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New Girl - The Show You Should Be Watching Or I Will Kill You

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Posts

  • TaramoorTaramoor Storyteller Registered User regular
    I like that we're starting to get storylines involving the guys that don't really stem from Jess at all. The entire haircut thing and Schmidt thing were basically incidental to the Jess storyline and even if she hadn't moved in it seems reasonable that they would've happened anyway.

    I like that for some reason. It makes it feel more like a modern sitcom and less like Dharma & Greg.

  • MagellMagell Detroit Machine Guns Fort MyersRegistered User regular
    I agree I hope the guys start to get the A plots occasionally and push Jess to the side. I really think her character isn't the kind that can be the focus of a show. She's too wacky to be the focus.

  • StrikaStrika Registered User regular
    I agree Magell.

  • mrt144mrt144 King of the Numbernames Registered User regular
    Cringe inducing foreplay

  • gundam470gundam470 Drunk Gorilla CaliforniaRegistered User regular
    So I got a little behind with this show, but I just absolutely died of laughter watching Fancy Man parts 1 and 2. I mean this show had some good eps before, but goddamn it has never been that on fire.

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  • KalTorakKalTorak One way or another, they all end up in the Undercity.Registered User regular
    gundam470 wrote: »
    So I got a little behind with this show, but I just absolutely died of laughter watching Fancy Man parts 1 and 2. I mean this show had some good eps before, but goddamn it has never been that on fire.

    Nick behind the fancy desk is goddamn fantastic.

  • ElJeffeElJeffe Moderator, ClubPA mod
    This is seriously my favorite show on TV right now. It is generally at least funny, oftentimes hilarious, and the characters are actually empathetic. And yeah, Fancy Man was wonderful.

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  • MagellMagell Detroit Machine Guns Fort MyersRegistered User regular
    This show is hilarious and I love it and I want to play True American.

    Schmidt is becoming one of the best characters on TV.

  • wazillawazilla Having a late dinner Registered User regular
    This show is amazing. It's pretty much the only network show I follow right now.

    Psn:wazukki
  • DoctorArchDoctorArch Curmudgeon Registered User regular
    This show had a slow burn and I'm glad Fox decided to keep it going because it's firing on all cylinders right now.

    God I love Schmidt.

    "We made a caramel miracle!"

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  • MetroidZoidMetroidZoid Registered User regular
    Poor Schmidt.

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  • evilthecatevilthecat Registered User regular
    DoctorArch wrote: »
    This show had a slow burn and I'm glad Fox decided to keep it going because it's firing on all cylinders right now.

    God I love Schmidt.

    "We made a caramel miracle!"

    JAR!

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  • LavaKnightLavaKnight Registered User regular
    ElJeffe wrote: »
    This is seriously my favorite show on TV right now. It is generally at least funny, oftentimes hilarious, and the characters are actually empathetic. And yeah, Fancy Man was wonderful.

    Yes, exactly! The style of comedy, with little one-liners that are meant to be forgotten does a great job of keeping it "at least funny."

    Looks like someone sussed out (or made up) rules to True American.

  • JuliusJulius Captain of Serenity on my shipRegistered User regular
    Okay, there are two possibilities now.

    Either this show was incredibly funny all along and I'm an idiot.

    Or I recently hit my head even though I haven't noticed it and I'm just under the mistaken assumption that this show is really funny and will also die from some serious head injury.

  • TheBlackWindTheBlackWind Registered User regular
    It had a slow start, but I'm glad I kept this thread marked, because me and my girlfriend trailed off on it, but caught up last night.

    So. good.

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  • KalTorakKalTorak One way or another, they all end up in the Undercity.Registered User regular
    Julius wrote: »
    Okay, there are two possibilities now.

    Either this show was incredibly funny all along and I'm an idiot.

    Or I recently hit my head even though I haven't noticed it and I'm just under the mistaken assumption that this show is really funny and will also die from some serious head injury.

    I think the early episodes weren't as rocky as some shows' early episodes, but it definitely needed to get up some steam. Much funnier once the characters got past the introduction stage and the actors got a chance to show off their comedy chops.

  • ED!ED! Registered User regular
    I thought Zooey was going to be TOO cloying, but they've struck a pretty good balance. I do not like Winstons character (at least to episode 11), and feel he could easily be snipped. I can see why they wanted to fill the gap left by Wayans and that 3 on 1 is funnier than 2 on 1, but of all the characters he is definitely the least interesting. The rest of the cast and the side characters are great.

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  • KalTorakKalTorak One way or another, they all end up in the Undercity.Registered User regular
    I was sad that Lizzy Caplan left because damn.

  • DecoyDecoy Registered User regular
    ED! wrote: »
    I thought Zooey was going to be TOO cloying, but they've struck a pretty good balance. I do not like Winstons character (at least to episode 11), and feel he could easily be snipped. I can see why they wanted to fill the gap left by Wayans and that 3 on 1 is funnier than 2 on 1, but of all the characters he is definitely the least interesting. The rest of the cast and the side characters are great.

    Hah, well Winston is more or less the straight man, most of the time, to everyone elses "crazy as hell" personalities, so I can see why people wouldn't find him interesting. I think it's more that the quirks the writers gave him (former basketball player, former 'playa', loved his shitty car) just aren't as funny. Hell, he even has to play the straight man to his new nutjob boss.

    And yes, Lizzy Caplan leaving was sad... because damn, indeed.

  • LucascraftLucascraft Registered User regular
    This show has been really up and down for me. Some episodes I was completely bored through. Others I was laughing out loud and in stitches. I haven't looked at the writing credits, but I get the feeling that some writers "get it" and others don't. The Fancy Man episodes have been among my favorites. Injured was probably a low point for me.

    And I agree that Winston isn't that great. I understand the straight man role. And I agree that this show is wacky enough that it definitely needs some grounding. But Winston does a very poor job at that. And it seems like they're occasionally trying to make him crazy too. I feel like they don't know what they want to do with Winston, and his personality shifts a lot from episode to episode.

    Nick is the best. When they let him do his thing he kills it.

  • TaramoorTaramoor Storyteller Registered User regular
    Taramoor wrote: »
    I like this show for the same reason I like Raising Hope and Parks & Rec. It's a bunch of decent people trying to be decent people when it would be a lot easier to just be terrible.

    Except Schmidt.

    Schmidt sucks.

    Look at how naive and foolish I was back in October.

    I am ashamed now.

  • DoctorArchDoctorArch Curmudgeon Registered User regular
    Taramoor wrote: »
    Taramoor wrote: »
    I like this show for the same reason I like Raising Hope and Parks & Rec. It's a bunch of decent people trying to be decent people when it would be a lot easier to just be terrible.

    Except Schmidt.

    Schmidt sucks.

    Look at how naive and foolish I was back in October.

    I am ashamed now.

    There was a great article over on Salon about Schmidt and the growth of the show titled "New Girl's New Manhood":
    In a recent episode of “New Girl,” Zooey Deschanel’s Jess Day contrived to make her high-strung roommate Schmidt (Max Greenfield) less Schmidt-y. Schmidt is a sort of self-created alpha male and a collection of beta male qualities — uptight, controlling, the cooking, cleaning apartment den mother, and so metrosexual he wears “hair chut-e-ney” and owns a pair of “driving mocs.” These are performed with such conviction they congeal into a sort of deranged machismo, one slathered in sandalwood-scented lotion.

    In the episode, called “Control,” Jess wanted to bring a wardrobe she found on the street into the house. Schmidt, in charge of house décor, refused. (“Get rid of it, Jess. Pine has no place in this loft. It’s the wood of poor people and outhouses.”) Trying to keep her pine, Jess took Schmidt to a drum circle in Santa Monica hoping the bongo-playing hippies would inspire Schmidt to de-Schmidt himself. They did. Schmidt quickly forwent shoes, hair product and sweating the small stuff. Just as quickly, the apartment Jess and Schmidt share with two roommates became a shambles, a disgusting hovel with dishes piled high and detritus littering the floors. The old, obsessive Schmidt made the roommates’ lives work, a service he also performs for “New Girl” itself.

    When “New Girl” began in September, it was a show about the loopy, doe-eyed Jess Day and her three male roommates. Jess was the top oddball, overly childish, occasionally idiotic, prone to sobbing, liable to break things and incapable of saying the word “penis.” As the series has matured, the wealth of weirdness has gotten spread around. Jess has become marginally more normal, and the dudes she lives with have become less so. You no longer wonder why the three guys put up with her: They put up with her because they are just as strange, a makeshift family of 20-somethings almost, but not quite, crippled by their quirks.

    As part of this transition, Schmidt has gone from being a douchebag in the classic model — a guy who, in the pilot, constantly wanted to show off his pecs and scam girls, and seemed capable of doing so — to a douche of a more unique variety. He’s the aspirational douchebag, the tightly wound, formerly fat mama’s boy trying his hardest to be a bro. In the process, he’s become the show’s breakout character.

    As Schmidt, Greenfield’s impeccable, preeningly overconfident delivery contains an element of realistic performativeness. Schmidt is the guy who says something he thinks is funny and looks around to see if anyone laughed; but he’s also the guy who says something inadvertently funny and has no clue. He is hyper-aware and yet oblivious, a good guy trying to be worse, one extremely anxious about his social standing and yet unconcerned about announcing he owns an Irish walking cape or seducing a girl by talking endlessly about cheese. He is insecure about all of the wrong things. He is the guy obsessed with seeing his best friend Nick’s penis because the fact that his other roommates already have makes it a sort of status marker.

    But caring about everything too much, including the size of Nick’s penis, is what makes Schmidt more than just “New Girl’s” breakout character, but a breakout 20-something archetype. Schmidt is not like his two sweet, lost roommates Nick (Jake Johnson) and Winston (Lamorne Morris) or any of the other fumbling men-children popularized by Judd Apatow. In his own way, Schmidt is just as clueless, but his cluelessness does not manifest itself in resignation, in quitting law school, in smoking weed, but its opposite. Unlike these guys, Schmidt is a dervish of caring. He cares so much. He wants so much. He is not apathetic about anything. He has strong opinions not only about pine and omelets and towels and jobs and clothes and what his friends think and his new, secret girlfriend Cece, but, presumably, everything else in the universe.

    Caring is, of course, the enemy of cool, which is why all Schmidt’s peers are so loath to do it, and why Schmidt, try as he might, can’t be cool. But caring is not the enemy of adulthood (just ask Ron Swanson and Jack Donaghy). And unlike those other slackers, Schmidt already has the skill set to be a grown-up, he just has to learn how to use it properly. As Schmidt struggles to be a bro while wondering about the location of his good pea coat, it’s easy to see the guy he will be in 20 years, the one who adores his wife and children — a family that humors him and his weird propensity to make up silly names for everything while forcing them to eat huge meals and laughing at his own jokes. Maybe he won’t be cool, but he will be happy. Let’s all laugh at him while we still can.

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  • KalTorakKalTorak One way or another, they all end up in the Undercity.Registered User regular
    do you have a link to that article?

  • hippofanthippofant ティンク Registered User regular
    KalTorak wrote: »
    do you have a link to that article?

    Based on my Google search of "salon schmidt new girl": http://www.salon.com/2012/03/27/new_girls_new_manhood/

    Looks like the post was the entire article.

  • DoctorArchDoctorArch Curmudgeon Registered User regular
    KalTorak wrote: »
    do you have a link to that article?

    Here you go (link), it wasn't working earlier this morning due to Salon going over to their new site design (hence why the blatant copy/paste) but it's working now.

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  • KalTorakKalTorak One way or another, they all end up in the Undercity.Registered User regular
    cool thanks.

  • LucascraftLucascraft Registered User regular
    Tonight's episode had so many great lines.
    "I broke my penis"
    "My butt is moving faster than yours"
    "My butt is the fastest in the land"

  • skeldareskeldare Gresham, ORRegistered User regular
    I literally had pains in my groin watching this episode.

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  • TaramoorTaramoor Storyteller Registered User regular
    Lucascraft wrote: »
    Tonight's episode had so many great lines.
    "I broke my penis"
    "My butt is moving faster than yours"
    "My butt is the fastest in the land"

    I liked most everything, but I thought Nick just killed it this episode.

    "Now GIT! GIT off my farm! You used to be my best friend but I don't even know you!"

  • LucascraftLucascraft Registered User regular
    Taramoor wrote: »
    Lucascraft wrote: »
    Tonight's episode had so many great lines.
    "I broke my penis"
    "My butt is moving faster than yours"
    "My butt is the fastest in the land"

    I liked most everything, but I thought Nick just killed it this episode.

    "Now GIT! GIT off my farm! You used to be my best friend but I don't even know you!"

    I said it earlier on this very page. When they let Nick do his thing, he is the funniest part of the show. The episodes where they just turn him loose have been my favorite parts of the show.

    Schmidt has become the charming character that you want to root for, and he is definitely capable of carrying episode plots. But Nick brings the funny in a way that none of the rest of them can even hope to match.

  • Apothe0sisApothe0sis Have you ever questioned the nature of your reality? Registered User regular
    The last two episodes have been so incredibly funny.

    I thought Schmidt and Nick's sexy talk would be the funniest thing that happened on tv in the entire season amongst all shows, but then the last episode happened. Nadia was hilarious. And then Schmidt broke his penis and something amazing happened.

  • DoctorArchDoctorArch Curmudgeon Registered User regular
    I swear. Her Vagina. Has a right angle.

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  • LucascraftLucascraft Registered User regular
    edited May 2012
    They still don't have a clue what they're doing with Winston. This week they tried making him quirky with that earring and it totally fell flat. I felt like even the actors weren't behind it in those scenes. Any time they were making fun of Winston, it felt like everybody on screen was phoning it in.

    Week to week I'm so conflicted. Nick and Schmidt are great. Jess is endearing but she is a very poor main character. She doesn't carry the show very well at all, and all the best episodes seem to be the ones where they put most of the focus on Nick and Schmidt. Its pretty sad that I find the Schmidt/Cece relationship to be more interesting than anything having to do with Jess, and Cece started out as nothing more than a 2 minutes per episode minor role appearance.

    This week's episode was pretty weak I thought, because it was about Jess. Jess episodes just aren't that great. And the constant and weekly change to Winston is getting tiresome. The character has no personality, because every week he's a totally different guy.

    Best line of the episode:
    "Be nice to Coach, or he's gonna move away... And live with a bunch of other white people."

    (Happy Endings reference)

    Lucascraft on
  • JoshmviiJoshmvii Registered User regular
    The problem with Winston is that guy can't act like Damon Wayans Jr., who they clearly wanted for the part. He brings nothing to the show, but it's not really his fault. He just got plugged in. I don't think he's awful, and he can be the Ted Mosby of the show as long as the rest of the cast is funny.

    I also agree that Nick and Schmidt are the best draw of the show at this point, though sometimes Zooey has some funny ass lines. When she was trying to get Cece to go running before and she was like "I'm listening to Diane Keaton's autobiography and she just got to first wives club and it's getting me pumped!" made me laugh my ass off.

  • LucascraftLucascraft Registered User regular
    Ok so the season finale was last night, and I didn't much care for it.

    {Spoiler tags contain episode spoilers.)
    Honestly, I only thought one part was funny in the entire episode, and that was the coyote scene.

    I thought the Winston stuff fell flat. I've talked about Winston before, but I'll say it again. He's a terrible character, and its no fault of the actor. The problem lies entirely with the writers. Winston has a completely different personality from week to week. In this week's episode, the whole afraid of the dark thing was so out of the blue and so irrelevant to the rest of the episode that they should have cut the entire thing. In fact, they could have cut Winston completely out of the episode and it would not have changed anything else one bit. That's how worthless he was.

    Usually Schmidt is one of the high points of the show. But this episode he was actually a low point. The whole Schmidt/Cece B-Plot of this episode was completely out of place. With all the Nick drama that was going on, adding more drama on top of that was just too much. Not to mention the fact that they literally just got together as a real couple last episode.

    This whole episode, to me, felt like a cliche of a dozen other romantic comedies. Breakups, relationship status changes, and all that seem to be par for the course anymore with shows. Why can't the Schmidt/Cece relationship be a feature of the show, rather than an ongoing plot point?

    And why did the writers do a fake-out with the A-Plot of Nick moving out? They never even explored the possibility of Nick moving out. He was literally only gone for a matter of hours. He didn't even stay 1 night with Caroline.

    The whole episode was a mess. A very poorly conceived, poorly written mess. Not a good way to end a season. I honestly don't care about what happens next season because they didn't give me anything to care about.

  • ArbitraryDescriptorArbitraryDescriptor changed Registered User regular
    Concur. This show didn't really hook me until it had 4 or 5 episodes to evolve, and the finale felt like a serious regression.

    It's like they wrote the pilot, then the finale, then learned how to make the show great by writing all the episodes in between.

  • StrikaStrika Registered User regular
    Although it does fit Schmidt's character perfectly to think he not only had to break up with CeCe, but that "white fang'ing" her was the best way. Douche to the end! That said, Winston is incredibly unfunny.

  • MetroidZoidMetroidZoid Registered User regular
    I lost it at that third 'meep meep'

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  • TaramoorTaramoor Storyteller Registered User regular
    http://www.amazon.com/The-Douche-Journals-Definitive-Account/dp/0062238671

    51ro98h8-HL._SS500_.jpg

    So this is a thing.

    Also, the show was back on last night and we should totally talk about it.

  • DoctorArchDoctorArch Curmudgeon Registered User regular
    Good to know, I'll have to watch it on Hulu this weekend.

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