends to be incapable of remembering Caroline’s name and drops hints about taking notes on the wedding for when Nick decides to commit, all to try and make Caroline jealous. And it works, much to Nick’s pleasure. He and Caroline end up talking by themselves for a bit and taking pictures together in the photo booth at the reception.

However, this ends BADLY when Schmidt and Winston realize that Nick and Caroline are alone together since Nick is incapable of getting over her. They force Jess to get him away from her, so she goes to the photo booth and says something crazy about how dare Caroline to try win Nick back when she and Nick are having a baby together, and Caroline profusely apologizes and then let’s the bomb drop: she has a boyfriend. Nick is CRUSHED and proceeds to get drunk and tell his feelings to the videographer and take his frustration (hilariously) out on the (also hilarious) cardboard cut-outs of the bride and groom. Then he bullies a bunch of bridesmaids out of the photo booth and proclaims it his home. We will leave him there for the time being.

On the Schmidt side of things, this wedding holds two possbilities: Brooke (Katie Cassidy, who, BTW, has a very odd IMDB photo), the alcoholic girl from college he had a massive crush on, whom he desperately wants to sleep with, and Gretchen (Natasha Lyonne), the pants-suit wearing, white water rafting, clip-on earring enthusiast he typically ends up having “gymnastic, mean-spirited, highly educational” sex with when they run into each other at weddings. His goal for the evening is to go home with Brooke and not Gretchen. However, this goal is not so easily attainable as Brooke doesn’t remember him until he tells her he’s the grown-up version of “Fat Schmidt.” Y’all. This makes SO MUCH sense to me. Schmidt used to fat, and now is not, and THAT is why he’s so meticulous about his looks and bathroom products and why he’s such a douche bag. (WHERE IS DOUCHE BAG JAR?!) I suddenly totally understand Schmidt and this makes me like him SO MUCH MORE.

Anyway, it turns out that Brooke is now sober and so Schmidt pretends to be as well. All is seemingly going well with Schmidt’s plan to bed Brooke until Jess starts screaming for him to publicly assist her in removing the little girl’s bicycle shorts she is wearing as Spanx so that she is able to move/feel her legs again. Brooke is completely freaked out by Jess and asks Schmidt who she is and instead of saying, “She’s my socially awkward roommate” he tells Brooke that Jess was his biggest mistake when he hit rock bottom and that she is now banana-pants crazy. So Brooke is all, “let’s get out of here, but I have to go to the bathroom first.” In the bathroom, she runs into a knife-wielding Jess, who is cutting the make-shift Spanx off of her body and then proceeds to tell Brooke that she needs to be good to Schmidt or else. Brooke then leaves in tears and tells Schmidt that Jess threatened her. So now Schmidt is pissed at Jess and calls her a “ruiner” while he and Winston and Jess are all standing outside of Nick’s photo booth-home. This pisses Jess off and she grabs her insertable-hick teeth out of Nick’s inside jacket pocket and tells them all that she likes who she is! For that, I give her a fist pump and a high five. Wear your weirdness loud and proud, lady. (That goes for all y’all, too. LOUD AND PROUD.)

Speaking of Winston, his teeny tiny little story line in this episode is that he is dreading this wedding because he doesn’t want to have to put up with people asking him what he’s up to, since he’s obviously not playing Latvian basketball anymore. But he has to go to the wedding because he’s the usher. However, upon arriving at the wedding, he finds his ushering skills challenged by a very precocious child who fancies himself the alternate usher. These two end up in a dance-off at the reception, which I suppose Winston won because the precocious usher ran away crying. Anyway, after the Schmidt/Nick/Jess debacle, Winston has a very sweet scene with Jess in which he tells her that all the guys, but especially Nick, are glad that she’s around. I think I actually said, “Aweeee.” aloud whilst watching that scene.

So back to Nick! Jess joins him in his photo booth-home and tells him that he’s too good to be Caroline’s back-up plan and that he needs to move on and get over her and then take off his shoes and dance his face off. This is apparently the EXACT pep talk/reality check he needed, because he marches out of the photo booth and goes and tells Caroline that they need to be officially over. Ok, in this scene I actually felt really bad for Caroline because you could TELL how sad she was about it. Yes, I know that she had been a massive bitch to him, but there was something about the way she looked at him and then sighed that made me a little sad. Maybe it’s because I like Nick so much and think any girl would be BONKERS to give him up. Anyway, from there Nick walks up to Jess and asks her to dance during a slow song.

So they go to the dance floor and have a moment where they stare at each other and it’s obvious that Jess doens’t really know what to do or what to expect. And then Nick proceeds to start doing a slow-motion version of Jess’ chicken dance. It’s adorable and funny and perfect. Then Schmidt and Winston join them and they all do a weird slow-mo dance together and I just want to hug them all really tightly and tell them how much I like them all and that I’m so glad they’ve found each other.

Anyway, at the end of the episode, Schmidt has brought Gretchen home and she has him splayed and tied to the bed and is forcing him to look at her two-hour long white water rafting slideshow as foreplay. I have no idea how to respond to that.

Favorite Lines:

“Oh my God, bubbles!”—Jess

“I was her Sid, she was my Nancy, and when I got sober she couldn’t deal with it.”—Schmidt to Brooke, about Jess

“Look at those earrings, what are they, clip-ons?”—Schmidt to Gretchen, said with such incredible disdain that you can’t help but sort of love him. And her. Also, he ends up WEARING the clip-on earrings. It’s awesome.

“No open bar, Steve? Don’t you understand that’s TACKY?”— Drunk Nick to cardboard cut-out of the groom.

So how did y’all feel about this episode of New Girl? What are your predictions for the Jess/Nick situation? Or maybe you’re pro-Jess/Winston? Or perhaps you are like me and naively hope that none of them get involved romantically and that their perfect roommate bond is never broken! Also, there were A TON of awesome, LOL-worthy lines in this, so share your faves with me, in comments.