New Girl. Oh, My God, There’s Two of Them.

Y’all! New Girl had a Thanksgiving episode! You know, that holiday that happens next week (BTW, Thanksgiving is next week. When did THAT happen?) that is being egregiously glossed over by, you know, everything with a marketing team because apparently everyone loooooves Christmas December holidays so much that the holiday celebrating food and family and being thankful for the things in our lives is disregarded like some probably red-headed toy that is still JUST FINE but the spoiled ass kid doesn’t want because it isn’t shiny or speaking with a robot voice or an iPhone or whatever. STOP FORCE-FEEDING ME CHRISTMAS BEFORE I’M READY FOR IT. *catches breath, composes self* Right. Well, New Girl has not forgotten about Thanksgiving. This sits well with me.

So in this episode, simply titled “Thanksgiving,” (for those who might be confused about the premise of the episode, you see) Jess’s coworker/maybe-more-than-friend, Paul (Justin Long), is coming to the apartment for Thanksgiving, much to the chagrin of the roommates because they wanted to have a day full of football and beer and queuing up for the Black Friday sale at Best Buy, but not a giant, delicious meal. I do not understand this.

I mean, I understand the desire for football and beer and cheap electronics, but I do not understand the shunning of The Foods. They are DUDES, right? Wouldn’t they want The Foods? I’m not going to over-think this. Anyway, Jess is gung-ho about cooking Thanksgiving and has gone shopping for a ginormous frozen turkey. But, as it turns out, she has no idea how to go about cooking the turkey, which she has named Hank, or any of the other foods needed to celebrate Thanksgiving. But you know who does know how to cook? SCHMIDT. (Of course he does.) He only agrees to the changing of the plans because he learns that CeCe is coming for dinner as well.

Anyway, because the decision to cook has come at such late notice, there isn’t much time to actually do the cooking. This is problematic because there is a giant frozen turkey in the apartment in need of a quick thaw. Jess attempts to shove it in the oven, and then—much to the enjoyment of the male roomies—to warm it with her (and CeCe’s) bodies, and then she throws it in the dryer, where is stays for a bit.

Meanwhile, Nick is NOT HAPPY about this development and Winston is nervous because Jess’s interest in a guy means that he might become the unofficial fifth roommate and Winston doesn’t want the balance of the apartment thrown off. I feel like this is a really good moment for me to let everyone know how much I love Winston. I mean, I know I go on and on about Nick (because he is The Best) and we’ve discussed how I’ve grown to like Schmidt, but we’ve never talked much about Winston. I adore him. I feel like he’s really the one who balances this cast out. Where Jess and Schmidt are both zany and Nick is a grumpy dude, Winston is the perfect balance of grumpy dude with a zany side. And he’s real good at delivering deadpanned one-liners. I appreciate that.

Shortly thereafter, Paul shows up wearing a suit, toting a violin, and concealing a Kazoo in his inside-suit jacket pocket. The guy roomies quickly learn that Paul is basically the male version of Jess, down to the random singing, goofy turkey jokes, and absolutely no idea about anything related to beer or sports. Nick is APPALLED by him. Winston starts playing word association games with him to find out if he would make a decent unofficial fifth roomie, and finds that, yes, he would actually. The two then bond over their dead grandparents. (It’s actually sweet and not creepy at all. Although Paul does put his arm around Winston and I thought maybe we’d get some HoYay!, but not so much.)

Jess picks up on the fact that Nick can’t stand Paul and she asks him to play nice and not scare Paul away. Then she forces the two of them to go to the store together. This turns out to be a very bad idea because Paul wants to bond with Nick, and we all learn that Nick dropped out of law school with three semester to go, he’s thirty, and his last name is Miller. And that is the end of the bonding.

So while all of this is happening, Schmidt and CeCe are cooking. Well, Schmidt is cooking and is yelling at CeCe who is trying to sexily help by putting her fingers in pudding and the bowl of walnuts and smearing mashed potatoes on Schmidt’s face. Turns out, Schmidt is 1) a good cook, and 2) a total germophobe. Neither of these things surprises me. But CeCe decides that she is turned on by him because he yelled at her, which is apparently something that has never happened to her before. Schmidt, BTW, is hilarious in this episode. I take back all of the bad things I’ve ever said about him, because really, he was great. But all of Schmidt’s cooking is in peril when the dryer burns up, with the turkey inside of it. The entire apartment fills with smoke and it seems as if this Thanksgiving dinner party is for naught.

But no! Paul wants to eat The Foods Schmidt has been making. He insists. And Jess just so happens to have a key to the next door neighbor’s apartment and just so happens to know that the next door neighbor is away for the holiday. So everyone heads over there to enjoy their meal in a non-smokey apartment. But before they all walk in, Nick and Jess have a fight in the hallway in front of the door, which everyone behind the door can hear. Jess talks a lot about how she really likes Paul and wants to have lots of weird sex with him in lots of different positions and situations. When she is alerted to the fact that EVERYONE, including Paul, heard her, she tells the they were rehearsing Nick’s very bad play. Schmidt adorably goes along with this.

So as they all are about to have their meal, Paul pulls out his violin and tunes it with a tuning fork, and  then starts playing (it was SO OBVIOUS that Justin Long wasn’t playing that it almost seemed intentionally acted that badly. Almost.) a song. Then he and Jess are going to do a skit or something about Thanksgiving AND THE HE FINDS THE BODY OF THE NEIGHBOR LADY. For real. He freaks out while everyone else is morbidly fascinated. The cops are called, the body is removed, as is Paul, but not before the shock blanket is taken away from him.

So at the end of the episode, we see all of the roomies (plus CeCe) in line at the local Best Buy. Then, Paul shows up with his violin again and some foot-long turkey subs for everyone. Everyone in line around them starts (validly) yelling at Paul for cutting, and Nick (OH, NICK.) calms everyone down, says he was holding Paul’s spot in line, and then starts walking toward the back of the line because he is The Best. *hands Nick the Pacey Witter Trophy for Excellence* Then, the rest of the roomies (plus CeCe) follow him to the back because they aren’t terrible people. Well, not everyone. Jess and Paul skip away, he playing the fiddle, and they run toward God knows where, basking in their bubble of goofy happiness. Let them be for now, y’all. Just let them be.

Random Things

There are SO MANY good Schmidt lines this episode, y’all.

• “Don’t ask a guy for a first date on the least sexy holiday in America.” (I didn’t get the full list of the holidays he included as the sexiest, but I think the Fourth of July was number 1 and that there was something about History Month in there. Correct me in comments.)
• “And I don’t want to hear ‘Schmidt, you’re using too much terragon,’ because I’m not.”
• “It’s like a Prince video.” This is said in reference to the smoke in the apartment.
• “Are you cold? Do you want my cardi?” Schmidt says this to CeCe as they’re standing in front of Best Buy.

Then there was this:

• Nick: “We just want to watch football, drink beer, and go to Best Buy for Black Friday.Winston: “Or as I like to call it, Friday.”

What did y’all think of this Thanksgiving episode? How did you feel about Justin Long? Do you have any particular views on Thanksgiving you’d like to express? Let me know All of the Things in comments!

ALSO! If you’re looking for something to do on this fine Wednesday, check out this Vulture piece about the actors who should perhaps play Jess’s future love interests. Zachary Levi is mentioned in comments and all I have to say is NO NO NO. Zooey D. is single these days and I CANNOT run the risk of him hooking up with her in for real life. It would kill me.