New Girl and the Art of Romcom Writing
Part 2: Making it Work (or not)
Okay, so, last week, we covered the truly spectacular and downright magical journey New Girl’s Jessica Day and Nick Miller took to becoming my favorite TV couple over the course of the first two seasons of the much-loved Fox sitcom, and how it hits all the correct notes of good romcom writing while taking the time to live in those moments, build it up slowly, and making both the characters and the audience work for it before giving that sweet, sweet payoff. So how will our lovely couple fare now that they’re boyfriend and girlfriend?
It’s… Complicated, is there answer there, and to understand why, we actually need to talk about a different couple first. Yes, that’s right: it’s time to talk about Schmidt and Cece.
I’ll just come right out and say that Schmidt as a character shouldn’t work. His histrionic, domineering, desperately insecure personality should be more annoying than funny. The way in which he understands his childhood obesity as a prison his present-day svelte-self escaped from should be offensively fat-shaming, rather than humanizing. His shameless horny-on-main tendencies should be gross rather than entertaining… Though in fairness, the show does treat that as gross a lot of the time, to the point where a running gag for most of its show is Schmidt having to put money in an aptly labelled Douchebag Jar:
This should not work. But it undeniably does. A lot of this, as you can see from the above, comes from the simple fact that Max Greenfield possesses that rare comedic talent of being able to render any line of dialogue, no matter how outrageous or offensive, as absolutely hilarious. But the other reason it works is that the characters themselves acknowledge all this as a problem. Most immediately in the form of his best friend/love of his life Nick regularly telling him to his face what an asshole he’s become over the years (flashbacks demonstrate that back in college Nick was the more socially able and conventionally attractive of the two, and secretly served as Schmidt’s surrogate father Michael Keaton (it makes sense in context)), but also because of the other love of his life, Cece, being less than charmed by his antics despite him falling in lust at first sight. The love comes later, and it’s a whole journey.
Jess and Cece are two contrasting archetypes of modern femininity. Best friends since childhood, close enough to be considered a third daughter by Jess’ parents (yes, Jess has a sister- we’ll circle back to that later). She’s a glamorous model and a party-animal, while Jess works in education and is a lot more restrained (most of the time); Jess loves her job, while Cece, by season 3, has realized she’s aged out of modeling and needs to figure something else out; Jess is naturally domestic and maternal, while Cece has to take a lot of time to warm up to the idea being either of those things. But as time goes on and Hannah Simone’s natural comedic timing becomes more overt, she’s slowly fleshed out into a stable part of the main cast despite not actually living in the loft. She also DESPERATELY needs to feel included in things, as best seen in the infamous ‘pogo’ segment:
Enter Schmidt. Over the course of season one, he and Cece get together, only for Schmidt to break it off because he thinks he’ll inevitably hurt her (And also because Cece’s model friend Nadia broke his Little Schmidt). He is correct, but not for the reasons he thinks. Thus begins one of the most torturous cases of Will They/Won’t They in TV history… As well as one of the best depictions of a loving married couple. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.
In season 2, Cece, after finding out her window of time in which she can get pregnant is beginning to close (in the aptly named episode ‘Eggs’), realizes she wants to get married and settled as soon as possible. Schmidt makes a compelling case for himself but then fucks it up by picking work over love literally that same night (doesn’t help that he was sleeping with his boss only a few episodes prior). So, Cece gets an arranged marriage through her mother, and Schmidt begins dying inside. He dies inside for most of the season, until, in a rare moment of maturity, he gets back together with his college girlfriend Elizabeth (who does not resemble the type of girl Schmidt dates anymore). It looks for a minute like everyone is going to move on with their lives…
Until Cece calls off her wedding at the literal last possible second because she still loves Schmidt (don’t feel too sorry for her fiance, Shivrang- he gets with Taylor Swift (yes, seriously. She’s a huge New Girl fan and wanted to be on the show)). This leads to Schmidt being a given a choice: Cece or Elizabeth. He cannot have both. He needs to pick one.
And he runs the hell away.
If you think that’s bad, it actually gets worse, but we’ll talk more about that in a few paragraphs. For now, let’s circle back to Nick and Jess. Last seen making out in the back of a requisitioned limousine, season 3 opens with them standing on the threshold of their shared apartment, hand-in-hand, realizing that a complete and utter clusterfuck awaits them on the other side. Now, if you read all that stuff about Schmidt and Cece above and thought ‘well, that sounds like way too much when I just want to make out with my gorgeous new partner’… Well, Nick and Jess agree with that assessment, and run away to Mexico while Winston goes into puzzle-mania and colorblindness induced insanity and Schmidt concludes the only way for him to avoid hurting either of his women is to two-time them (because he’s the dumbest boy in the whole school).
They want to make it work. The question becomes ‘can they make it work when their found family is actively tearing itself apart.’ The season 3 opener is aptly titled ‘All In’, and its about exactly that. They spend an episode attempting to run away from their problems and focus on each other above all else, which is… Understandable, but misguided. When you get into a new relationship, and particularly when you go all-in on it, there’s a very real desire to make it your entire universe. To shut everything, everyone, else out in favor of your partner, to prioritize them and only them, to want to leave behind all your problems and just ride off into the sunset forever. It’s tempting, it’s human… And it’s also deeply immature and unhealthy. If you do something like that, not only do you risk codependence, you risk a total implosion at the first sign of trouble, you risk winding up isolated with nowhere to go, and you risk getting locked up in Mexican hotel jail (it makes sense in context). Doing that is not making it work. It’s why the episode ends with Jess convincing Nick that no, they can’t stay in Mexican hotel jail forever, they need to go back to their lives in Los Angeles. They have friends, family, jobs, that are worth holding onto, because those are the things that brought them together in the first place.
‘All In’ is one of my very favorite episodes of the show. Not only does it contain several of the funniest moments of the series (mostly involving Schmidt reacting to Winston’s colorblindness) and is the moment in general where Winston’s characterization finally started to click, it is a VERY good Nick/Jess episode that shows both the virtues and flaws of their relationship, how they’re both very good for each other but also run the risk of cosigning each other’s bullshit a bit too often, and how ultimately they want to make it work.
And for the first chunk of season three, they genuinely do. Episodes like ‘Nerd’ and ‘Menus’ are all about how the two of them see the best in each other and push one another to be their best selves, while ‘The Captain’ and ‘Basketball’ highlight their honest desire to communicate with one another despite their differing quirks occasionally leading to mishaps. And ‘Clavado En Un Bar’ and ‘Birthday’ (both 10/10 episodes) demonstrate that for all of Nick’s childish tendencies and Jess’ unrealistically high expectations for romance, they really do love each other and want a future together. It’s honestly pretty great- they’re not a perfect couple by any means, and they struggle to navigate the transition from friends to lovers in terms of things like boundaries and communication, but dammit they are cute together and the fact every episode shows them honestly working to overcome their problems and have a loving relationship are nothing short of heartwarming.
It helps when, in the first half of the season, they are contrasted with the couple that can’t seem to make it work even a little bit. Schmidt’s two-timing last three episodes before completely imploding, with Cece telling him off and becoming an absolute wreck and Schmidt (being the dumbest boy in the whole school) places the blame on Nick and Jess and attempts to sabotage their relationship as a result (it only lasts a few episodes). We get to see the contrast between a couple that is truthful with one another and tries to look past each other’s shortcomings to grow and live together and a couple that completely and utterly fails to do any of those things and suffers a fairly toxic falling out as a result (Schmidt is in his Villain Era here). It’s honestly incredibly strong romcom writing through the first half: new relationships, relationships in general, are messy and it’s easy to both hurt and be hurt. Whether or not the pain is worth it has to be agreed upon by both parties, and if they aren’t honest with each other, then the relationship is doomed.
While I would love to say they maintain this level of quality all the way through season 3, that Nick and Jess (as well as the writers) continue to make it work… Well, that would be a lie, and I just spent multiple paragraphs talking about the importance of honesty. I’m going to caveat everything I’m about to say by reinforcing that New Girl is one of my all-time favorite shows, easily in the top ten, quite possibly the top five; that Nick/Jess is an all-time OTP for me on par with Sarah/Ava from Legends of Tomorrow and Trip/T’Pol from Enterprise; that the show does not jump the shark, and that it remains incredibly high quality as both a comedy and a romance in the back half of its run. But about halfway through season 3, the wheels start to come off.
Liz Meriweather has mentioned in interviews that the legendary first kiss between Nick and Jess in ‘Cooler’ wasn’t originally going to happen, that the first draft called for a hilariously awkward kiss between Jess and Schmidt, and that afterwards they changed it to Jess and Nick failing to follow through on kissing, until finally, in part at the behest of Deschanel and Johnson, and due to Meriweather realizing it wouldn’t be honest or effective to keep dragging things out, they wound up going with the version we got 1 Because of this, Nick and Jess wound up getting together a lot faster than the writers originally planned for- and it’s universally agreed that this was to the show’s benefit. We know this.
Now, this part is pure speculation on my end, but I can’t help but feel that on some level the fact they shifted gears and put the pedal to the floor on Nick/Jess meant they weren’t quite ready for them as a committed couple. And I mean that about both the writers and the characters. For the writers, they needed the show, and their main couple, to still be able to have conflict, and to still be able to change and grow as the show continued. And for the characters, they still have to have flaws they need to be able to overcome.2 Many episodes in season 3 manage to highlight this, though most of them feature the characters overcoming by the end (most of them- Thanksgiving III is an exception and is also a bad episode that exaggerates all the characters to the point of unlikability).
Now, a standard part of most romcoms is the Second Act Breakup. The first third of the story is about the characters getting together, the second third shows them together until they hit a speedbump that causes them to call it off, and the final third shows them getting back together for their happily ever after. Obviously, there are love stories that don’t do this, but that’s a bit like saying there are superhero origin stories that don’t feature dead parents: they exist, and many of them are great, but they are not the norm. They’re the exception that proves the rule. And New Girl is all about playing into and living in the structure of a romcom long term. That Nick and Jess would break up at some point before getting back together was arguably inevitable. This is not necessarily a bad thing. The problem is in the execution.
After a trio of episodes spent with Jess’ terrible sister trying to break them up (she was never mentioned before this point and basically never will be again) and another one that ends with a beautiful display of domesticity, we get ‘Mars Landing’, in which Jess and Nick wake up massively hungover from a late-night round of True American (irony of ironies). The two of them have an incredibly stupid argument about what gift to bring to a baby shower that leads to an equally stupid fight about their future and the idea them getting married or having kids in which both display a frankly staggering level of immaturity regarding what they want. And they break up.
That’s it. It just… Happens. And yes, it’s every bit as anticlimactic as it sounds.
Admittedly, the subsequent episode, ‘Big News’ is very good. Nick waking up with a note attached to his hand that says ‘you and Jess broke up’ because he got so blackout drunk he doesn’t even remember the thing happening is a gut-punch of an opening scene, and that they spend the bulk of the episode trying to hide their breakup from their friends is both very poignant and very human. It just doesn’t feel entirely earned, is the problem. We’ve spent the majority of the season watching these two make it work, albeit with a few hiccups along the way (long story short, they wind up having to share a room before they’re really ready to do so), so the fact that they cut and run for such childish reasons is unsatisfying. They should be stronger than this. They should be able to talk this out like adults and come back from it. But they don’t.
And it’s bullshit.
Season 3 is frequently cited as the weakest of the show, and that’s a pretty big part of why. But where the show is able to somewhat salvage all this long term is with a simple truth: they weren’t ready yet. Jess and Nick both still had a lot of growing up to do. Jess doesn’t have her feet entirely on the ground yet; she still believes that love alone is enough to overcome everything. And Nick is still too busy wallowing in misery, hedonism, and adolescent self-pity. They should be strong enough, mature enough, to overcome such a silly dispute, but they aren’t. And in spite of my complaints about the execution, I do think that, at least on paper, there’s something very real about that. They aren’t ready to make it work just yet, much the same way Schmidt and Cece weren’t ready to make it work just yet at the beginning of the season.
The season ends with ‘Cruise’, an episode about Nick and Jess attempting to go back to being platonic friends. Which makes sense- when you cross that ‘friends to lovers’ threshold, there’s always a chance of never being able to walk it back. And in some ways, that this is what the show focuses on as the denouement to the season is smart. Ultimately, per the premise of the show, Jess and Nick still live together and are still best friends. That they’re so committed to still being in each other’s lives and to becoming better than they’ve been is a sign of real maturity on both their parts, a sign that perhaps they needed this. That in order to make it work, they had to live in the world where they don’t work.
Spoiler alert: this is not the end of their story. And we’ll get into that more next time, but for now, I’ll leave you with this: every relationship goes through trials. Every relationship has challenges. No couple is ever perfect, and pretending to be is basically death flag. In my opinion, what separates successful couples from unsuccessful ones is whether or not they can acknowledge those challenges, both collectively and individually. And while, again, I think the execution of that idea in New Girl season 3 leaves something to be desired, the fact that Jess and Nick do acknowledge these challenges is why season 3 isn’t the end of their story. They’ll be back, stronger than ever. They just have a little more growing up to do first.
There’s also ‘Moonlighting Syndrome’ to be taken into account- the idea that once a TV couple gets together they become fundamentally less interesting. Obviously this isn’t true, but when enough people believe something, it gains a foothold in the popular consciousness and becomes hard to ignore.