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This week’s New Girl find both Jess and Schmidt trying new things. Jess find herself in a relationship that is based on sex and is struggling to stay motivated. Though she enjoys her romps with Sam, she has no clue what to do with him when their not having sex. This is the new, unattached Jess…but is it really? This conflict leads to the meat of the episode and central plotline of the show, the Jess/Nick relationship.Ever since Cheers, this dynamic has been called “The Sam & Diane”, or is often referred to as the “Will they or won’t they?” New Girl has been building to a Jess & Nick relationship for most of the series. Of all the men in the loft (and by that, I mean Nick & Schmidt since it has barely been proven that Winston is actually real), the writers of New Girl have been pushing Nick & Jess closer together. Although, it has been admit by both Nick & Jess on multiple occasions that there is a mutual attraction, this episode shows this conflict won’t be resolved anytime soon and that Nick & Jess get it and no one else needs too.

The second plotline features a newly single & functional Schmidt tackling the dating world…but once agaim, that’s not really the point. The episode begins with Schmidt wearing a ridiculous outfit inspired by Kanye fascination. This fascinating eventually leads him to ditch out on dinner with his roommates to go to a club that Kanye might be at with Winston tagging alone. But because Schmidt is a preposterous person, the only way to gain access to this club is impersonating someone famous, Tagg Romney. What at first appears to be another ploy to get Cece’s attention by making her jealous is later revealed as Schmidt assuming the role of Mitt Romney’s son, not to gain the attention of young attractive republicans, but more as Schmidt seeking a father who accepts his love and is in his life. The ends with a nice scene with Cece consoling him after he is found out as a Romney impersonator.

I should mention that there is a Winston story in this episode, but it really isn’t a story. Winston and his girlfriend Shelby (Kali Hawk) are having problems…but the problem isn’t solved by the end of the episode. Every other character would have broken up with their significant other instead of letting an issue linger but Winston isn’t a “real” character, so there’s no need for something like that to happen. There was good development of Schmidt here and addressing obvious Nick & Jess tension is important, but this is a weaker episode of the series. A lot of plot and story but nothing happening in the end.