New Girl has debuted its sophomore season and it is as fresh and funny as ever.
While Jess (Zooey Deschanel) is still very much the focus of the show, the ensemble vibe that increasingly defined the show in the second half of season 1 is back stronger than ever, which means lots of screen time for self-centred corporate and social climber with a (often hidden) heart-of-gold Schmidt (Max Greenfield), his school pal and slacker (and possible love interest for Jess down the track), Nick (Jack Johnson), Jess’s best gal pal (now with less Schmidt) Cece (Hannah Simone), and Winston (Lamorne Harris).
And now that Jess has lost her job as a teacher, thanks to job cuts in her school district, she has lots more time to explore who she is, what she wants to do with her life, and who she wants to do with.
So it made sense that the first two episodes of the new season, which were screened together, explore Jess’s predicatbly awkward attempts to chart a new path through life, with of course the help of the best friends a gal could ask for.
In “Re-launch”, which is ostensibly about a penis cast-free Schmidt’s ambition to re-brand himself via a Danger-themed party at the bar Nick works at – which of course does not go to plan thanks a failed attempt at bare chested fire twirling, fuelled by his jealousy over ex Cece’s new boyfriend – Jess finds she is no longer employed at her school, and must find something else to do.
She maintains she is fine to anyone who will listen but it’s clear that Jess is lost now that “the only job I ever wanted to do” has been unceremoniously taken off her with only an awkward apology from the school principal and a couple of items from Lost Property as compensation. (It’s a sign of the cleverness of the script that Jess, once the shock wears off, laments that she didn’t choose better items from the Lost Property box when she had a chance to.)
While Nick and Winston don’t have a lot to do, Nick as ever proves himself to be the one to step into the breach for Jess whose attempts to be a saucy shots girl at the party come a-cropper when she can’t compete with a jaded waitress (played superbly by Parker Posey) and she realises mid top-of-the-bar gyration that she really misses being a teacher.
It’s a very funny episode with references to true friendship being about your willingness to scratch (with a stick thank you!) someone’s penis cast when Jess agrees to help Schmidt out, Nick’s dab hand at cocktails that get women (and Winston) very drunk very quickly (and thus amenable to, well, you know) and the challenges of living life when you’re not entirely sure where you’re going.
“Katie” by contrast, concentrated more on Jess’s attempts to fill in her unemployed days – Schimdt is delighted when she starts baking and cleaning “after almost a year” – and the complications that resulted when she attempted to balance two prospective romantic candidates at once.
That was always doomed to failure since as the guys pointed out, she has a hard time doing more than one thing at once – for instance not tripping over when she’s standing still which ably used Deschanel’s gift for adorkable slapstick – but she charged ahead anyway with the sort of messy results you’d expect.
The episode draws its name from Jess pretending to be someone called Katie when a guy called Sam (David Walton) mistakes her for his internet-arranged date. Liberated from being rudderless, unemployed Jess, “Katie” is everything Sam wanted – this time its Nick who gets to prove his hand at goofy slapstick when Jess pretends that she is a dancer, along with Nick and Schmidt – and they hit it off, engaging in nights of torrid sex and pretending to both love Creed.
This all happens though while she is trying to get out of dating a friend of Nick’s, Bearclaw (Josh Gad) after he mistakenly gives Jess’s number to him rather his workmate Andy (Josh Braaten) who is the one Jess actually fancied.
Meanwhile Winston’s sharp tongued sassy mother, Charmaine (Anna Maria Horsford) and pro-basketballer sister, Alisha (Keenyah Hill) are in town, and while Winston’s mother can’t stand Schmidt, that doesn’t stop him from attempting to get “jiggy” with Alisha which naturally ends badly for Schmidt.
Nick is otherwise engaged in entertaining the fanciful idea that wacko drunk in the bar is his future self. It provides for some funny moments, and as Nick grows increasingly convinced that future Nick (Raymond J Barry) is the real deal, he solicits life advice from his hopefully wiser older self.
Of course it all comes to nothing when future Nick emerges from an old dishwasher box in the alley wearing a tin foil hat and making beeping noises. It was all very silly of course but served the serious purpose of showing how lost Nick is and how he’ll take direction from just about anybody.
Oh and Jess? After her attempts to date two men at once went awry and were exposed in a very funny scene in the mens toilets at the work where Nick works, she ends up with Sam, on a purely physical level only which suits her just fine for the moment.
So in summary both episodes were very funny, continued the delightful ensemble feel of last season, and gave delightful glimpses into each of the characters and where they might head in the season ahead.