New Girl ‘Winston’s Birthday’ recap: The morning after

Nick

The new episode of New Girl begins with the morning after. Nick wakes up first and stares at Jess, strokes her and kisses her in a cute/awkward way. Then, being the Nick Miller we know and love, he thinks she’s too still and checks her pulse. Jess wakes up and laughs at him — and I swear these two would make the loveliest couple on the planet. Nick proceeds to prepare breakfast for her, but when he’s on his way back to the bedroom, Wilson enters the flat with Jess’ dad, so he pretends the food is for Wilson. Wilson asks if it’s because it’s his birthday and you can see in Nick’s face that he doesn’t know what’s going on. Wilson also notices, but hey, free breakfast! Apparently Bob, Jess’s dad, had come for Cece’s wedding.

After a while, Jess and Nick discuss what to do about Jess’ dad. The conversation includes a ‘he can never find out about this, because he’s going to kill you’ and a nasty flashback of Bob and some of his club pals on tiny cars circling around a 10-year-old who had kissed Jess in school. So they decide to keep it secret. Please tell me this is not going to be one of those shows where they have a we-love-each­-other-but-the-world-is-against-us kind relationship.

Jess suggests to her dad they could go for a walk, but at that same moment, she gets a phone call from Pegg, who tells her there’s an opening for a teacher position in her new school and that Jess should go ASAP. Jess asks her dad to come with her, but he says that’s stupid — yes, it is — and that he’s staying in with Nick, which would be awkward even if he hadn’t slept with Jess. I mean, have you ever been on your own with your flatmates’ parents while your roomie goes to the toilet? Yes? Then you know that feeling. Nick protests, but Bob makes him feel guilty, so he stays.

Later on, Nick seems to be having a nice time with Jess’ dad on the terrace, and Bob pushes Nick into talking about girls. Nick, having the biggest mouth in the earth, decides to tell him that there’s a girl “not quirky, she has no bangs, tall, fat, really ugly, small tiny eyes…”. The boy continues to talk about “Yolanda” and tells Bob that they have only slept together once, but he doesn’t know what she wants. Jess’s dad advises him to first of all figure out what HE wants. At that moment, Jess phones and Bob tells her they had a talk about girls and she freaks out and decides to go to the flat.

Regardless of Jess being mad, Nick is still having his girl talk with Bob, and he explains he doesn’t want to screw it up, claiming that his dad was a mess and he is pretty much like his dad. Bob acknowledges that the fact that he said that means he is not like his dad and that any girl would be lucky to have a guy like him. Nick gets a sincere impulse and tells him the girl he was talking about is Jess, and Bob gets mad and threatens to kill him. Despite the overreaction, Nick, was it really necessary to tell him you had slept with her? I mean, seriously? In the end, Nick comes out of his room armed — apparently, he’s been hiding — and Bob says that’s non-sense. At that moment, Jess comes back.

Cece

On her way to school, Jess phones Cece, who is freaking out about her whole family being at her place before the wedding, she’s stressed, she’s been busy and she needs to pick up her Sari and get henna on her hands. Jess yells at Cece’s uncle by phone and asks Winston for help and clears Cece’s schedule.

Winston goes to Cece’s thinking he will find a surprise party, because it’s his birthday and is yet to receive a present, but instead, he finds out Cece fell asleep on her newly henna tattooed arm and her face is a mess.

Jess keeps trying to get back to Cece during her lunch break, but the director of the school wants to chat with her, and god, he does speak slowly!

Cece phones Jess about the henna tattoo incident and she decides her BFF is her new priority. At Cece’s flat, the always optimistic Jess decides that olive oil can solve anything and rubs the henna consciously. Now, what used to be a nice but unwanted pattern of ink on the bride’s face becomes a massive stain that resembles a beard and Jess tries to fix it again with “burka isn’t you guys, is it?”.

Jess phones the girl that made the tattoo to see if there’s a way to get it off, and the girl says that only time will do that. After a little you-did-I-did argument, Jess freaks out and explains her last 24 hours have been crazy and that she slept with Nick. Cece gives her a dose of reality and shouts that she’s about to get married and has a freaking beard! You go, Cece!

Finally, Cece tells Shivrang, the groom, about her lovely beard, and he is that understanding guy that is more of a plot device than a real character and he says he’s going to make a few phone calls and fix it, aka, postpone the wedding.

Schmidt

Schmidt is still dating Elisabeth and asking for reviews about his “new body” after sex, because he’s a douchebag and we all know it. Elisabeth says she loved the way his body moved when he was bigger and we see a flashback of them funking at a college party. Then, Schmidt claims he loves her I-don’t-give-a-crap-about-what-people-thinks-about-me attitude, and asks her to meet him for lunch.

Elisabeth meets Schmidt at his work and she’s wearing the T-shirt she was wearing when they met 12 years before. When one of those uptight pretentious girls from the office appears, she openly insults Elisabeth, the situation gets uncomfortable and Schmidt pretends for a second he doesn’t know Elisabeth, she storms out. I would have made a show had I been in that situation, but she doesn’t. He follows her, and she tells him that she had rejected a date with another guy for him, and that they are done.

In the end she apparently decides the other guy is worth a chance, but he is the most boring, blank person in the world, and it’s one of the most awkward dates I’ve ever seen on TV. But Schmidt arrives to save the day. He’s wearing the shirt she got him and he asks her for a dance. You might expect a beautiful romantic dance in an Italian restaurant, but they end up funking around College style. Oh, my god, can these two get married and procreate already?

Jess

When Jess finally gets to school, then finds out that instead of an interview, she’s beginning working straight away, and her class are the children of Satan. Jeez, those kids have not seen any discipline in their whole life.

After “helping” Cece, still during her lunch break, Jess finally gets home and gets mad when she finds out Nick told her dad about them. And when she confronts Bob about him hating Nick, Bob reveals that the boy is a young version of himself, and that she deserves something better. Nicks leaves the room and she has to go back to school.

Back at school, Jess cannot cope with the kids of hell anymore, so she finally yells at them and they begin paying attention. It would be good teaching if she hadn’t decided to say “everything started so well with my roommate. It was good, but I don’t want to date my dad” WTF!?

After a long day at the school of hell, Jess finally gets back home and tells her dad that she can take care of herself. Late at night, she cannot sleep, so she walks to the terrace, where Nick is preparing a romantic table under the stars, “this is the breakfast I was going to give you this morning.” Isn’t he cute? They begin to talk, but Schmidt and Elisabeth interrupt them because they are going to watch the stars in the same terrace.

Then Winston also goes to the terrace and he thinks he got them preparing his birthday party; “this whole time I thought you guys forgot!” Precious. The episode finishes when Jess and Nick stare at each other, feeling sorry they couldn’t talk about their relationship.

All in all, “Winston’s Birthday” seems more of an excuse for Nick and Jess to not talk about wherever their relationship is going than a proper story. It’s as crazy, funny and random as any other episode of “New girl” and builds up great anticipation for the series finale.