Image via Complex Original
7.
New Girlis back! “The Last Wedding,” the fourth season premiere, finds all of the characters fighting to get laid at the final wedding of the summer and the show back in fine form—it’s not the best New Girl ever (there’s no Fancyman, for one), but it does a great job of resetting everything a bit after the end of Nick (Jake Johnson) and Jess' (Zooey Deschanel) relationship and returning the show to slightly lower-key emotional stakes.If this episode is any indication of the tone for the rest of the season, we’re in for some consistent laughs and a lot of yelling about the police academy.
In particular, “The Last Wedding” begins the process of revving up the show’s engine: its central cast. New Girl was, originally, nominally about Jess moving into an apartment with three dudes, but over time the show has morphed and become inclusive to the point where it’s tough to imagine the cast’s well-honed dynamic being nearly as successful without any of the characters (even poor Winston). But in the spirit of Jess’ competition, let’s rank how much each member of the New Girl ensemble contributes to “The Last Wedding.”
Eric Thurm is a contributing writer. He tweets here.
6.Cece
Poor Cece is one of New Girl’s most underserved characters, and “The Last Wedding” finds her almost entirely in her too-frequent role as an object of Schmidt’s affection. As arguably the most adult (and the only one who doesn’t live or basically live in the loft), she’s left out of the wedding shenanigans, still recovering from the end of her last relationship and accidentally getting Nick to want to have a foursome. Sorry Cece, here’s hoping you’ll have a better run when the show makes it back to the bar.
Best line: "I do not remember a single line of Cece’s after two viewings of this episode."
5.Coach
In keeping with a recurring theme of “The Last Wedding,” Coach winds up in his most comfortable role throughout the wedding: smug asshole. Last season invested a fair amount of time into distinguishing Coach from his possibly schizophrenic replacement Winston, which allows Damon Wayans, Jr. to coast on playing him as a replacement Barney Stinson without any of the vulnerability or uncomfortable enthusiasm he’s gotten in the past. On the other hand, the string of wedding mainstays upset at Coach for sleeping with them and never calling is pretty great (seriously, who steals a phone charger?).
Best line: “It’s called being a gorgeous black man with the body of an action figure.”
4.Winston
Winston is literally left out of the beginning of the episode—he’s sore from the police academy. If this is a metajoke about his lack of screentime or character definition, the fourth season of a network sitcom might be a good time for the writers to give those up and just treat him as a normal, if utterly insane, character. But his suggested mating strategy of just being there all the time (the “Biden”) is both perfectly Winston and more than a little creepy (it’s hard to imagine the same tactic being as endearing coming from Coach or Schmidt).
Best line: “The only thing I want in my mouth is Mr. and Mrs. I.B. Profen.”
3.Jess
She’s a little hamstrung trying to force the “sex fist” thing down our throats, but “The Last Wedding” is, more than anything, about Jess’ readjustment to single life. She’s subjected to a weird sexual competition with a totally unrealistic, super-genius-slash-sexual-trend-watcher played by Jessica Biel (who doesn’t bring as much star power to the role as you’d think), but it’s not about whether or not she’ll win this one dude’s love (or whatever weird stuff)—it’s about her ability to be a social, happy person again. And hiding in the bathroom from their problems, she and Nick get to be sweet, awkward mirror images.
Best Line: “My first sexual feelings were about teenage Simba, because he was super hot and I actually still find him hot.”
2.Nick
Caught between an ex and a foursome with Schmidt, Nick is deeply, profoundly, uncomfortable, which is the best place for him to be. Oddly, Nick gets to be the most well-adjusted loft-dweller for most of the episode, bouncing off Schmidt and trying to avoid an unpleasant “surprise.” Best of all, Johnson does a great job making Nick’s chemistry with Jess a little more big brother and a little less ex (which, though I’m a fan of them together, bodes well for this season). And his ability to run away on a dime somehow hasn’t stopped being funny.
Best line: “Laurie and Mitchell, they had a cash bar. I hope they can’t have kids!”
1.Schmidt
How could the top spot have gone to anyone else? Schmidt is the one who pushes for the roommates to come together and try their hardest to get laid, he’s the one who tries to force Nick into a foursome, and he’s the one who has to try to avoid going bananas when he learns Cece is single again. Season three did some unfortunate things to Schmidt’s character, and hopefully he’ll either get together with Cece or give up on her real, real soon, but for now it’s enough to hear national treasure Max Greenfield pronounce things like “Academy Award winner Anna Paquin” and treat a wedding being on a Thursday as the biggest faux pas in existence. Welcome back, Schmidtty. We missed you.
Best line: “You go to housekeeping, have them give you as many shower caps as they’ll give you.”