‘New Girl’ Review: “Thanksgiving” (1.06)
Photo courtesy of FOX
In this week’s episode of New Girl, Jess invites fellow teacher Paul, (guest star Justin Long) over for Thanksgiving dinner — which also happens to be their first date. Of course ike all comedy formulas, this one is bound to be a hilarious disaster.
When the guys find out the Jess has invited Paul over, they’re reluctant to have this dinner, because all they were planning to do was watch the football game, have some beers, and go to Best Buy for Black Friday.
Following that, another problem arises – Jess can’t cook to save her life. So she enlists Schmidt’s help by agreeing to invite Cece over, and not give him a hard time about his tarragon use and not touching anything while he’s in the kitchen. The next day, “Hanks Giving”, the turkey she bought for the occasion hasn’t thawed and with three hours to go until Paul gets there, they put the turkey in the dryer to speed up the process.
Paul finally arrives, and soon enough the guys realize that he’s pretty much a male version of Jess; who is adorkably as awkward as Jess. Nick, immediately doesn’t like him, while Winston wants to know if Paul is the right guy for them if he is to become Jess’ boyfriend, so he suggests a word game, to which Paul answers with “Kazoo,” before even starting. His following responses are pretty sensible and soon they bond over their grandparents and the close relationships they had with them.
Things in the kitchen with Schmidt and Cece seemed to be going well, until she puts mashed potatoes on his nose and he yells at her, which draws her more to him. She then tries to find ways to provoke him by putting her unwashed hand into the pudding he made, Schimdt who is obsessed with hygiene is appalled at the action.
The get-together seems to be going just about right, when the turkey catches fire in the dryer, making the apartment look like, according to Schmidt, “a Prince video.” Fortunately, Jess has the keys to Mrs. Beverly’s apartment across the hall, and so the gang moves dinner there. Before they can all get through the door, Jess confronts Nick in the hallway about his attitude towards Paul and soon the argument escalates to numerous ways she wants to have sex with Paul, “big time.”
Their Thanksgiving comes to an end when Paul runs out screaming from the bathroom after he finds Mrs. Beverly’s corpse. Sometime later when the gang heads over to Best Buy to get in line for Black Friday, Paul shows up again playing the violin for Jess, while also bringing the guys some turkey subs to make up for the ruined dinner. They both start singing and dancing, and soon start running off out of the parking lot, to which Nick asks, “Where the hell are they going?”
Thanksgiving set some storylines in motion, now that Paul was added to the mix and will be on board for two more episodes, how will that steer Nick and Jess’ relationship? It seems the way things are going, by the end of the season they may come to a mutual fondness for the other, and will more than likely play a large factor in the next upcoming episodes.
Another couple in the making may be Cece and Schmidt. We’ve known Schmidt has been attracted to Cece since the get go by constantly hitting on her, but in this episode it was pretty much the other way around. Cece messing with Schmidt’s germaphobe tendencies just to rile him up was pretty hilarious. As for Winston, though we did learn a little more about him and, he needs to be added more into the story line, which I think we all can agree we would like to see more of.
Review by Maria Martinez – @fallenstar88
