Meanwhile, this episode finds Jess trying to live a life free of responsibility. She goes to Nick’s bar, gets drunk, tells Nick to give her number to one of the deliverymen she talks to and then pretends to be someone’s internet date in order to get an easy hookup. This is the personal side of the coin she explored in the first episode. It’s a common sitcom plot – mistaken identities and mixed up signals ensue – but the writing makes it work.
Nick, of course, gives Jess’s number to the wrong deliveryman, leaving her to have to deflect the affections of the chubby, awkward gentleman known as Bearclaw. Oddly enough, when Jess confronts Nick about his mistake, Nick can’t see the problem. He loves Bearclaw, and thinks the other guy was lame. It’s this endearing sweetness on Nick’s part that defuses the otherwise simple plot line.
Likewise, Nick’s storyline has a kind of odd, absurdist plot involving an obviously insane old man who claims to be him from the future. The idea is oddly plausible to Nick, and becomes more plausible thanks to the performance by Raymond J. Barry (Justified’s Arlo Givens).
Everything comes to a head when Jess is caught in the midst of a bathroom trist with the online dating guy, at the same time that the deliverymen are in there. Nick comes in to commiserate with Bearclaw, who Nick likes so much that he claims he would have gone to the restroom stall with him instead. It’s weird, sweet, overblown, and oddly affecting.
Then, as Nick and Jess are bonding over old fashioneds (a ritual that is suggested by Future Nick) her online dating one night stand comes and says something magical. They don’t have to care about one another, they don’t need to be themselves or anything else. They can just tear each other apart night after night. It’s a bold, strange declaration but it works. Jess finds a responsibility-free outlet from her otherwise depressing life, one that won’t hold her back from trying to find that thing that will make her feel better in the long run.
Finally, the episode closes with Schmidt taking a basketball to the face during a one-on-one match to try to win Winston’s sister’s affections.
New Girl is filled with broad comedy, but also specific character instances of such bizarre specificity and personality that it helps to elevate the whole show considerably. For instance, Jess isn’t great with doorknobs. Winston gets way too drunk off of girly drinks. Nick wears his sweater and is obsessed with leaving the grid of going Ghost Protocol by not owning a phone.
At the end of the day though, the show speaks to very specific generational problems for the post-college crowd. Life is tough, the job market sucks, but somehow the right people in your life can still make it seem like things are working out.
