NEW GIRL Recap: Control or Schmitt’s Meltdown

The title of this episode of New Girl says it all. Control over finances, control over relationships and control over your living situation.
It all starts with Cece dropping Schmitt off in a bad part of town a mile from the loft. Schmitt is bent out of shape because the guy on the corner is clearly “new homeless” and he will have to run home wearing his “slippiest loafers”
Poor Schmitt is stressed out. He has no control over this relationship. It’s like she is “ripping the side block out of his mental Jenga.” After a little more complaining on his part to which Cece just rolls her eyes Schmitt finally hands Cece his shoes to hold onto because, “He can get a tetanus shot but he can’t cure damaged suede.”

With Schmitt’s OCD boiling over he lashes out at Jess who has brought home a hutch that she found on the street. Schmitt tells her to get rid of it because it’s Pine and Pine has no place in the loft. “It’s the wood of poor people and outhouses.” Jess argues back that she pays rent, she should have some things in the house. Schmitt says that it she doesn’t get rid of it he will reinstate his ban on high waisted shorts. She can’t believe he would dare to do that. “That was the worst four weeks of her life.”

Nick and Winston are both in the bathroom and Winston is still drinking. It’s 10:00AM but he tells Nick he knows what it will feel like when he stops drinking so, “he is just going to stay a little drunk forever.”
He brings up last night’s poker game and how it got a little intense. Nick says he was so hammered he has no idea what Winston is talking about. Flash to last night’s poker game where Nick is slurring how he has never been more sober in his life and he will remember all of this forever. He then goes all in, throws his cards down and yells, “Uno bitches! Read them and weep.” He did not win however and now owes Winston $487.00, which is written on his stomach in marker. Jess comes in to the bathroom to complain about Schmitt and says she isn’t going to stand for it. Nick says she is because it’s a delicate ecosystem that they live in. Jess says it is a broken ecosystem. But Winston says that they let Schmitt run the house because he can’t handle when things are not neat and orderly. Queue another flash back…this one of Fat Schmitt at the front door of the loft holding his suit cases. He is watching Nick who looks homeless and Winston with dreads playing a game of baseball in the living room with a head of lettuce. The only furniture is a lawn chair. Fat Schmitt looks around and throws up.

Schmitt comes home the next day and sees Jess’s stuff everywhere. An afghan on the couch, the hutch of offensive pine, etc… “What do we live in a pawn shop?” Jess walks in carrying an old typewriter. She says she found the afghan under a dumpster by the animal shelter and the lamp under the afghan.
Schmitt is having a meltdown. He wants to know why her spices are crammed into the same rack as his. Even worse…her Non Tahitian vanilla is touching his Tahitian vanilla. And where is his coffee grinder…the one that doesn’t mash up the beans like a pedestrian grinder, “for a deeper richer more satisfying flavor profile.” It’s in the hutch. Oh and Jess says she has used it repeatedly to make homemade crayons. Schmitt is really freaking out now. He says she is making him emotionally nauseous. They start pushing the hutch back and forth. Schmitt says fine, she is right and he is sorry. As soon as Jess is out of the room he pushes the hutch over so that it falls on the ground and breaks. Jess comes back in the room and tells him he has a real problem and must learn to calm down.

Jess’s solution apparently is to take Schmitt to the beach. Jess loves the beach and says it is so much better then arguing. Schmitt looks very uncomfortable and says, “Yeah if you like hanging out on the rim of a giant fish toilet.” He wants to go home but Jess says they need to talk about his problems and this is a great place. Birds in the sky, Schmitt sees a cat eating a dead bird. Sea and sand, Schmitt sees a used needle in the sand. Wind in our hair, a kite comes out of nowhere and gets in his face.

Meanwhile Nick and Winston are sitting on a bench eating lunch. Winston paid since Nick forgot his wallet. Winston pulls out a piece of paper and says he wants to talk to Nick about a tough subject, the sum of the debt between them. Nick says he thought it was something serious and to just relax. Winston skims the paper, flips it over and starts again, “If I’m reading this section then I can only assume you have told me to relax.” He goes on to say he is very relaxed, they are both broke, one embarrassingly so. He points at Nick. Nick does his first signature frowny face of the episode! Yay!
Winston finishes with, “But I want that money. Give me my money. I really mean it. It’s my money. You owe me that money. So give me the money. Seriously. Where is the money, dude?”
Nick can’t believe he wrote dude. Winston says he will settle for an even $200.00. They agree and shake on it. Nick can’t let it go though and brings up that he paid for gas to get there, so that’s $10.00, and he hates being that guy but he paid for the fights on Friday, so that is another $30.00, and $20.00 for the beer so that makes it $140.00…just to be fair. Winston can’t believe it and gets up and walks away.

Jess is still trying to get Schmitt to have fun by riding bikes. Nick has paper towels on the handle bars and his shoes have plastic bags covering them. After a few more failed attempts at fun Jess says she can’t believe she never noticed how crazy Schmitt is. “Aging ballerina, child chess prodigy, professional magician crazy.”
Schmitt says he came from a Jewish family but his Mom would say Santa didn’t come to their house because his room was messy, the only thing he could control was what he ate. So he got fat. Jess says she got fat because she would eat grape jelly from the jar using a candy bar as a fork.

Nick and Winston are back at the loft and they are still arguing about money. Winston is pulling out receipts one of which is a cancelled check for $35.00 for registration of the domain name, “ItsNickMillerTime.com” I checked…it’s not a real website, although maybe it will be some day because Nick was going to use it to become a famous blogger.
Nick counters with he works at a bar where Winston drinks for free, Winston had to listen to Nick cry over Caroline. Nick says Winston “accidentally” saw his Mom naked in the 8th grade, “before she stopped exercising and let herself get chubby”, that has to be worth something in terms of money.
Jess and Schmitt come home to announce that Schmitt waded into the ocean without his aqua socks, he washed his hands in a public restroom, “and there was a man in there. He was using the toilet, full sit, no door and he didn’t break eye contact!”
Nick spits out some beer on the table and Schmitt runs to clean it up but Jess stops him and tells him to breathe. Schmitt does and feels so great he is going to take a shower with Nick’s bar of soap like, “a common ranch hand.”

Winston and Nick are still arguing at the table while Jess is looking around the house. It is a mess…disaster sized mess. Winston and Nick are throwing things at each other across the table and Winston keeps asking where his money is. Jess says she will clean if they go to the store. They say they aren’t going anywhere together. Schmitt who has been playing drums in the other room the whole time comes out wearing jeans, what I can only assume is a hemp pull over and announces he made them necklaces. Nick and Winston decide going to the store is a good idea.
At the store however they can’t believe Schmitt buys all the groceries for $100.00. They start throwing things out of the cart, into other people’s carts and the cooler that holds pop at the end of the checkout aisle. When they get to the front of the checkout line they tell the checker they only have $100.00 so just stop checking around $93.00 + tax. While they are arguing about what to buy Nick calls Winston Winny. He doesn’t like it and says fine we are completely even, because Nick’s Mom will always be the winner of best boobs. Nick pushes Winston and quickly their shoving becomes a slap fight. Something I always find amusing…grown men slapping each other and being so serious about it. I watched a similar slap fight play out on Psych last week. All pretty entertaining to me.
Anyway…back on the beach Jess is trying to talk Schmitt into coming home. She notices that he is eating street meat. It’s from his man Gordon. Gordon, has a shopping cart that he is pushing around that he is selling hot dogs out of.
Schmitt hasn’t been to work in three days and Jess can’t find the vacuum. Will he please come home. He is just jamming away on his bongo and eating his street meat. Jess says they all lost their keys in the mail box, Nick and Winston are fighting and he doesn’t belong out here.

Nick and Winston are back home from their shopping trip. They have frozen food on their faces and wrists. Nick says he is so hungry, he remembers Schmitt would make peanut butter in celery with raisins on it.
Jess walks in and says she tried to get Schmitt back but he went back to twirling his fire baton which is bad, he burned a lot of people. She thinks they should let you twirl it a few times before lighting it on fire.
Nick says, “Being friends with Schmitt is hard…you want to change him so badly but you can’t.”
Jess says she now knows they are right but she just wanted to be part of the family and have something in the loft of hers. Nick says she is part of the family.
Schmitt eventually comes back to the loft. Dirty and dressed like a hippy. They tell him they miss him, and they want him to clean. They are proud of him for letting go but now he could have new problems like hepatitis. Nick tells Schmitt he needs him to tell him what pants not to wear, tell him to exercise more often and make fun of him when he calls Panini’s hot sandwiches. How else will he learn?
Winston says he even misses Nick’s hair chutney. Without them they are just idiots that live together. He makes them a family. Schmitt is sure he is the cool rebel brother but they all assure him he is the Mother.
Nick throws out that he will even let Schmitt clean his room if he comes back. “The White Whale?” asks Schmitt. Nick says to just think how many dust bunnies and stray socks there are.
And Jess got Schmitt something. Schmitt looks interested because it looks like a boutique box. It’s a pair of, “grey, shiny, twill flat front trousers designed by a man named Calvin, never been tried on, pockets are still sewn shut.” She leaves them on his bongo drum in case he wants to try them on.
Next thing you know Schmitt is cleaning the kitchen, in his new pants. He looks at them and is back to his old self, “Nick your hair is doing that thing that I just hate. And Jess ask Winston to help you move the furniture out. He could use the exercise. Nick and Winston we have a urinal, how are you still missing.”

The episode ends with Cece walking up Schmitt. She is kissing him but he stops her. He says he clearly has no control in this situation and he is fine with it but, “She broke into their apartment at 3:00 AM for a little bit of this Schmitt so who is really in control.” She tells him to shut up and then she stops him to ask if he is sleeping in dress pants. Schmitt tells her, “They are slacks. What’s the big deal?”

I love watching episodes where characters have OCD…makes me think my OCD isn’t quite so bad. Or at least that is what I tell myself. As always I have written way too much but so much happens in these half hour episodes.
I’ll leave you with my favorite quote of the night:
Jess to Schmitt: “Do you remember when you got yourself off to an Inconvenient Truth? Or when you dressed up like Shia Lebuff from Wall Street 2 for Halloween. Or when you said music was America’s biggest mistake?”

New Girl airs Tuesday at 9/8c on Fox.