NEW GIRL Recap: Tugg Romney and the Emotional Fluffer

At the loft Jess knocks on Nick’s door. She wants his advice on what to do. Sam called her for booty call but she is terrible at casual sex. She actually left him in her room with crayons and paper. She panicked.

The next morning Winston wants to talk to Schmidt about his belt. Here is something I didn’t know, after Labor Day you can wear whales. There are actually little pink whales on his belt. All I can think is where did the person who dresses these characters find a belt like that? Nick says he looks like the bad guy in an 80’s high school movie. Schmidt furthers his argument for the belt by stating that Kanye wore this belt. Winston can’t figure out Schmidt’s obsession with Kanye. Schmidt says friending Kanye is the most effective way to jump socially. Schmidt just needs to meet him and dazzle him.
Schmidt: Yo, what up K? (Kanye) Yeah I’m just going to sleep. Schmidt: You watching Fallon, that brother’s crazy.

Jess comes into the kitchen with her own problems. Last night Sam tried to make out with her but she stopped it so they just laid there like the two old people in “The Notebook”, waiting to die. Schmidt wants them to take her out tonight so she feels like she went on a date first, make the casual sex easy for her to handle. Nick thinks she should just date someone she actually likes.
Later that night Schmidt and Winston stand Nick up at the fancy restaurant they decided to meet at so he can try to get into a club where he heard Kanye was going to be. As Nick is about to leave Jess in a bad ass red dress shows up. Nick says Wow and other things that mean she looks great before helping her into her seat.

At the club Winston is checking out a girl, he admits to Schmidt he and Shelby are in a rut. Schmidt tells Winston it is okay to fantasize about other women, that’s not cheating. Winston introduces Schmidt to security at the club as Tag Romney; it’s his only hope of getting into the club, pretending to be one of the Romney boys.

Dinner is going very Jess like. She brought a thermos of White Wine because the prices are so outrageous. They get caught passing the thermos back and forth because they are awfully drunk. Sam texts Jess that he is off work so she thanks Nick and takes off.

In the club Schmidt runs into Cece, after some banter Winston removes her before she can refute his claim to being a Romney.

Jess sees Nick and Winston in the bathroom the next morning, she is very proud of her self for the meaningless sex she had the night before. Winston is staring at her through the mirror while pretending to brush his hair. It’s a little on the creepy side.
When Jess leaves the room, after inviting Nick to go to Ikea with her, Winston tells Nick a line has been crossed. He is Jess’s fluffer, an emotional fluffer. If Nick isn’t careful he will be fulfilling the roll of boyfriend while Sam is the one with all the rewards.

Cece is also at the loft, why she didn’t go to Ikea with Jess I’m not sure. She is telling Schmidt he is going to get caught pretending to be a Romney. He thinks he has it under control.

Nick drops Jess’s dresser in her room and when she asks him to help her put it together he yells he isn’t her fluffer. Jess, not surprisingly, doesn’t know what a fluffer is. After explanation she can’t believe it’s a real job. Nick says he is a boyfriend without the rewards. He makes blech sounds about having the benefits with her. She retaliates that she knows he has thought about them having the benefits. He says no in the most unconvincing way ever. Jess admits to thinking about it…once. Nick suddenly looks intrigued. They both agree they would never work out. Like any person that says they want something but don’t want to admit they really do Nick wants to know why she doesn’t think it would ever work out. She yells that he drives her nuts. He yells back that she sings about everything. They yell back and forth and I had to listen to it twice but I’m pretty sure Nick used the Louisiana Purchase as part of his argument. Which has a lot to do with why I love this show.
Jess: Are you happy now, now I have to get to know the guy I’m sleeping with!

Schmidt, in a suit jack and tie is hitting on a woman that thinks he is Tug Romney. She was a Kappa for Romney and has invited over some of her other friends to meet him. He almost immediately slips up with his Romney ruse.

Jess and Sam are at a dinner. Sam is finally on the screen, it’s been something like a week since I’ve gotten to mention how much I love looking at David Walton. It’s as nice as I remembered.
Jess is making small talk, she doesn’t want to hang out more, she just wants to have a little conversation. She brings up the dresser and he says there is no circumstance where he would build a dresser for a woman, well maybe if he was a certified carpenter. I know, I know…he’s swarmy.

Nick is at home throwing himself against the couch. Winston comes in to check on him and he says he did what Winston told him to do and now he feels terrible. Winston tells him he just needs to set some boundaries. He can lift the heavy objects but not drive her to the airport. Nick doesn’t look so sure.
The conversation turns into a slap fight over Adele. Again, why I love this show! Winston says above all else he can’t build the dresser for Jess, it implies that one day he will share it with her and that isn’t going to happen.

Schmidt is still trying to convince the Kappa’s for Romney that he is in fact a Romney, they have family photos pulled up on line, he isn’t in any of them. He spits out an impressive amount of Romney trivia. They don’t look convinced. He makes a very patriotic speech about family the Romney’s and the country. When he sees they won’t be swayed he accuses them of turning him off and leaves.

Cece shows up at the loft because she got a text from Schmidt.
Cece: When you are going through a Taylor Swift like range of emotions I should come over, right?

Schmidt manages to say things that should be racist but aren’t. Cece being brown somehow means in Schmidt’s mind that she has the wisdom of a thousand white women. Cece seems okay with this assessment.
Winston during this is staring at Cece in his creepy, I’m thinking about you naked manner. Schmidt tells him Cece is off limits and to work out whatever is going on with Shelby.

Cece wants to know what happened with The Romney persona. Schmidt opens up about how his Dad left when he was eight. Cece says he is going to have to find a way to forgive his Dad for not being a presidential candidate with great hair.
And that folks is how New Girl handled the political things going on in the news right now. Hilarious and not at all how any other show will tackle it.

Shelby is being dropped off at her place by Winston, he has come clean about the mind cheating and she is okay with it. What she isn’t okay with is having any type of deep or meaningful conversation with Winston and he looks frustrated.

Nick has Jess’s dresser mostly together when she gets home. She stops him, she doesn’t want him to fluff her, he has too much to offer to be just her fluffer. Nick says forget it, he likes building the dresser, it’s like high stakes Legos. She doesn’t want to screw up what they have. Nick goes on to say they are friends that are sometimes attracted to each other. He doesn’t want her making a big deal out of it. You can’t hear it but I’m swooning right now. Just a little but still.

Jess thinks maybe she needs to stop trying with Sam, and then she says something that I can’t help but picturing with a shudder.
Jess: I’m old fashioned below the belt. I’ve got a Civil War ear piece of equipment and that’s all she wrote.

Nick cringes and has a present for her. It’s a CD. “Nick’s Sexy Mix” It has “The Humpty Dance” on it, which brings me right back to high school. The point of the CD though is it is Nick’s way of emotionally fluffing without actually being there for her.

In the closing moments Jess and Sam are making out on her bed. He stops kissing her long enough to say when they are done he needs her to immediately turn off the CD she has on, it’s Nick’s Sexy Mix. Nick walks by, hears his CD and starts to dance to “You Can Call Me Al” by Paul Simon. Yeah, somehow that made it onto Nick’s Sexy Mix.
That’s two weeks in a row New Girl has left us with a great parting song.

New Girl airs Tuesday 9/8c on Fox