You know what I liked about this episode? How hard the writers shipped Nick and Jess without actually writing them into being together. They bantered, they flirted, they gave the eyes. Nick was totally concerned about Jess’s safety and virtue (yeah, I read a lot of Jane Austen.) and though we can intuit that Nick’s intentions aren’t entirely honorable, at least he’s not a total creep and at least he is Nick. [Sidenote: Can you please, right now, talk about how much we need to see Nick wearing mid-19th century period costume? You KNOW Schmidt would be down. And Jess. And probably Winston. This show needs to pull a TVD and have some sort of ball or historical event to celebrate or SOMETHING—I mean, Jess is an elementary teacher for Christ's sake—so they can make this happen for me. And you. For us all, really.]

Anyway, the guise of this episode, titled “The Landlord,” is that Nick and Jess are in a tiff because they are both super stubborn and refuse to admit when they’re wrong. The situation isn’t helped by the fact that they have totally different viewpoints on the inherent state of human beings and refuse to agree to disagree about it. Jess thinks that there is good in people if you just give them a chance—which is exemplified at the top of the episode when she somehow gets a very angry, gun-totin’ dude in a lifted truck to back away from the parking spot he and Nick are battling for. Although Nick is grateful that they didn’t get, you know, SHOT, he’s also annoyed that all Jess has to do to get her way is smile, which is sort of what everyone else is annoyed about in regards to Jess toooo. When Nick said, “I guess I don’t live in a world where I smile and people do what I want them to do.” I fist-pumped and wished I were watching with Linda Holmes to see her reaction to that. Just so we’re clear, I want to watch EVERYTHING with Linda Holmes. But what I like even more about this episode is that in the end [SPOILER ALERT] Jess is proved wrong. Some people are just creepy and twisted and mean-spirited. And, sure, she chooses to defend them and see the good in them, but that is her choice to do so.

Anyway, the crux of this episode is devoted to Nick and Jess and, you guessed it, the landlord, whom everyone is afraid of.

After the parking kerfuffle, Nick and Jess head back to the apartment, where the sink is acting up. Obviously, Nick takes it upon himself to “fix” it by shoving a broom handle down the sink and jiggling it a few times (SO PORNY) before declaring the problem to be fixed. Jess then suggests that perhaps it’s time to call the landlord and have him come fix all of the things that need fixing. All of the roommates, including Winston (who, if memory serves, hadn’t lived there before?), tell her not to do it, that the landlord is an all-around terrible person, and that it’s better if things are left Nick-fixed.

But of course Jess believes that the landlord can’t be all that bad. So she takes cupcakes down to his basement office, where he is sharpening a broom into a spear, and lets it slip that there are four people living in apartment 4D. At this, the landlord immediately says that there are only supposed to be three people living in 4D, and Jess tries to back out of it by saying she counted herself twice, but to no avail. She runs back upstairs and tells the guys that she told the landlord there are four of them living in their lovely loft abode. Then there’s a knock on the door and ALL HELL BREAKS LOOSE. But, in a cartoon-fashion. The guys are all running around, moving furniture, telling Jess to call Schmidt “Jimmy,” and inexplicably throwing Schmidt’s chinos over the balcony. So, the landlord comes in to inspect the place, Schmidt dons a RIDICULOUS accent and acts as if he’s leaving, one of the bedrooms (I think it’s Winston’s bedroom that used to be Schmidt’s?) is completely empty and is called “the library,” and then Schmidt is spotted by the landlord and the jig is up. Luckily, the landlord is cool with four people living there as long as Winston paints over Schmidt’s creepy, space-erotic painting in the closet. As they guys are all breathing a collective sigh of release, Jess asks the landlord that—since he’s already there—if he’ll fix some stuff around the apartment. And Remy, the landlord who has a tattoo that reads “My name is Remy,” agrees to help BUT ONLY for Jess.

So as Remy is fixing things, Nick spies him trying to show Jess how to do . . . something (slide, maybe?) the random door on the wall in her room, which means he is standing behind Jess and leaning around her to help. Nick is like “NOW WAIT JUST ONE GODDAMN MINUTE REMY.” and pulls Jess out of the room to tell her that Remy wants to sleep with her. Jess thinks that is the most idiotic thing she’s ever heard, but Nick explains the when-a-guy-shows-you-how-to-do-something-trick, AND THEN DEMONSTRATES ON HER HIMSELF. Y’all, I shrieked a little when that happened because I was like, THIS IS IT. SOMETHING IS GOING TO HAPPEN AND IT’S GOING TO BE AWKWARD. But Jess just squirmed away from Nick because she is estupido.

Then Jess announces to the roomies and Cece, because she’s there giving Schmidt advice on how to seduce his boss lady before she goes to hang out on Greg Kinnear’s boat that Schmidt knows the name of (Neptune Rising)* off the top of his head (of course he does), that because Remy has been so great, she’s inviting him over to join them for dinner. Everyone but Nick opts out and Nick only opts back in after he realizes that  Remy and Jess will be alone together if no one else is there. So, really, he’s just being chivalrous. (Nick in shining armor, y’all.) So during the dinner Remy and Nick sort of weirdly bond over their mutually bad break ups (Remy took it worse and really is terrifying. But in a broad, ridiculous, cartoonish way). So blah blah blah, food, Remy wants wants to have a threesome with Nick and Jess.

This information is mortifying and awesome.

Nick and Jess somehow end up agreeing to the threesome because Jess can’t admit that she’s wrong about Remy and OMG REMY IS SO CREEPY WITH THE TOUCHING OF NICK. Then Remy tells Nick and Jess to “get is started.” (ACK ACK ACK. But, actually Remy, I agree.) So Nick and Jess sort of stare each other down and are all like, “You sure you wanna do this?” “Yeah I’m sure, are you sure?” for a bit, and then Nick goes in to kiss Jess and she freaks out and admits she’s wrong. I won’t lie, I found that to be a little dissatisfying, but I was laughing so much during that scene that it didn’t matter because my abs had had a serious workout without having to go to a disgusting gym full of veiny people. (I hate when you can see veins raised under people’s skin. Gyms are RIFE with that.) And, if I’m honest, I like the bantering and the flirting and the fake-fights and the making eyes at each other phase Nick and Jess are in right now.

However, I have to say: What about Julia? I’m not really one to ride a moral high horse—especially when it involves a couple I’m shipping getting together *cough Snow and David cough*—but cheaters just aren’t ok. The older I get the more I realize how NOT ok it is and while I would have huzzahed along with everyone else if somehow they ended up making out and being together, I would have felt bad for Julia. And Nick would have felt bad and Jess probably would have been all, “I can’t be with you because you cheated on Julia, even though you cheated on her with me.” And then she’d, like, become a nun or something.

ANYWAY, the “threesome” ends when Winston walks by the door and Remy announces he isn’t ready for a four-way. But at the end of the episode, Nick and Jess step into the elevator with him in it and definitely lets them know the offer is still available. I can’t. even. imagine.

So, there are other character in this show! How woulda thunk it! Schmidt thinks his boss is seducing him via business emails. Winston informs him that he is wrong and crazy and should stop thinking everyone wants to sleep with him, which then sends us into a wonderful little montage of Schmidt making double-entendres out of things that are NOT double-entendres. But, as it turns out, Schmidt’s boss DOES want to sleep with him despite the fact that Schmidt is a walking sexual harassment case. After talking to Cece, Schmidt decides to go for it by running epically through the parking garage, sliding over the hood of a car, and then telling boss lady that he wants her. She is super into it, but sadly for them, it looks like he is raping her, so the security guards break it up. The next day he’s all bruised and his lip is bleeding, but he apologizes. Then boss lady tells him to go in the conference room and set up the Tokyo Call. So he goes into conference room, strips down to his black boxer-briefs, GETS ON THE TABLE, and then we see the Tokyo office’s perspective. Again, I can’t. even. imagine.

For poor Winston, his only plot line is that he’s painting over the weird painting and finds Schmidt’s 2007 New Year’s resolutions, which are amazing and incredible and need to be published. Again I say, GIVE WINSTON BETTER PLOT LINES.

QUOTES

• “Oh my God. It’s like The Wire.“—Jess
  “He has a gun and you’re dressed like a bullseye.”—Nick

• “He said he had a package. For Schmidt.”—Schmidt

• “I like your bucket of gasoline. Super practical.”

• “Yeah because people are the worst.”—Nick is my soulmate

• “I ferment things in the basement. I also make cheese.”—Remy

• “How have you been living alone all this time?”—Nick to Jess

• “I think we could do a lot worse than Remy. He has strong arms.”—Nick, in regards to having a threesome with Remy.

*I Googled to find out if Greg Kinnear does in fact have a boar named Neptune Rising but could not find anything supporting this information. Granted, I didn’t dig for info.

Alright, so them’s my thoughts! Tell me all of your lovely, important thoughts in the oh-so fancy comments section! *thunderclap*