Five weeks ago, we were excited to say “New Girl is back!” After last night’s episode, ‘The Box’, it can safely be said that “New Girl is BACK.”
While Winston continues to slowly morph into the “black Joey” of the group (seriously, he was not this flighty in season 1 or 2), Schmidt seeks redemption and Nick and Jess have a hilarious knock down/drag out/throw purses out the window fight.
The fifth episode of season 3 finds the group rounding back into form and hitting their stride once again.
The existence and nature of Nick’s titular ‘box’ allows he and Jess stave off Shipping Bed Death for one more week and instead have an organic-feeling conflict, one that never feels wedged in to promote gratuitous sitcom friction where there wouldn’t naturally be any. Nick is charmingly unmotivated to grow up, and Jess is detail-obsessed. This was a fight destined to happen, and it’s a good thing it came sooner than later.
While women everywhere were finally clued in to our purse preferences (seriously, we just want your bags to be covered in gemstones, is that too much to ask?) viewers were reminded that Nick and Jess have some seriously opposing personality traits, especially with regard to organization and finance.
The happier Nick and Jess are together, the more the show runs the risk of becoming stale, and encouraging viewers to (gasp) root for them to break up. (I was emailing with a friend last week, trust me- it’s already happening.) This episode brought one of the heavyweight relationship-testers to the table, in the form of a bag of cash. The results: a fight for the ages (“Are you knitting a mansion?”) and a bank-based bonding moment (“I’ll do anything for ya, Jess.”) both proving a sustained Nick/Jess relationship can be entertaining and engaging.
The most encouraging plot point: Winston never collected the $1900 Nick owes him, signaling the potential down-the-road return of his slider-based plot to collect what he is owed. Was that a PowerPoint presentation? For as meaningless and minimal as Winston’s scenes have been so far this season, they may be the most memorable. Here’s hoping the impending return of Coach elevates Winston to the foreground for a few episodes.
