jason stives gets adorkable with Zooey Deschanel …
Due to a blinding headache last Tuesday, I missed the second episode of Fox’s new hit comedy, New Girl, of which I reviewed to a relatively satisfying extent the week prior. This week, I finally caught up, and any trepidation I displayed about the shows potential slowly faded — but my defenses still are up. New Girl is very much a show that knows its blatantly cheesy and silly, and for some, that may be very grating, but compared to shows that force you to laugh with canned humor, here is a show trying to be funny by not being funny. That seems like a contradiction, but oddly enough, this makes New Girl work and the pilot episode tried to display that to an audience unsure of what they were getting from it.
The subsequent two episodes of the show have really played up both expected plot points and more intricate life questions, if you can believe it, both to amusing and sometimes uncomfortable degrees. The second episode, “Kryptonite,” displayed only a little bit of each of these elements and was not anywhere near as satisfying as the episode that followed, “The Wedding.” But I’m getting too ahead of myself — let’s talk about the second episode.
We always knew Jess was going to eventually have to face her ex and retrieve the stuff she left behind in such a huff in the pilot, so it’s no surprise that they got it out of the way here. This comes to fruition after Jess accidentally throws a basketball at the gangs TV, prompting Jess to face the music and talk to Spencer. The point here was mainly to show Jess she didn’t need her ex, someone that the gang points out shouldn’t be her Achilles heel. I mean, he does have a ponytail. The gang provides Jess with the capability to conquer his apparent allure (I don’t see it either), but to some monstrous degrees as Jess seemingly begins to destroy her exs house in a fit of anger culminating in her almost breaking her own television to get the literal shirt off his back.
For new viewers to the show, one should’ve picked a better episode. “Kryptonite” does have some of the hallmarks that made the pilot amusing but was so forced in its execution that it didn’t hold much of a candle to its predecessor. This doesn’t mean it wasn’t funny, but it certainly from my view wouldn’t keep a viewer interested outside of the last five minutes when Jess goes all bezerker.
This episode also had one notable change: the introduction of Winston, the replacement of Coach. who has seemed to exit the show (actor Damon Wayans Jr left to stay on the less-than-appealing ABC comedy Happy Endings). In my initial review, I wondered how such a change would be handled and if they would simply recast the character or bring in a new one, and thankfully the latter happened and probably more satisfying than anticipated. Winston is a basketball player who use to room with Nick and Schmidt just returning from playing pro in Europe and is a lot smoother and gentler than Coach was trying to be. His subplot which involves the bidding war over the biggest room in the apartment with Schmidt is not really interesting, and so you really don’t get a feel for Winston right off the back.
For all her adorable demeanor, Zooey Deschanel has never been the strongest actress, always relying on her dry sense of humor, quirky overreactions, and ability to exemplify broad gestures. On television, this works very well, and considering the overall lame selling point of Jess, it makes logical sense for her to be overly cheery only to explode in a display of singing and wearing false teeth for her own amusement. It’s the situations that make Jess who she is when everyone else is trying so hard to sell themselves as someone else.
The third episode, “The Wedding,” did a great job at displaying this comparatively to its predecessor . It’s here that the three roommates are now stuck in a predicament that Jess ultimately saves them from, and all three of them show a great display of reaction. In it, the gang gets invited to the wedding of some high school friends, laying the groundwork for the guys to display that they have become better people to their fellow peers. Schmidt’s attempt to bed a girl he had the hots for in high school was funny mainly for how obvious it wasn’t going to work and that he would end up by night’s end sleeping with his wedding fling Gretchen (Natasha Lyonne), who threatens to tie him down and force him to watch slides from a rafting trip. Winston on the other hand is bound and determined to be the best wedding usher after being shown up by a smart ass little kid subbing for him.
Considering where these situations could’ve went had Coach still be involved, Winston is far more believable in this position and far more sympathetic than the woman hating Coach. Nick, on the other hand, probably has the best moments to work with, as he finally tries to forget Caroline from his mind when he shows up with Jess pretending to be his girlfriend to make Caroline jealous. After seemingly being lured back in by her (in his mind at least), he becomes belligerently drunk and confining himself in the weddings photo booth, bottle of jack in hand.
Jess and the gang always seem to find themselves out of their comfort zones either defending each other from unlawful exes or singing and dancing in public to save face value for each other. This episode was no different as Nick coaxes Jess into performing a slow motion chicken dance on the dance floor after he breaks it off completely with Caroline. The gang joins in as the rest of the room slow dances through the credits. In a way, this is the purpose of the show, which is to showcase how uptight everyone around Jess seems to be but in the meantime allows Jess to understand when she may be too open about herself. After being asked to NOT be herself for the whole episode, she ultimately shows that being herself is far more beneficial than being someone you’re not. That seems like a Hallmark kind of moment, but it’s really the only way to explain why our main character is so dorky but yet easily accepted.
Overall, New Girl has worked because it plays it so straight forward instead of being an overtly original situation. Comedies are a dime a dozen, and compared to the state recent three-camera sitcoms like 2 Broke Girls and Whitney, a female-lead driven show works well here thanks to its supporting cast and the imperfect personality of its charming main character. New Girl after three episodes is obviously a show that is more self aware of what it meant to be compared to other sitcoms and what they are trying to be.
All Photos Credit: FOX
