NEW GIRL Recap: Relaunch

New Girl is back my darlings and I couldn’t be happier!

The housemates are all back together in the loft which I love. Jess is late for a meeting with the Vice Principle which doesn’t stop Schmidt from asking her to scratch his undercarriage while he is standing in the kitchen in his shower diaper. That’s right, shower diaper. It’s hard to believe Jess and the boys have become such good friends considering she was a Craigslist roommate just last year.
Jess ever the nice girl accommodates Schmidt while Nick and Winston look on in what I can only believe is horror.

The meeting with the vice principle does not go well. Jess gets laid off due to budget cuts.
Jess: I’m a really good teacher. I spent two months in summer school with an Indian student named Vag Rejuv and I did not laugh once.

In the loft Nick is explaining to Winston that you can’t share a bowl of cereal when Schmidt enters and throws his penis cast down on the dining room table. So that’s just gross. The boys think so to.
Schmidt: If there is anything that majoring in marketing with a minor in theater studies has taught me it’s everybody has a brand. Nick, your brand is Gypsy Alcoholic Handyman. Winston your brand is Winston.

This speech is followed by the announcement that Schmidt is having a rebranding party…basically a party to tell girls he is ready to have sex again. I’m thinking only Schmidt could pull off that kind of ridiculous. Among the list of people he has invited: his urologist, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Cece.
And where is this rebranding to be held, Nick’s bar of course, where he will be bartending. It’s apparently more than just a gig Nick took after he dropped out of law school, he’s actually quite gifted at making drinks that get girls naked. I mean if you are going to have a talent I suppose that one is pretty nifty.
Nick: Cause sure I could get a girl topless, no bra with one hollowed out papaya, some crushed ice and two fingers of rum, but I grew up. Now I only want to make a drink that a coal miner would want. Straight forward, honest. Something that says I work in a hole.
It’s good to have goals, right?

Jess shows up in the middle of that conversation to announce that she got laid off. She has to go to her room to process. Nick doesn’t want her to cry, he rallies the guys. He says they have to go help her, because Nick looooves her. Oh yeah, I’m that girl. It’s the first episode of the season and I’m already back on the shipping wagon I forgot I was riding on this summer.
Jess greats the boys at the door. She wants no pity eyes. She’ll get a new job. Just act normal. The boys clearly have trouble with this.
Jess: Schmidt stop looking at me like I’m a fat kid riding a bike.

The next day the job hunt is on. Apparently her boobs are loving the whole unemployment thing. I was unaware you didn’t need to wear a bra while unemployed. I’ve noted it though. Nick is being overly nice to her and she wants him to stop. He takes offense, since he thinks he has always been nice to her. She says he is usually mean like a crazy old man.
Jess: When did gum get so fancy?

Schmidt’s biggest problem is the zoo won’t let him borrow their white tiger for his party. Jess wants Schmidt to hire her for his party. He is not loving the idea but he relents and make her his other shot girl.
Nick thinks this is a terrible idea; she isn’t the type of hot that shames guys into spending $9.00 on a $2.00 shot. After further explanation…
Nick: You are the nurse I want to wake up to after having my stomach pumped. It’s a different kind of hot.

Jess leaves to work on her costume, which should worry the boys. At the party that night, where the theme is danger by the way, her costume is none other than a cigarette girl, much like the ones you would have seen in a speakeasy before the war. She even worked out a new persona, Ivy. The other shot girl shows up in a slutty ref outfit. It’s Parker Posey, whom I absolutely adore!
She is a professional shot girl, something I never aspired to but that may just be because I have the girl next door look and the body to go with a good personality. I’ve gotten off topic.

Casey (Parker Posey) moments later is working the crowd, pouring drinks straight from the bottle into guy’s mouths and having a blast while Jess is using her Ivy voice and asking guys if they want any fire water.
It’s not going well for Jess. It doesn’t take long for it to not go well for Schmidt either. Cece shows up with her boyfriend, played by Nelson Franklin.
Schmidt: The one shaped like the Liberty Bell? There must be an explanation for this, like he’s the Lord of Winterfell.

Yes a Game of Thrones reference.

At the bar Winston has talked Nick into making him a girly drink; I’m talking half a coconut with fruit pieces, an umbrella and a squiggly straw. Winston takes a huge drink and starts to get a little weird, which is exactly why Nick didn’t want to make Winston the drink to begin with. Winston says he feels naughty an uncomfortable number of times and takes another drink.

Schmidt can’t let this Cece boyfriend thing go so he introduces himself in an attempt to find out what Cece sees in him. He is more stumped after the conversation.

Jess is still really struggling with the shot girl job. She almost chokes a guy by pouring too much alcohol down his throat and then breaks a bottle of whiskey. Nick sees this and wants to be nice (again) but Jess tells him not now. He decides to be mean instead since that is what she says she wants. Nick says this is the easiest job in the world besides handing out cigarettes to prisoners. He even mocks her “turn of the century bathing costume”.
He stops to make sure she is okay and when she says yes he puts his mean voice back on and tells her to get on the bar and shake her ass. Unfortunately Winston has really taken to Nick’s drink and is doing some ass shaking of his own on the dance floor.
Jess gets her ass on bar and does some tap dancing stomp jazz hands move. The crowd seems to like it. I assume they are pretty drunk at this point. Nick can’t stop smiling at her. I’m going to say it again…awwwww. The only person not really paying attention to Jess is Schmidt who thinks he should get Cece back. He has something up his sleeve that will turn Cece back to his “side”.

Jess yells that she is a shot girl and it hits her, she is a shot girl. She climbs off the bar and looks pretty miserable, Nick goes after her. (awwww) She says she is a teacher, not a shot girl and goes to leave.

What happens next is almost indescribable, whomever writes Schmidt should get a standing ovation for all of the terribly uncomfortable things they make Max Greenfield do.
The lights dim and the word Danger over the door is lit up from behind with actual fire. Schmidt comes out shirtless and oiled up twirling fire batons or something circus like.
Schmidt: Fire. The most dangerous element of all of the elements.

He can’t figure out how to stop twirling the fire baton stick ropes and one slips out of his hand and hits a back wall. With the remaining twirling fire baton stick ropes (yeah that’s the technical name for those – look it up) he does some pretty terrible tricks that involves him turning in a slow circle and tells Cece to look at what he can do.

When we get back from commercial Schmidt has his shirt on and he fake nonchalantly walks up to Cece. He is hurt she didn’t call him back. She reminds him he broke up with her. Cece tells him he will be fine before leaving the party.

Nick finds Jess sitting on her car outside the school she once worked at. She starts crying and Nick says the wrong thing that turns into theright thing, like he always does with Jess.
She asks him to be mean to her one more time; he uses a weird voice to tell her she was a terrible shot girl before giving her a hug.

We are left with Winston back at the party singing, “Grove is in the Heart” with his girly drink in his hand and no music to back him up. It is truly glorious.

New Girl airs Tuesday 9/8c on Fox