Articles by Bethany

Is it just me, or was this episode all over the place? I mean, there was the Schmidt and Cece being all are-we-or-aren’t-we, Jess dealing with a bitchy-spirited student, Winston still not having a job, and Nick receiving a cactus from Julia and much ado-ing about it. Not that there isn’t normally a lot going on within each episode, but normally they’re a little more cohesive than this one.

Or maybe this is the episode that will win an Emmy. *shrugs*

Either way, some PLOT-MOVING THINGS happened, people!
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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.
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Holy bazoo, did I love last night’s episode. Was it perfect? No. Was it the best of the season? Probably not. (I still really love the wedding episode.) But, y’all, I would watch the Jess & Julia reality show if it existed. (Even though it obviously wouldn’t be reality because they are fictional characters played by actors who are maybe-but-probably-not like the characters they play.) I loved how believable the fight between Jess and Julia was. They weren’t physically fighting or manipulating people or using mean girl henchmen or sending annoyingly threatening text messages from an anonymous number—it was a legitimate, passive aggressive (and then not so much passive) fight brought on by the types of women they are (and represent) and the resentment that each type has toward the other. Who knew that two drastically different women who don’t really like one another, but are in a situation where they have to be around each other, going around not liking each other could be so awesome?! (Maybe 2 Broke Girls should watch this episode and take some notes?)

And, you know, the addition of the Julia-type of character was a really smart move for Liz Meriweather and the New Girl writing team. There has been so much flack (coming mainly from awesome female critics) about Zooey’s Jess and the word “adorkable” and how this female-driven show wasn’t really a good thing because the lead female was basically a figment of men’s imaginations, that it is BRILLIANT to a) tone down Jess, and b) bring in a character who represents the types of women who are the polar opposite of—and dislike—the Jess types. So high five New Girl writing team for listening to and responding to criticism!

But, I do have a but that I feel like I need to address. I have these very conflicted feelings on New Girl because I always really like it while I’m watching it, but then when I start thinking about what’s really going on with the show, I start to like it less. (THINKING, WHY ARE YOU SO MEAN?) And I’m not sure how I feel about what’s happening with the Julia character. I mean, I’m on board with bringing in a secondary female lead that is the opposite of Miss Jessica Day and her Muppet voice, and I ADORE the casting, but I also feel like Meriweather and the writers are using Lizzy’s character Julia to represent those female critics who are holding up a mirror to the show and saying, “Now wait a minute. Look at what you’re writing.” And, to be honest, I’m not sure exactly how I feel about that sort of device. I have no qualms with the device in general, but if they are using Julia to say, “It’s only women who are serious and smart and wear ugly things like pant suits who don’t like women like Jess,” then I am not down with that. I guess we’ll have to wait and see.

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Y’all, I really missed this show while it was on winter hiatus and I’m just so glad it’s back. It gives me warm and fuzzy feelings and it makes me laugh and I would like to take it on a date. We could have a picnic and go get ice cream and maybe go see The Artist and not insist on getting a refund because we’ll already know that it’s a silent, black-and-white, French film. I think New Girl would enjoy that, don’t you?

So, why am I so enamored with this show? Aside from the very charming cast, it’s because the writers know how to LISTEN to what the viewers want and then give it to them in spades. They’ve toned down Jess so that she’s believably dorky and not some caricature of a gorgeous woman who is socially awkward, as she was the first few episodes. They’ve done a great job of balancing the roommates’ personalities and how they relate to one another. They’ve brought back the Douchebag Jar!!!! And they’ve assured us that the Nick/Jess relationship will be a slow burn.

But that’s not all.

Y’all, last night they gave us Lizzy Caplan, who is one of my giant girl crushes, and she is Nick’s love interest. I know that this is going to pose an issue later on if Lizzy sticks around, but, to be honest, I will always be Team Lizzy over Team Zooey. (Although, I must admit that I do love Zooey. Well, most of the time. Sometimes she really, really annoys the shit out of me. But I like the choices she’s made with her career and I like her [more than?] friendship with Joseph Gordon-Levitt and I like her clothes and her music and the fact that she is extremely fiscally responsible.) I mean, not only was Lizzy Caplan the incredimazeballs Janice in Mean Girls, but she was incredimazeballs on Party Down (OMG, my enthusiasm for that up-and-coming movie knows no bounds) and on True Blood even though I mostly hated her character, but not her. Never her. And, y’all, Lizzy is hot. Like, really, really hot. She might have just eclipsed Emma Stone as my Girl Crush #1.

Okay, I’ll stop blathering and actually get on to what happened in the episode, “The Story of the 50.”
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