'New Girl' recap: A Groundhog Day Situation in the Cathouse

Tonight’s New Girl was a study in a universe that is — and, frankly, must be — self-correcting. Everyone started the night straight-up certifiable, with Jess in the midst of a sexual awakening, thanks to a month of dating Nick; Schmidt just beginning his disgusted (and deluded) vengeance quest against the couple he was convinced had destroyed his doomed-from-the-start love triangle; and Winston was more devoted to his new cat Ferguson than any person who ever hoped to have a fighting chance at a love life should be. Flash forward some 28 minutes, and the tables had had turned. Would you believe it was Winston who brought them all back from the precipice? No? He didn’t either. That’s just how far off-kilter things in the loft had gone. But what goes up must come down — which, coincidentally, was probably just one of the many moves making up the world’s most horrifying sexual position, The Captain.

Though Nick and Jess hadn’t yet experienced The Captain (only The Underpants Captain), they began the evening in a panting afterglow. The sex was so good, said Jess, she wanted “to film it, but [she didn’t] want to film it — because that would be porn.” Oh, Jess, that’s never stopped anyone before! Nick, who’d just poured water on his head like a marathon runner at mile 26, was lacking one skill, though. He hadn’t mastered the ability to talk about his feelings. (He’d later insist, “If we needed to talk about feelings, they would be called talkings.”) But who had time for emotional chatter when all Nick needed to do was “banana it,” and he’d be ready for round 2? For the record (and much to Jess’s relief), “banana it” just means “eat a banana.” At least for now… those dirty bastards.

In any case, the roommates’ connubial bliss was less pleasing to Schmidt and Winston, who could hear everything. Winston was making do with a survival kit involving earmuffs and a deck of cards (for magic tricks!), but Schmidt was incensed that love had turned on him. Also worth noting, he was particularly baffled about the loud sex noises, given that “Nick’s body is so soft, it should absorb sound.” Once Nick and Jess made their giggling way to the communal bathroom to have sex there, Schmidt officially launched Operation: Break Hearts, Not Penises.

Schmidt sowed the seeds of discontent, counter-intuitively, by bringing home a #1-shaped sheet cake in honor of the roomfriends’ one-month anniversary. Nick and Jess were understandably hesitant to accept his supposed peace offering since, as Nick put it, “It’s Schmidt we’re talking about — after he saw the movie Titanic, he started the Billy Zane fan club. Look it up, they’re called the Zane-iacs.” So Nick went to investigate, and it really didn’t take much for Schmidt destroy his roommate’s libido. Specifically, he noted that Nick had been in only one other relationship (with Caroline) that had lasted longer than a month. He sprinkled the conversation with suggestion that Jess might be “The One” and dropped the L-word, asking unctuously, “Too soon?” Nick insisted he was really happy, and Schmidt piled on, “You should be, man. You’re like a different guy. Usually at this point you’re overthinking… and anxious and panicky… and overthinking… and overthinking… and distant… and nervous and sweating… and overthinking.” Ladies and gentleman, the power of Schmidt-ggestion.

Cut to a few minutes later: Nick’s eyes bugged mid-makeout with Jess. And, while his eyes may have gone out, other parts were retreating inward. Or, as Jess tried to joke, “Uh oh, looks like we have a little Groundhog Day situation here!” Cue up Daft Punk and Pharrell’s song-o’-the summer “Get Lucky,” which underscored Jess’s under-score as she spent the rest of the night trying every trick in the book to bring back Lil’ Nick. Now, keep in mind this is Jess’s book, so those tricks included reading aloud from an Indian takeout menu (ohhhhh Jess, only Schmidt finds”chut-i-ney” arousing!), practicing self-esteem-damaging reverse psychology (to Nick: “you’re a fat, fat, fatty, fat…”), doing the robot halfheartedly, painting her face like Papa Smurf (weirdly, this worked for the blue-curious Nick), and finally punching her boyfriend in the face. The last one was Nick’s suggestion. It did not work. A few hours later, Jess said playfully, “Well at least the sun managed to get up!”

As Nick fled to “move [his] car,” Schmidt was happy as a pig in mud at what he’d wrought. Foggy from her sleepless night, Jess foolishly turned to Schmidt for advice on how to revive Nick’s mojo. Schmidt suggested The Captain. Though most of the “good” (read: foul) parts were covered up by blender pulses — see Dotables for what we did hear — Nick’s traumatized face was enough to prove that this perversion had to be grosser than any of the Urban Dictionary definitions. After Jess pounced on her new boyfriend, they emerged from the high seas, their legs a-tangle and Nick’s ability to articulate deteriorated to somewhere between Drunk Uncle and late-days Marlon Brando.

The Captain had been every bit as degrading as, if not more than, Schmidt suggested. While trying to make sense of why the other would want to do such a thing, Jess and Nick inevitably arrived at the realization that Schmidt had set them up. Nick was incensed. All he could get between his gritted teeth was, “Did you just talk to… tight pants and eyebrows?” Ha! Jess stormed out to murder Schmidt. Nick trailed behind, pleading, “I can’t run that fast [after] The Captain!” To be continued…

NEXT: Fergie-Ferg me(ow) love you long time

Speaking of set-ups, Winston was looking to fix up his feline before Ferguson got fixed. Yep, despite my humble attempt to hook my man Winston up, he was still cat-blocking himself. Seeing how sad Winston was over Ferguson losing his manhood before experiencing his own kittyfied sexual awakening, Nick and Jess joked that Winston should arrange a “cat bachelor party.” Winston thought the idea was positively brilliant and headed to a pet store to scope out Ferg’s options. There, he met a pretty young Cat Lady (Riki Lindhome) who mistook Winston’s desperation to get Ferguson laid for a coded date invitation. She said yes, and Winston couldn’t have been happier: “You get it. Everyone else thought I was being weird!” Then he asked, “How often do you groom your cat?” Yep. No way this could go south…

And so Cat Lady arrived — after Winston had primed Ferguson with a pep talk, plied him with catnip, and indoctrinated him with a picture of a cat’s head plastered over a bikini babe. Cat Lady had her Persian and a bottle of red wine in hand, and Winston super-seriously suggested that feeding the cats wine was crazy. It had been a rough six months, so she continued to humor this handsome weirdo — even stepping into Winston’s black-lighted, alien-orgy-muraled bedroom, now outfitted with cat-bachelor-pad-appropriate animal print beds. And so the mood was set…

Alas, the other roommates’ yelling put Ferguson off his game and forced Winston to snap out of his cat-atonic state. You see, Schmidt’s plan had backfired and enabled Nick to express decades of suppressed feelings. He unloaded everything from his frustration that Jess talks in her sleep (“How do you breathe? Where do you get the words?”) to his passion for the cello and choral singing, from that time he cried hysterically after witnessing the miracle of zebra birth to the visceral fear The Captain gave him… he even blurted out about seeing his mother — all of her. Jess was turned-on by Nick’s explosion of feelings, and they began kissing. They headed to Jess’s bedroom, but Schmidt followed to bellow, “Cease lovemaking! All lovemaking must cease!” He then jumped in between them to become “a human dental dam” (which, by the way, was a strong contender for recap title).

With Ferguson emasculated by the caterwauling of Winston’s human roommates, Winston stormed out in a tizzy. Just after Schmidt cut up Nick’s condoms and downed an unspecified amount of Jess’s birth control, Winston shut.it.down — alas, he also managed to out himself as a crazy cat pimp to his prospective date, who understandably left forthwith. Winston called a summit: “What do you think, guys? Loft meeting in 20? I’ll be there in 15 because I need to put a paper bag over my head and scream at the top of my lungs. Oh yeah, there’ll be no snacks.”

Despite all that, the night actually ended on a positive, productive note: Winston realized what a pitiful, cat-fixated nutter he’d become, the roommates established clear boundaries, and Schmidt finally realized he needed to take accountability for his mistakes — he even wrote Cece a letter of amends (though that story’s far from over… she used it as scrap paper for her used gum). After, Nick “sound-proofed” his room — with a few dozen egg crates and that hobo-handyman chutzpah we’ve come to love — he admitted he was really, truly into Jess and more confident than ever that this relationship would work. She felt the same. Though, after several minutes of touchy-feely declarations from her suddenly sentient boyfriend, Jess just wanted Nick to get literally touchy-feely. And can you blame her?

NEXT: When this whole bartender/zombie novelist thing doesn’t work out, Nick should really start planning cat bachelor parties…

Notable Dotables…

Schmidt reveals his newly-single bitterness knows no limits…

“Every couple has a weakness. Kate and Will? I could break them up with one e-mail — oh, look at that! Look at the royal baby now, living with slutty Aunt Pippa.”

Winston: Yeah, [Ferguson and I] had a tough day today at the V-E-T. Yeah, he said he was going to have to get… [pauses, whispers] it rhymes with ‘fleutered.’ [Covers the cat carrier, whispers more softly] The word is neutered.

Nick: Cats don’t speak English.

Winston: Ferguson’s never going to experience actual, physical love-making.

Jess: I think you’re a little too into your cat…

Winston: He should be out there, just gettin’ all crazy, gettin’ his freak on. [Cups his head in his hands] I feel bad, man. I don’t know what to do.

Nick: Let’s try to help. We got three smart people here. We all know we gotta get Ferguson laid, right?

Jess: Right.

Nick [eyes light up]: Cat bachelor party.

Jess: That’s right… get some little cat strippers.

Nick: Big-booty cats, little-booty cats… some tabbies… some black ones, some white ones — mix it up! Get us a couple Siamese… get weird with it. [Sees Winston is really thinking about this] You know we’re kidding, right?

Winston: Sure, sure, sure. Gotcha. [Whispers to Ferguson] It’s happening!

Jess: Let’s say Nick struggled with impotence. Oh my God, I am not talking about this.

Schmidt: Jess, look, I get it. You don’t want my help. But just do me a favor, please. Let me know when you’re not mad at me anymore so I can tell you how men crave danger and variety in their sexual lives. I just hope it’s not too late. Fingers crossed!

Jess: What are you talking about? I mean, I don’t care, but… if I did…

Schmidt: Theoretically, I would tell you fo… for a man whose midsection is basically mush, Nick has had a lot of sex. He’s pushed that mush all over town. And you know what? He’s got some very weird taste. Dark, real fringe stuff. He likes stuff that they don’t even have porn for! And, you know, a lot of women wouldn’t think to do The Captain in bed.

Jess: What?

Schmidt: That was a mistake, I shouldn’t have said anything. I’ve gone too far. Do you want a smoothie?

Jess: What’s The Captain?

Schmidt: Well it starts off with… [turns on blender as he’s speaking, then powers down] …you want to clean yourself up immediately, and I mean immediately. And then… [blender back on for a few seconds] …how comfortable are you with racial slurs? Then… [blender, once more] …that’s basically it.

Jess: That’s what Nick wants in bed?

Schmidt: Yeah, I know. Look, you’re probably not up for it. It’s my fault. It’s very degrading, it’s offensive — and you just don’t have the time to learn all those dolphin sounds…. Are you sure you don’t want some of this smoothie? It’s strawbana!

Jess: Schmidt! I trusted you, you took advantage of me!

Schmidt [grinning ear to ear]: Something wrong?

Jess: You set us up! I’ve done things to Nick I can’t ever undo.

Schmidt: See, your fatal flaw — communication. You won’t shut up about your feelings, and the only thing this dummy wants to talk about is the Chicago Brown Bears.

Nick: It’s just the Chicago Bears, there’s no Brown.

Schmidt: Who cares?! I put a pebble in your path, and the two of you cracked your tiny little skulls on it. Oh, by the way, how was The Captain? Did you make it all the way to the spyglass?

Jess: Yes, Schmidt! And my night vision’s very good because my eyes are so buggy and big! And I saw everything [voice crumbles] and I can’t erase it from my memory.

Minutes of the Emergency Loft Meeting: Oct. 8, 2013

Jess: Schmidt, I just looked it up — there’s no way estrogen works that fast.

Schmidt: You don’t know my body!

Nick: Please stop talking about your body, Schmidt.

Winston: Okay, that’s a good segue… to… some of the more relevant topics that I would like to cover in this meeting, like personal space… public space… other people’s medicines, taking them versus not taking them–

Schmidt: I’m so aware of my nipples right now…

Winston: Okay… that’s a good start–

Schmidt: If someone were to blow on my nipples, I would positively scream!

Winston: Boundaries. Any takers?

Nick: We live here. Where are we supposed to go?

Jess: This is my fault. Because I’m going through a sexual awakening. [Nick grins smugly] It’s like I’m tapping into this raw, sexual energy that the universe is putting forth, and it’s both imploding and exploding at the same time. It’s kind of like I’m a young nun and Nick is my sexy Monsignor, and I’m– [Sees her roommates’ disgusted faces] I’m just gonna shut up…

Winston: Both of you need to shut up. You’re having sex, not inventing it. It can’t be that good.

Jess: It’s good.

Winston: Stop saying “Squeeze my biscuits”! I’m serious, Nick.

Nick: Sorry.

Winston: And, Schmidt, stop taking it out on everybody else, man. Deal with your break-ups. Ain’t no way in hell I got a cat brothel going on in my room, and I’m the only normal person in this loft.