NEW GIRL Recap: All In

Ah New Girl how I’ve missed you. Did any of your forget where we left off? I’m not sure how you could but just in case you did…Cece called off her wedding. She and Elizabeth asked Schmidt to choose between them. Winston was bitten by a rabid beaver – hey it happens – and maybe most importantly Nick and Jess decided they wanted to be in a relationship and drove off together.

Okay here’s the thing…I like New Girl, in fact I love New Girl and I’ve been giddy since the first commercial for its return started running on Fox a few weeks back. That being said this wasn’t my favorite episode.
I suppose I get what they were trying to do – set up the rest of the season but – meh.

Let’s get past my ranting and to the recap shall we?

Nick and Jess
The show picks up seconds after last season finale. Nick and Jess are driving and talking about how much they like each other. They decide they are all in, hence the episode title. After driving around for a bit they head home, something that freaks them out a bit. As Nick points out, “We have only been dating for 30 minutes and we are already living together.” They try to have a conversation about their relationship but Schmidt starts texting Nick, something he does approximately 40 plus times a day. Jess can’t even get a complete sentence out now that the texts are coming in one right after another. Schmidt and Winston find them in the hall and bombard them with their issues, although to be fair all Winston wants to announce is he is going to start a puzzle. Anyway, Nick and Jess say they will be right in and instead as soon as the door closes they make a run for it.
Their run for it leads them to Mexico where they stay on the beach, play drums made of buckets and generally ignore reality. They run out of money though and decide to pretend to fit in at the resort down the beach instead of going home. With a few kisses Paradise Nick – who is very chill – convinces Paradise Jess to go along with his plans to stay in Mexico. ALL IN!
Unfortunately Nick’s plan doesn’t work and he gets tazed by security before they take him to jail.

Winston
So Winston is going to put together a puzzle, something he is really bad at. By the end of the episode we find out he is bad at it because he is color blind. That isn’t really the point though; the point is Winston is a weird puzzler. He hums and makes up weird songs about puzzling and takes his clothes off when trying to put together said puzzle. It’s just odd. At one point Winston is wearing a sweatshirt as pants. I’m talking legs in the arm holes, the bottom of the sweatshirt around his waist, like I said just odd.

Schmidt Cece and Elizabeth
Back at the loft Schmidt wants to talk about his dilemma with Cece and Elizabeth and since Nick isn’t there he designates Winston his best friend. Schmidt has two women in love with him and he is in love with both of them – what should he do. Schmidt decides he was dating Elizabeth first so he must let Cece know he is choosing Elizabeth. That doesn’t go so well – when he sits down with Cece he can’t tell her no so he says he broke up with Elizabeth. Being Schmidt he can’t tell Elizabeth it is over either, he ends up telling them both he picked them. This can’t end well for any of them.
What happens next is a scene that plays out almost exactly like the scene in Friends where Monica and Chandler were trying to keep their relationship a secret and they made Joey cover for them. Eerily similar. Poor Winston gets to be Joey. In order to cover for his two timing Schmidt gets Winston to say some really disturbing things that ends in Winston saying he wants to sew Cece’s underwear inside of his. When Cece storms out disgusted Winston is very mad at Schmidt, in fact Winston freaks out and says he and Schmidt are not friends at all until he fixes this.
Later Schmidt and Winston start a real thrown down fight – I think that is what they were working up to anyway – when Jess shows up. She needs Nick’s passport and all of their money. They head back to Mexico where after a few shenanigans they finally find Nick in resort jail. Resort jail consists of reading magazines and watching Ugly Betty.
Jess is ready to head home but Nick wants to move to Mexico. He thinks if they go home they won’t make it, “I’m not ready to lose you. I just got you, Jess and I’m not letting you go.” I like resort Nick. He decides to shred his passport. After some ridiculous yelling from the boys Jess tells them to knock it off. They are a family. She goes on to say sometimes you end up getting a really good deal on Craigslist. She did, she got all of them. The boys all look touched. Jess says to Nick there is no them without Schmidt and Winston. She is all in but they need to go home.
You can’t disagree with that. They hug and make it back home.

Back at home Schmidt is trying to juggle both women and to his credit he seems genuinely upset about the fact that he loves both of them and doesn’t want to hurt either of them. I’m not justifying his actions because honestly Schmidt is a douche but he is a loveable one all the same.

So there you go. What did you think of the episode?

New Girl airs Tuesday 9/8c on Fox