A quick review of last night’s “New Girl” coming up just as soon as I pick up calls on a banana…
You can look at “A Father’s Love” in one of two ways: 1)As a stealth epilogue to HBO’s “Luck,” bringing Dennis Farina back to the track under similar (but not identical) circumstances,(*) or 2)As a Nick Miller origin story.
(*) Or maybe it was just an overall David Milch tribute, since the lead Russian gangster was played by Pasha Lychnikoff, who was Blazinov, the telegraph operator on “Deadwood.”
Either way, it wasn’t the most wildly funny outing of this season, with the biggest laughs – other than Nick’ awkward dancing and attempt to pitch another fake diabetic fit in front of the Russians – largely clustered around the arranged marriage between Schmidt and Robby. But it was nice to both see Farina again in this setting, and to get one of the better Nick/Jess scenes of the series to date, in her response to Walt again going back on his word to Nick. For the first time, it seems like Jess truly understands why Nick is this damaged – and perhaps as a result, this was the first scene between the two of them in a long time where I could picture an interesting version of the show in which they attempt to be more than just friends.
Meanwhile, Schmidt and Robby teaming up to prevent Cece from dating an Indian guy was completely and utterly ridiculous, but one of those situations where Max Greenfield and Nelson Franklin were just given great line after great line after great line, to the point where that subplot almost felt (in a good way) like it had borrowed the rhythms of a “Happy Endings” script. I was particularly fond of the tag, where they keep coming up with more and more outlandish plans to win her back, culminating in “We enlist in the Navy, we quickly rise through the ranks, and then we can take her to the Naval Officers Ball.”
What did everybody else think?