Late to the Party Review — New Girl
A very belated and bittersweet goodbye to our friends in 4D.
LTTP Disclaimer: Like all of my Late to the Party reviews, this is a show that was on for a long time and for whatever reason I never saw it when it first aired and then COVID hit and I began to binge watch every show I could get my hands on.
Friendships end. That’s just life. You don’t realize it when you’re young, but as you get older you drift apart from people. Sometimes there is a good reason like, a high school friend who reveals at your reunion that they love what Trump’s done for the country. And other times it’s for no reason at all. You just drift apart.
Somewhere in between lies the reason for the end to my friendship with the cast of New Girl.
For the past few months my wife and I have been referring to the cast of New Girl as our friends. It’s silly and pathetic, but so are you so stop judging.
I mention our ridiculous love of our friends because last night after binge-watching Seasons 1–5, we were about 15 minutes into Season 6, Episode 7 when we looked at each other and turned it off.
Not because we were at that point in every binger’s night when they finally say, ‘okay! enough! I gotta go to bed!’
We turned it off because we didn’t want to watch the show any more.
I may be overreacting, but I don’t think I am. And granted it’s not on the level of a real life friendship ending for a dumb reason, but damn if it doesn’t feel like it.
That is probably the biggest compliment I can bestow on this or any show. We felt so strongly about our friends that to see them make the recent choices they’ve made is just too much for us to handle.
Let’s back up…
In 2011 FOX aired the first episode of Elizabeth Meriweather’s, New Girl starring Zooey Deschanel.
A few months ago my wife and I saw New Girl on Netflix and thought, ‘do you wanna watch this? I guess. Whatever. There’s nothing else on and I have no reason to live.’
COVID, to put it lightly, has been tough.
So we were beyond excited when we started New Girl because we did something we rarely do… we kept watching episode after episode and loved it!
Jess, Nick, Winston, CeCe, Coach and the long ramblings of an always irritated, Schmidt! We couldn’t get enough.
In fact, there were three weeks in December 2020 where my wife and I were apart and we promised each other we’d wait until we were back together to continue ‘hanging with our friends’.
And then last night, after a few episodes of Season 6, we shut it off.
It’s still too soon to tell. We will, after all, need something to watch tonight, but it feels final.
I can’t ever recall being so in love with a show and then being so saddened that I turned it off in mid-episode. Especially during COVID. We’re talking about choosing to stop watching something after finally agreeing on something to watch. It’s a daily battle where we debate, discuss and flip through row after row of shows and movies and documentaries. When anything that slightly resembles a show or movie that we can both agree on watching is a HUGE win for our apartment.
In no particular order, here are my thoughts on what led to this heart-breaking goodbye.
Let’s start with what we loved and ease into the sadness.
Schmidt. I’m not sure if there is anything else that needs to be said about Max Greenfield’s portrayal of Schmidt. If I’m late to the party on one thing from New Girl it is the existence of Max Greenfield. I wish I could see a breakdown of what was written for him and how he improvised or created the character. It is phenomenal. Schmidt is one of the best characters ever to appear on a television show. Full Stop.
Jess. Zooey Deschanel is an American treasure. She’s ridiculously likable, she is funny, she is beautiful, she has an amazing voice, and she carries this show as the central character better than most. Look no further than How I Met Your Mother, or even, Seinfeld for examples of how the supporting cast makes a show successful despite the main characters acting ability or lack thereof. New Girl doesn’t suffer from this problem. Jess is just as hilarious when she’s interacting with her roommates in the loft or tackling her own storyline at school.
Nick. Like Max Greenfield, Jake Johnson is one of the most talented comedic actors working in Hollywood today. His ability to play a lazy, unwashed, aspiring writer/bartender with a heart of gold is one of the reasons we watched for so long. His timing is impeccable. His rare ability to turn the slightest gesture, grunt, eyebrow raise or stutter into comedy is highly enviable.
CeCe. Hannah Simone’s turn as Jess’s best friend/Schmidt’s love interest/model/bartender/model manager is one of the most surprising and enjoyable characters on the show. It’s surprising because when you start out by centering the show on a comedic hero like Jess and then introduce her beautiful model friend, the audience doesn’t expect a ton from the model friend. We just usually say oh she’s beautiful and is the foil for all of Jess’s relationship hang-ups. But Hannah Simone in many ways similar to that of Max Greenfield surprises with the way she took what could have been an unlikable character and made her shine for the entire length of the show.
Schmidt and CeCe. When you start the show the assumption is that Nick and Jess will be the Ross and Rachel of this series and while that is still the case the relationship that resonates the most is, Schmidt and CeCe.
Winston Bishop. Oh Winston why have they forsaken you?! I’m sure some people will say that the Winston Bishop character was written as a lovable idiot for a reason and while there were moments of hope for him, most notably Season One, Episode Two when he replaces Coach in the loft, or Season Four when his character is given more to do, the fact is, after 5 Seasons and 100 episodes of Winston being an idiot because they couldn’t conceive of a better story arc for his character, it got old. We also just felt bad for him. It felt like so much effort was put into the other characters and with Winston they just agreed to make him insane to the point of irritating. Which sucks because Morris is a great actor. He was ill-conceived and under used and I don’t believe his character is that dumb or slow or out of touch. He is a former Professional Basketball player. He should NEVER be taking any shit from Nick or Schmidt or Coach about who the Alpha Male in the loft is. I can appreciate that they were trying to do something different, but in an effort to make his character unique they just ended up making him dumb and frankly, despite trying from my couch to laugh his character into existence it didn’t work. If the desire was a ‘long-game’ prank that ends in people not finishing the show then congratulations you pulled it off. Even the moments that showed some glimmer of hope, like Winston’s relationship with the gruff, Birdie, were quickly introduced and then extinguished.
Ferguson. How this cat wasn’t getting at least a few seconds of screen time every episode is beyond me. His face is hilarious.
Coach. It’s hard to separate any Wayans from the Wayans Comedy Tree. This is not to say that nepotism is the reason for any Wayans success beyond Damon Sr. and Keenan, only that it’s hard to watch any Wayans and not immediately compare them to the comedy gods who came before them. Damon Wayans Jr. is a very talented actor and comedian. The issue here I think is a combination of, again the writer’s flailing over what to do with the character, and the actor’s own hang-ups around wanting to be true to his comedy roots while simultaneously creating his own aesthetic. The appearance of Coach and then the decision not to replace him, but create a new character in Winston may have seemed like a good idea initially, but ultimately the choice to make Coach an Alpha and therefore have a need for Winston to be such a push-over ultimately hurt both characters, their story arcs and the overall success of the show. I will say that when Coach initially returned we weren’t that excited, but by the time he departed again it was sad and his presence or lack thereof was noticeable as Season 5 began with Jess on Jury Duty (Maternity Leave) and the arrival of…
Megan Fox. You’re hot. We get it. You’re like Kristen Stewart without all the acting talent. The inclusion of her, or any ‘actress’ like her is such a lazy move by everyone involved in this show. There are so many talented actors trying to get work in Hollywood and instead of trusting that process the show/network/creators/writers(?) chose to do what an NFL team does when they throw a ton of money at an aging, has-been, never-was-one to come in with the thought that, ‘Hey they may not win a Super Bowl, but at least they’ll sell some tickets.’
Chicago Cubs. The world needs another character in a show or movie who loves the Cubs like we need another four years with Trump. The Cubs by the way won the World Series the same week Trump won the White House and that has got to be some sort of demonic coincidence the likes of which we should avoid as a society for the rest of time.
Nelson Franklin. Veep is one of the best shows ever and Nelson Franklin’s ability to stand there, taking insults and allowing them to roll off his back is just one of the many incredibly entertaining parts of that show. When he was introduced as CeCe’s rebound guy post-Schmidt, Robbie, it worked. Nice guy, dating a girl way out of his league, he kinda knows it, but also isn’t arrogant about it. He takes one insult after another from a jealous Schmidt. He’s likable. He was a fine side character. And then they had to make him a real love interest possibility for Jess all in the name of delaying her inevitable reunion with Nick. But why?
Why not introduce other random guys and girls for Nick and Jess to date? Instead we’re subjected to two very weak storylines involving someone who brings nothing to the table in Megan Fox and then giving a guy like Nelson Franklin a personality that makes it painful to even tolerate him while we wait for Jess and Nick to reunite.
Other supporting characters: The truly painful part of these unnecessary potential relationships is the plethora of other talented supporting, recurring roles the show developed and then abandoned.
I already mentioned Winston’s love interest Birdie, but what about Jess’s friend Sadie, her parents played by Rob Reiner and Jamie Lee Curtis, Tran, Nick’s old, catatonic friend from the park, or Nadia, the show’s second example of how a model character can be more than just a pretty face.
Season 1–4 were pure bliss, but then Season 5 started and a friendship we held near and dear, through four seasons and over 100 episodes, began to erode.
The moment it all changed — Season 5.
Some might point to Zooey Deschanel’s temporary departure for some well-deserved maternity leave as the tipping point. I don’t actually think it was her fault at all that the show began to falter at this point. I also don’t think the show was destined to fail without her. I look at Nick, Schmidt, CeCe and Winston and think, these guys can carry this. Except for the fact that instead of just trusting those incredible actors who had spent the last four season proving that they can carry the weight the show and the network decided — we need a star to replace Jess, we need… Megan Fox?
It also saw the return of David Walton as Jess’s love interest Sam. The show had an interesting fascination with reintroducing old relationship characters that we never liked in the first place.
You have that whole list above of outstanding recurring characters and what does the show do? They bring back Sam, Robbie and Reagan. It’s mind-boggling.
It made for some very long-winded episodes. Do we need to see Sam ever again? Do we need to see Robbie? If the end game is to see Nick and Jess together again then who cares about these other relationships? It’s not as if the Nick and Reagan storyline provides some adequate level of tension necessary to help us really yearn for the Nick and Jess reunion. Wouldn’t bringing in another random character like Birdie be much more entertaining? Wouldn’t you rather just see Sadie and Jess hanging out? Or weave Nadia into the story? (The Russian bachelorette party in the truck was one of the biggest laughs of the entire series.)
There was a moment at the beginning of Season 6 where there appeared to be a glimmer of hope. The gang realized with Schmidt and CeCe moving out that maybe they should bring in a new roommate. And instead of doing that, or at least interviewing potential roommates/love interests (I can envision at least once montage where we see them interview potential replacements) they kept the ghost of Reagan/Megan Fox around and rather than rid themselves of the spineless Robbie after the weight-lifting accident they doubled down on that relationship arc as well.
If I sound like I’m beating a dead horse it’s simply because we loved it so much and then we were so disappointed by how it ended.
What can I say? Friendships end. They are not all lifelong affairs where road bumps are just a part of the journey to resolution, but when they’re this much fun and then turn sour, well, those friendships are the most difficult to say goodbye to.
