I sincerely believe that New Girl is a funny, clever ensemble comedy. I do. A show that was originally thought to be a vehicle to display Zooey Deschanel’s “adorkable” personality has, I think, quickly made it clear that that is not the case. I think anyone who stuck around for 3-5 episodes knows this.

What I love about New Girl is that it knows how to take advantage of the idea of four people with intensely different personalities all living together. The show has done a good job of developing characters so far, and while there’s still some work to be done (Hi, Winston!), overall they’ve created something smart and cool.

Jess is an inherently sweet and optimistic person. I think this episode really showed that Jess is someone who chooses to believe people are good, rather than just walking around in a bubble of sunshine, ignorant of the world around her. We saw this in her argument last week with Julia, and I think we saw it this week when she argued with Nick about whether the landlord was a good guy or not. Jess just wants to think the best of people until she’s proven wrong, and there’s nothing wrong with that.

I guess Jess was fed up with Nick’s DIY fix-it jobs, because she went to see the landlord about some problems in their apartment. Jess probably should have bailed when she saw he was carving a shiv from a broomstick and fermenting liquor in the basement, but hey – at least he didn’t pull a Julia and say he’s “not a dessert person!” So Jess stuck around, and that was a mistake – turns out there’s only supposed to be three people living in the loft. The guys had a hilarious plan in place for this very situation, but they didn’t do a great job of convincing the landlord that Schmidt was a visiting foreigner. (What was that accent? He did not sound Pana…manian…? Panamanian.)

But Jess is nice, so not only did the landlord, Remy, let the roommate situation slide, he agreed to fix some things around the apartment. Nick, however, was convinced Remy was simply trying to get up Jess’s colorful polka-dot skirt.

Jess invited Remy for dinner as a thank you for his doing his job help, and Nick changed his plans just so he could be there. At first, things seemed OK – Nick’s suspicions were all for naught, and he could finally loosen up and be nice to Remy. And then we got thrown a curveball – a pantless Remy revealed that he was open to a threesome!

What followed was wacky and hilarious – neither Jess nor Nick wanted to admit to being wrong, so they both pretended to go ahead with the threesome. They were dancing to music and getting neck massages from Remy, and it wasn’t until Jess had to kiss Nick that she called uncle.

I think what worked about this episode was that we’re not meant to believe that Jess is 100% Pollyanna. She’s just someone who believes that people will be nice to you if you’re nice to them. Nick is someone who thinks everyone sucks. The real world is likely somewhere in the middle.

Meanwhile, Schmidt was trying to decipher the mixed signals he was getting from his boss. This was just pure fun, and the icing on the cupcake was when Winston discovered Schmidt’s list of utterly obnoxious New Year’s resolutions from 2007. There were too many gems to count. Here are some:

• Everything is easy when you are a battleship invading the Bay of Success.
• Stop pursuing Caroline. She’s Nick’s girl. Deal with it.
• Begin the search for the cocoon that will one day release your butterfly.
• Find out where Winston gets his sparkle… and then steal it.
• Only think about hot new CFO every other time I masturbate. (Schmidt said he did not live up to that challenge.)
• Start floating the idea that people call me “Mr. Finish”/”Gametime Jones”/”The Hook-Up-erator.”
• Just pick a color of Crocs and buy them already! (My personal favorite.)

What did you guys think of the episode? Check out my favorite quotes and moments, and share your own in the comments!

• Schmidt [to Cece]: “Oh, come on! Don’t you ever wear jeans? Honestly, you look like you should be distracting James Bond at a baccarat table.”
  Cece: “I’m actually going to go meet Kyle. Jess loaned me her sea sickness bracelets. I’m going to a party on Greg Kinnear’s boat.”
  Schmidt: “You’re going to a party on Neptune’s Folly?”
  Cece: “Relax, he’s not going to be there.”
  Schmidt: “I know. He’s in Rio until the 16th.”
• Cece: “There’s nothing less sexy than a dude asking if he can kiss you.”
  Schmidt: “Nothing? I mean, what if I ate my own hair and pooped out a wig? What if I called my mom after sex to describe it to her? What if I had a croissant blog?” (It’s the way he pronounces croissant that really makes this joke – also, Up All Night shout-out?)
• “Nick, be nice! How hard could it be to just open yourself up a little bit? Dip your toe in the pool of possibility.” – Jess
• Jess: “You guys have a lot in common. Nick went through a break-up that was really hard on him. [Whispers] Schmidt said your mom had to fly out.”
  Nick: “That was a scheduled trip!”
• Schmidt was one “the husky kid in the mailroom.” 
• Nick demonstrating to Jess how guys teach girls how to do things from behind when they want to sleep with them. (“Any time a man wants to show a woman how to do something from behind
  it’s just because he wants an excuse to get real close and breathe on
  her neck. Watch any sports movie.”)

Tags: New Girl