Maybe I was just really in the mood for Chinese food, but this week’s episode was, for me, the funniest episode this season. Everyone (alas, except CeCe) had plenty of screen time and there were plenty of LOL moments to be had.
The episode starts with Jess heading off to her school to propose a field trip for her students to go to the beach, even though Nick tells her the principal will just turn her down and she shouldn’t even try. All the while, Nick is eating Chinese food for breakfast. If I’m going to be honest, I’m not really sure what the problem is here.
As expected, Jess’ request is denied, even though her students apparently don’t know what a shark is (it has legs?) or what the ocean is (a blue square?). Jess is heartbroken when she has to tell one of her students that the field trip is off.
Back at the loft, Coach has moved in to Schmidt’s old room (in fact, news broke lasat week that COACH IS STAYING FOR THE REST OF THE SEASON!). Schmidt drops by to turn in his keys to the loft because he “needs his space.” When reminded that he’s right across the hall, he pontificates, “Everywhere you go . . . there you are.” Coach asks Nick to let him be his personal trainer so that he can avoid gaining the “Boyfriend 15,” which inevitably leads to the “Boyfriend 20.” After much convincing, and the promise of seeing his abs (“I thought God just didn’t give me those.”), Nick agrees to let Coach be his…um…coach?
Jess, devastated by the field trip fiasco, gets home and is set off by the nine Hop Foo Chinese food menus that have been slipped under the loft door. She decides to take out her frustration on this “project” and heads over to Hop Foo where she is greeted by Bryan, a seemingly sympathetic employee who agrees to take the issue up with his manager, but only because Jess is “gorgeous.”
Another reason I felt this episode was successful was because the Nick/Jess relationship took a backseat for the first time. One thing I realized I missed since the two roommates started dating was Jess’ general awkwardness when men come on to her. This scene at Hop Foo made me notice just how much I used to enjoy this dynamic when Jess was still single.
Coach and Nick begin their workout training, which Coach says is easy as P.E.A.N.U.T.S. What’s that? An acronym that stands for:
- Physical
- Education
- Activity
- Nuts
Winston is intent on joining the training but is hobbled by a basketball (menu) related injury. Schmidt, on the other hand, is feeling left out. He asks to be put on speaker phone and to be told what the vibe is like at the old apartment. When told by Winston that Nick’s in jeans, he responds, “Nixon jeans? What the hell are Nixon jeans? They sound really cool.”
Jess returns, believing she solved her menu issue, only to be greeted by another menu. She chases the culprit and finds Bryan behind the whole thing. Bryan is actually the manager and doesn’t care about the environment at all!
Coach kicks off some workout tunes leading to this from the boys:
Nick starts off quite enjoying Coach’s workout routine before getting to the SECOND set and realizing he can’t do it. Thankfully (for all of us), he faked an emergency and asked CeCe to bring some Chinese food to the loft. (There may have been some foreshadowing of a potential Coach/CeCe thing)
Despite Coach’s best efforts, Nick decides to eat Chinese food and give up on Coach’s training. Winston, meanwhile, eats the Chinese food and finds out that it contains MSG. Winston has an allergic reaction to MSG causing his jaw to lock up. Jess sees her opportunity to get back at Hop Foo and brings Winston to the restaurant in order to scare away all of Bryan’s customers until he agrees to stop giving out so many menus. However, this leads to this nice guy:
getting fired. Which leads to Jess feeling horrible.
We go back to the loft where Schmidt has just attempted to plant a nanny cam in order to keep in the loop. Coach and Jess are now drowning their feelings in what looks like Lo Mein and soy sauce. Nick can’t stand to see them in such bad shape so he gives them a pep talk which leads Jess to remember that Bryan has a Hop Foo van that can transport her students to the beach. Happy ending. Fin.
There were several things to like about this episode, and pretty much just the lack of CeCe not to like. The addition of Coach and Schmidt being across the hall has altered the dynamic and freshened things up a bit on the show. What should not be lost in all of this is that New Girl is now a rare successful sitcom that has two lead African American stars, at least for the remainder of the season. What’s even better is that race is rarely an issue on the show. Where twenty years ago, Friends premiered with six stars, none of whom were of a racial minority, half of New Girl‘s regular cast can be counted as such.
Don’t forget: you can win a trip to the New Girl set and hang out with Hannah Simone and the cast by donating to her Pink Daisy project charity, which supports young women and mothers with breast cancer.
G.B. doesn’t stand for Gareth Bale. It might stand for Graduated, Barely (from law school). After spending time in Texas and Pennsylvania, he now lives in northern California where he makes gifs and watches a lot of TV, movies and sports.
