New Girl 3x06 "Keaton" (Our Heroes Are Never Who We Want Them to Be)

"Keaton"

Original Airdate: October 22, 2013

I remember being an elementary and middle school student during the first day of classes. Every year, at least one of my teachers would ask each of us to fill out a sheet of paper – it was a “getting to know you” form, peppered with questions ranging from our favorite colors to our favorite board game or hobby. One question that I always remember existing on these forms, no matter what grade or class I was in, was this: “Who is your hero?”

Without fail, I would write down the same answer year after year: “My mom.” And truly, my mom was and is my hero. In the eyes of the world, she’s nothing quite extraordinary. She’s not famous or wealthy. She hasn’t done anything extremely significant to be recognized. She never went to college and was a stay-at-home mom when I was younger. Yes, in the eyes of our culture, my mom is nothing to marvel at. But to me, she was always special: she was loving and kind; she read me bedtime stories every night; she let me be creative and use my imagination to play dress-up or tell her stories. Now, as a 24-year old, I use the word “hero” to describe her because she represents how I want to be, someday, as a mother.

A lot of us have our own personal heroes, whether they are family members, friends, or complete and total strangers like actors or athletes or musicians. There are people in life we aspire to be, surely, but that’s not all that a hero is. A hero isn’t just someone you marvel at, in my opinion. A hero is someone who is representative of how you want to live your life – how they handle circumstances in their lives speaks more to us, I would argue, than the circumstances themselves. My mom is my hero because of how she responds to the issues life throws at her. And interestingly enough, the Halloween episode of New Girl this season addresses the low point in Schmidt’s life and how the resurfacing of his own personal hero affects him and his attitude.

“Keaton” is an episode that focuses on the relationship between Nick and Schmidt, which is really quite fantastic in and of itself, but a lot more touching when it is revealed that NICK has been taking care of SCHMIDT for twelve years. The last time we truly got a glimpse into the Nick/Schmidt dynamic was in “Tinfinity.” In that episode, the pair was celebrating ten years of friendship… with Schmidt essentially proving to Nick throughout the entirety of the episode, that HE is the more responsible of the two (arguably, Nick does have a lot of issues with responsibility). Schmidt hits a low point in the evening, however, when Shivrang proposes to Cece. He hits a truly low point, and the one person who is there for him when he hits the bottom is Nick. What a beautifully ironic moment too, right? Schmidt spends the whole episode convinced that he always has to pick up Nick’s slack – that he never, in their ten years of friendship, anticipated Nick following through with anything. But it is Nick in “Tinfinity” and Nick again in “Keaton” who picks Schmidt up. Whether or not it is intentional, I love the image of arguably the most broken character in the loft being there to support and rescue one of the most stable.

But before we discuss Nick and Schmidt’s relationship, Jess’ amazing costume, and the end-of-episode twist that everyone saw coming (but that I still loved anyway), let’s talk about the rest of the episode, shall we?

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New Girl 3x05 "The Box" (The Right and Wrong Question)

"The Box"

Original Airdate: October 15, 2013

When Harry Potter was concerned that he was becoming bad – that his connection with Voldemort was somehow turning him angrier and colder – his godfather Sirius Black spoke these words in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix:

“I want you to listen to me very carefully, Harry. You're not a bad person. You're a very good person, who bad things have happened to. Besides, the world isn't split into good people and Death Eaters. We've all got both light and dark inside us. What matters is the part we choose to act on. That's who we really are.”

That particular passage in Harry Potter has always resonated with me, and never more so than after seeing the latest episode of New Girl. “The Box” is an episode that raises an interesting question: how do you know if you’re a good person? Schmidt spends the entire episode begging for the approval of others. He NEEDS them to affirm that he is good because he feels like he is not. But Schmidt doesn’t get the answers that he wants in this episode, and that is mostly because he spends the entire time asking the wrong question. And we, too, spend our entire lives fixating on this same incorrect question.

The question that we asks ourselves shouldn’t be “am I a good person?” Because the truth of the matter is that this question is rooted entirely in comparison. Being a “good person” is comparative. I, for instance, am certainly a “good person” when I compare myself to a convict on death row. But I’m not, perhaps, a “good person” when I compare myself to a pristine nun or missionary. This question is entirely based on comparing ourselves to others. “Well, I’m not as bad as THAT person,” we argue. Asking this question, though, allows us to give ourselves a false sense of self-worth and security. As long as we are better than someone else, we reason internally, it doesn’t really matter if we are “good” or “bad” – we just have to be better than the next person.

Asking “am I a good person?” is the wrong question to ask because it requires a selfish answer in response. The question we should be asking ourselves – and that Schmidt should be asking himself – is this: “Is what I did GOOD?”

(And Winston Bishop, eternal voice of reason, recognizes that this is Schmidt’s issue and confronts him about it at the end of the episode.)

“The Box” focuses a lot on this idea of being good – of being a “good person” or a “good steward” or a “good, functioning human being.” We’ve always known Nick Miller to be a bit immature. Okay, we’ve all known him to be VERY immature. It’s not that he’s stupid. It’s not that he doesn’t know better. He does, I would argue. He’s just lazy. His box is both physical and metaphorical. If I’m being honest with myself, I have totally put people and situations and feelings into a “box” and shoved it into the recesses of my mind. It’s easier to place your bills in a box and shove them into the back of your closet. That prevents you from seeing and dealing with them.

It’s easy to shove your problems into a box, too.  It’s easy to bury the issues you know that you need to deal with and tuck them far away. Dealing with bills, problems, and emotions is difficult. It might even be painful. Nick doesn’t like confrontation (remember that this theme keeps cropping up this season) and confronting his box is the last thing he wants to do in this episode, not because it requires money.

Nick doesn’t want to confront his box because doing so means he has to confront every time he has failed. That box is a constant reminder of his shortcomings – every unpaid bill, every failed project, every lost cause is documented and stored in that box. It’s understandable, then, that Nick wants to keep that part of himself, that extension of himself, as far away as possible from everyone. If he can’t see it, it doesn’t exist and he won’t have to deal with it. Right? And if Schmidt can convince himself that he’s a “good person,” then he won’t have to actually deal with the guilt and anguish over what he did to Cece and Elizabeth. Right?

Wrong.

Nick and Schmidt have Jess and Winston, respectively, to instruct them and help them grow as individuals. And by the end of the episode, I think that all of these characters have a better understanding of what it means to be good, what it means to be stable, and what it means to grow.

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New Girl 3x04 "The Captain" (In Which Sabo is Still Short for Sabotage)

"The Captain"

Original Airdate: October 8, 2013

I’m a pretty emotional human being.

I chalk this up partially to the fact that I am a woman, but more so to the fact that I am sensitive. I like having deep conversations with friends over coffee or homemade dinners about life. I recently had dinner with my best friend of eleven years – a nice, simple crockpot dinner at my apartment – and as we sat on the couch discussing society’s expectations for us (and our parents’ expectations of us) as young, single woman. After a moment, Simi paused and smiled. “I like that you know exactly what I mean.”

And of course I know exactly what she means. We’ve been friends for half of her life, after all. But it’s more than that, really, and we both understand that in order to have a successful relationship, we have to let one another in. We have to be vulnerable from time to time. And we have to communicate.

Nick and Jess are one of my favorite romantic pairings currently on television. But every romantic pairing, I realize, has flaws and one of the flaws of Nick/Jess is that they are both so fundamentally different and so very stubborn. Jess is a giver, emotionally. She lays her emotions bare for everyone around her. She told Sam that she wanted a relationship with him, even though he rejected her. She admitted that she didn’t love Paul. She walked away from Russell because she wanted passion in their relationship. And, before any of the others came along, Jess was rejected by Spencer. So Jessica Day realizes that there are highs and lows associated with being an emotional giver. And yet… she continues to express herself. She’s not afraid of how she feels.

But Nick is an emotional… well, turtle. Conversing about feelings and emotions and thoughts sends him into short circuit-mode. No, literally, he merely twitches and mumbles incoherently and avoids the topic altogether. And Nick is this way because his relationships have drained him, emotionally. He was rejected by Caroline. He was never shown a lot of love by his father. He bounced from woman to woman without committing. If Jess is an emotional giver, then Nick is an emotional hermit. He recognizes the truth that emotions and feelings make relationships complex. They can often, even, cause aforementioned relationships to go awry and dissolve. Nick, then, in his typical Nick Miller-ness, would much rather avoid confrontation (of any kind, as we saw in last week’s episode) because it preserves him.

There are threads woven together in Nick and Jess’ story that continue to surface. And they’re not plot threads, per se: they’re character personality traits. Nick expressed in “All In” that he did not want to lose Jess. In “Nerd,” we saw how he protected her – how she was his “old lady” and that meant he had to do everything in his power to keep her safe and happy. In “Double Date,” Nick avoided confronting Schmidt about his infidelity, but did so once he realized that – if he didn’t – Jess would be the one to suffer. In “The Captain,” we see this aspect of Nick’s personality surface which I think is truly intriguing: his desire to preserve his relationship with Jess.

Now, Schmidt’s arc this season has also been about preservation. But, it is important to note that Nick’s arc centers around the turtle-faced bartender trying to preserve the joy and stability of his new relationship with Jess. Schmidt, however, is focused entirely on self-preservation which – obviously – is selfish and only destructive in the end. But I truly appreciated the depth that this arc is providing me with in terms of Schmidt’s characterization. There were some truly fantastic moments in “The Captain,” which I’ll discuss in a bit.

Returning to our Nick/Jess conversation briefly, it’s important to understand how fundamentally different Nick and Jess are as characters in order for us to comprehend the weight that the resolution of this episode provides. I think that I, often times, know how different Nick and Jess can be as characters, but beyond that I tend to forget that they not only have different personality types but process information differently and handle conflict differently and see the world differently. The question then arises: how can Nick and Jess have a lasting, substantial relationship if they are so different? The answer to that is not as simple as the question, of course. But the simple answer is that compromise is both an inevitability and also a necessity.

So let’s discuss Nick and Jess’ relationship in “The Captain,” Schmidt’s attempt to sabotage it, and the possibility that Winston was the most sane person in the loft this week, shall we?

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New Girl 3x03 "Double Date" (And That's The Way the World Works)

"Double Date"

Original Airdate: October 1, 2013

The best television shows always center around one important concept: stakes.

Whether the stakes are small (like that of locating a missing purple pen in a study room) or life-altering (such as preventing the world from being destroyed by a fleet of Daleks and Cybermen), the fact remains that they are necessary in order to make a television show relatable and successful. If there are no stakes, we feel no connection to characters as audience members. We coast from episode to episode, from season to season without any investment. How can characters possibly grow if they aren’t forced into situations that allow them that opportunity?

New Girl has never been a high-stakes series, but there’s a shift that is pretty evident in its most recent episode – “Double Date” – that propels the characters from a low-stakes situation (a double date) to a high-stakes one (Nick and Jess learning that Schmidt is cheating on Cece with Elizabeth). And truly, this is what the series needs in order to progress in a natural, logical manner. As fun as self-contained episodes are within a show, there are usually themes that bridge episodes and span seasons which serve to connect the audience to a larger narrative. These themes are what really capture our interest as viewers, and they’re what allow the characters we love to either progress or regress.

The first season of New Girl introduced us to Jess and it was focused primarily on her life transition – how would she form relationships with these three complete strangers she met on the Internet who happened to be her new roommates? The second season’s progression, in terms of Jess, was focused primarily on self-discovery and re-branding. She lost her job and was forced, headlong, into an identity crisis. She spent most of the season trying to figure out her purpose in life and in her romantic relationships. And, of course, the back half of the season was spent exploring the Nick/Jess dynamic. Threads of truth about love and life and how you can be a thirty-something and still not have it all figured out wove their way into these episodes and keep us invested.

Schmidt began the series a rather douchey but lovable loft roommate. I was talking to my friend Kim yesterday regarding his characterization (which she laments over the past few episodes). She noted that when he was introduced, he always had a “heart of gold,” even when he made poor decisions. And while I agree, somewhat, with that sentiment, I have to argue something about Schmidt’s characterization that I know to be true and that has always been true, especially after seeing “Double Date”: Schmidt loves his friends and the people placed in his life… he just always loves himself MORE.

I’ll be talking a lot about Schmidt during this post, because I think it’s important that I walk through my own dissection of his characterization (and perhaps you will find it useful as well) as this cheating storyline draws to a close. I’ll also discuss my ever-growing fondness for Nick/Jess and why the Winston storyline was both sad and wonderful this week. So let’s head below the cut for some analysis!

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In Which Jenn Grades the New Fall Television Series (And Some Returning Ones)

One would assume that I watch a lot of television given my penchant for talking and tweeting about it. But the fact of the matter is that there are few shows I am truly passionate about (and I talk about those ones a lot), and a lot more that I have yet to see. But I made the effort during the fall 2013 pilot season to watch as many new pilots as possible in order to expand my horizons and potentially gain some new fandoms in the process. So I’ve decided to go all AV Club on you guys and grade each of the pilots I have had the opportunity to watch. You’ll notice that there are some missing on here, either because they have yet to air or because (in the case of Dads, Hostages, Betrayal, We Are Men, etc.) certain series HAVE aired and I have not watched them.

Nevertheless, I hope you will be interested in the new fall shows – and some returning ones – that I have chosen to focus on. Click below the cut to read about which series to watch, which to avoid, and which to give a second chance.

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New Girl 3x02 "Nerd" (Who Do You Think You Are?)

"Nerd"

Original Airdate: September 24, 2013

When I was in high school, I was kind of a nerd.

Granted, I didn’t wear glasses or perform in Renaissance garb at my talent show, but I certainly wasn’t in the popular clique. Instead, I found most of my friendships in the drama club and choir class. We sat in the courtyard outside of the drama hallway every day during lunch. Those were my people, and I felt comfortable being in their presence because they accepted me for my love of Broadway musicals and I accepted that they would sometimes get loud and crazy and maybe burst out into Rent.

When I went to class, it was a bit different. I think one of the most unique aspects about my high school experience as a whole was that I wasn’t popular, but the popular kids – or at least some of them – seemed to accept me and others like me. I took quite a few AP classes in high school and the “popular clique” seemed to have its members scattered throughout those classes. I’ll never forget the moment Cyndel – one of the head cheerleaders – sat beside me in AP Psychology. We became friends that year. She had been in another AP class of mine the year prior and though she knew I wasn’t one of her own “kind,” she was still friendly.

The day she invited me to a party was the day I felt like I actually MADE it. (I didn’t go because I was, am, and always will be a goody-two-shoes, but the fact that I was invited by one of the “popular” kids made me feel included.) Cyndel and I were never truly close, but she did write some nice things in my yearbook and for the hour or so that we were together in class, we pretended like our cliques didn’t exist.

I know what it feels like to want to be included because you’re a nerd, and I’m here to tell you that this particular feeling – at least thus far in my life – has not waned. Everyone wants to feel that they belong to someone, that they’re meant to be SOMEWHERE. Human beings were meant to be relational, for community, and to be included. That’ll always be truth.

So in “Nerd,” we see a rare side of Jess – a side that feels insecurity. I’m so used, as a viewer, to seeing crazy, fun, weird Jess who loves that she rocks polka dots and ribbons and her giant glasses traipse around my television screen. But it’s easy to forget that television characters are human beings, and in this episode, our title character struggles with feeling lonely in her new school. Elsewhere, Schmidt is attempting to balance a relationship with both Cece and Elizabeth (we’ll get to that whole storyline in a bit, don’t worry), while Winston is trying to take care of Daisy’s cat. And by “take care,” I mean it in a very mobster sense.

The motif of identity is a strong one in this Kay Cannon-penned episode and I, quite frankly, enjoyed the exploration of this topic by our main characters. (Of course, one of her other episodes - "Eggs" - ranks among my top ten favorite New Girl episodes ever, so my enjoyment of this week's episode is unsurpirisng.) 

Now, let’s dive into the episode then, shall we?

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Happy 2nd Birthday to You, Blog!

Dear 22-year old Jenn,

Hi there. I’m you, two years from now. That’s crazy, right? But it’s true – I’m sitting here, typing out a letter to you, back there in 2011, to let you in on some important tidbits of information. First and foremost: you’re going to have a whirlwind two years in terms of writing.

You’ve started this blog, you see. You’ve named it A Still and Quiet Conscience, because it derives from one of your favorite Shakespeare quotes and also because you think that this will just be a placeholder – that eventually you’ll stop keeping up with the blog anyway so it really doesn’t matter what you name it now. You don’t even really know WHY you wanted to start this blog in the first place. You tried your hand at another blog earlier this year, where you wrote entries spring boarding from famous quotations, but your updates started getting fewer and far between so you’ve kind of given up on that venture entirely.

You really like Community right now, and I’m here to tell you that in two years’ time… that won’t change a bit. In fact, over the course of the next two years, you’ll become even MORE invested in this series, in its characters, in the plot, and in the writing of the episodes. You still have this blog two years from now, Jenn. Can you believe that? You’ve managed to go two WHOLE years without giving up on writing as a side project. That’s pretty awesome for you, so be excited!

Can I let you in on a little secret? A week from now – your second blog-entry ever – you’ll review “Geography of Global Conflict.” You’ll sit in the corner of your office at work and contemplate tweeting the link to your review to Dan Harmon. Do it. The trajectory of your blogging will actually be altered in ways you could never imagine when you do. Because, you see, Dan Harmon is going to READ that review. Moreover, he’s going to respond to you, via Twitter, about it. He’s going to praise it and you.

It will be a moment that you revel in, that you talk about two years later (still) because you can’t believe it actually happened. Dan Harmon is the reason you’re even writing that first blog-review right now – he’s the one who created Community, after all. And Jenn? Dan Harmon is going to be the reason you continue to do this. His tweet is going to be the greatest source of encouragement for you. Because without it, you may have succumbed to the writers’ block and likely would have let this blog fizzle out entirely.

But that one tweet from him? That’s going to open doors.

You thought that this blog would slow down and then out after a few months like your other one did. You’re thinking, right now, that this adventure will probably be short-lived. But you see, Jenn, when Dan Harmon responds to you… your entire blogging life will change. You’ll review every single episode of Community’s third season and you will gain new Twitter followers and readers. A woman named Kim is going to reply to one of your entries and start following you on Twitter.

You and Kim? You’re going to become really good friends. You’ll Gchat nearly every day. You’ll text and talk and eventually you’ll get to know her good friend Sage. And, down the line, you, Sage, Kim, and Jaime will end up starting a podcast together where you discuss fandoms and pop culture and television shows. Can you believe that?

It’s not going to be all sunshine and rainbows though, I’m afraid. You see… you don’t know it now, but the Community fandom is going to get a shake-up soon: your beloved show will be put on hiatus. But that’s not going to stop you. Because you’re going to take part in a movement to bring the show back – it’ll be called #sixseasonsandamovie. And it’ll be one of the best things you ever witness on the Internet. Hundreds and thousands of Community fans will come together: they’ll start flash mobs, they’ll tweet advertisers, they’ll write letters and bombard social media outlets about their favorite show. They’ll convince the network to bring it back.

And you’re going to witness that first-hand.

Moreover, you’ll be a PART of it.

Once your show is put on hiatus, you’re going to have this idea, because you’re so passionate about the series and about writing your reviews, to do a #CommunityRewatch mini-movement on Twitter. You’re going to start at the pilot and work your way through the first and second seasons while the show is off the air, watching each of the episodes and writing reviews of them. You’ll gather fans on Twitter and together, you will live-tweet the episodes on Thursday nights at 8 PM, just as if they were airing for the first time.

You’ll write a review of “Debate 109,” and post it on Twitter. You’ll claim that you’re no Alan Sepinwall, but you’re doing your best at reviewing the series. He’ll retweet that and note that re-marathoning the series as if you were watching it for the first time is one way to deal with hiatus. (Your page view count will skyrocket after that.)

Your Twitter friends will help you promote your blog-reviews, too. Yvette Nicole Brown will read two of them as a result of this and compliment you, saying that SHE learned from YOU about the characters and the show. (You’ll feel very flattered.)

During your re-watch, Megan Ganz will compliment your writing as well, and you’ll feel elated. She’ll read your season four finale review, too, and thank you. She’ll call your analysis “well-written” and “thoughtful.” One of your absolute favorite television writers will say those things about you. It’ll knock the wind out of you for a moment, but you’ll smile so much that you feel like an idiot.

Here’s the thing: you’ll never stop feeling extremely touched and grateful, Jenn. You’ll keep meeting people via Twitter and your blog, but it’ll never stop being exciting and exhilarating and weird to you. It’ll feel like an out-of-body experience when you think about it too much – when you consider the fact that the people you admire are actually reading what you have to say. YOU.

Community will be on hiatus for a while, but that won’t be the only bad thing to happen in the fandom. Dan Harmon will be fired as showrunner. Your heart will break, but – as you have seen happen before – the fandom will join together and make the night you hear about the news something so hilarious, so wonderful, and so random that you’ll stay up way too late just because you don’t want the experience to end. Community will get a fourth season. And it’ll even get a fifth season.

(You’ll still review the fourth season in-depth, even though you know that it just wasn’t the same quality as the first three seasons. You’ll lament this a lot.)

Things will eventually start to change for your blog, too. You’ll continue to write about Community more than anything else, but there will be this YouTube series called The Lizzie Bennet Diaries that will emerge soon, and you’ll become utterly engrossed in it. When the series ends, you’ll write a lengthy goodbye/tribute post where you spend paragraphs dedicated to each of the actors and their characters.

That post will become your most viewed post EVER.

The cast (Wes Aderhold, Julia Cho, Allison Paige, and Christopher Sean) will promote that post for you, will profusely thank you, and will make you misty-eyed. As a result, you’ll gain some new friends in the LBD fandom and discover that they share your love of other series as well.

Jenn, you’re also going to start watching Suits. And when you do, you’ll fall head-over-heels for the best character on television: Donna Paulsen. She’ll be the queen of everything and you’ll write a post stating just that. Sarah Rafferty – the actress who plays Donna – will retweet that post and your little-blog-that-could will earn the attention of a lot more “Suitors.”

This blog – this thing that you think is going to fizzle out, is going to succumb to your writers’ block – will inevitably become an extension of who you are. People will know you as the girl who writes the in-depth reviews of Community. People will anticipate those reviews, just as they do Alan Sepinwall’s or Eric Goldman’s. You’ll be thrown, headfirst into this crazy, awesome, wonderful world of fandom. You’re going to grow so much as a writer, as a person, as a Twitter user, and as a blogger in general. You’re going to make friendships – LASTING friendships. That will be the best part, Jenn: the friendships. Because no matter how many page views your blog gets in the future, no matter how many writers or actors read your work… you’d be nowhere without the amazing friends and followers who constantly support you.

You’ll love them, too. They’re random and hilarious and kind and sweet. They’ll be there for you when your dead-end job sucks (because I wish I could tell you that in 2013, you have a new job but you don’t yet). You’ll be there to witness engagements and weddings and the birth of children. You’ll laugh with these people until your sides hurt, and you’ll cry when they encounter the worst kind of heartaches. You’ll tweet about movies, text about celebrity encounters, and Gchat about your weekend plans.

These people will become your community. Cherish them, Jenn. You’d be nowhere without them.

And you don’t know it now, but this one small step – this decision to start writing blog-reviews no matter how silly or insignificant you think the idea is (because right now you think it’s absurd, that Jaime will be the only ones you ever show these to, etc.) – is going to completely and utterly change your life. And it all starts when you hit “Publish.”

So don’t give up on yourself, kiddo.

Because I know, from where I sit, that you’ve accomplished a lot. And I can only assume that there is much more to come.

Thank you ALL who have been with me on this two-year journey. I wouldn't be here without you guys, and I know it may seem silly and insignificant to celebrate the birthday of a blog, but... well, then I guess that makes me silly! ;)

While I prepare the cupcakes and streamers, hit up the comments below and let me know how you discovered this blog & which post or posts have been your favorite thus far! Have a great week, folks, and thanks for being a part of this adventure with me!

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