A review of last night’s “New Girl” – which was renewed for a second season earlier this week – coming up just as soon as I remember to use one of the baller metals in my design…
“Normal” didn’t seem quite as effortlessly hilarious as several recent episodes did, but it still feels like the show is operating in that higher gear that’s made it so darned likable.
Take a bit like the roommates teaching Russell how to play True American. Like many drinking games, the rules(*) seem like complete gibberish if you’re A)a novice and B)sober, but the actors all threw themselves into it and made it seem like it made sense to them, which only made it funnier.
(*) If I know the Internet, then some enterprising “New Girl” fan already has a Tumblr in which they’ve extrapolated every single rule to the damn game. UPDATE: And, once, again, it turns out that I do, indeed, know the Internet. And then I know it some more. I’ll leave it to you guys to decide which set of rules better fits what we saw.
Dermot Mulroney continues to be a shockingly good addition to the series, here doing a good job of showing Russell trying to take everything in the loft in stride even as he’s confused and/or horrified by most of it.
And Russell’s presence was one of several instances of the show taking advantage of characters, relationships and stories that had been set up previously to set up gags here. Schmidt and Cece’s relationship wasn’t a heavy focus like last week, but it was used to add jokes to scenes that were about other things, just as Winston’s new job was augmented by reminders of the nanny gig he got at the Christmas party(**).
(**) And also augmented by the presence of former airline co-pilot Roger Murdoch.
The RealApps/Relapse subplot not only featured an idea of Nick’s that wasn’t completely terrible (combining an iPhone with a Swiss army knife would make fewer things for me to carry), but carried through Nick’s crush on Russell as well as Schmidt’s obsession with mentoring Nick.
“New Girl” isn’t on the verge of turning into “The Wire: The Sitcom” or anything, but it’s been around long enough to take advantage of the world it’s built and the characters it’s built to live inside it. And that’s very good.
What did everybody else think?
(Also, this week’s headline provides me an excuse to link to one of the best “The State” sketches ever: Louie at The Last Supper.)