New Girl

New Girl

Episode 12: Cabin

By: Carlos Uribe

New Girl is a show about Jess and her three best friends (Winston, Nick, and Schmidt)

Spoilers Ahoy!

Cabin is an episode that deals with three different issues. The first has to do with Nick and the stripper he's dating. Nick agrees to take Angie to a cabin for a romantic weekend. The two have an open relationship that doesn't have any label. Nick pretends to accept that because he's afraid of admitting how he actually feels about her. He's developing feelings for her and he's not happy when Angie misreads the situation by trying to seduce Sam. When Angie realizes that the relationship might be getting serious, she decides to leave him and leaves him with a note. It makes sense that her character is going to flee but it wouldn't be surprise me if the show finds a way to pop her back in Nick's life. Their relationship did end with no closure after all. This is a good plot that appears to be closing the book on the Nick-Angie relationship while remaining true to who the characters are. The sad ending not only makes sense considering who Angie is but it really feels like the only way the plot could have gone. It helps that the cabin situation led to some pretty funny scenarios-such as when Jess tries to handle a gun or when they find a bottle of absinthe.

The reason that Nick finds himself in the cabin is because of Jess. She's worried that she's not going to have the perfect weekend with Sam so she asks Nick to come as back-up. The weekend predictably turns into a mess. Nick and Angie are less interested in doing what she wants to do and more in simply having fun. This involves shooting guns and drinking alcohol. Jess' desire for a perfect weekend lead to a great scene where Nick and Jess fight over their friendship. The two fight over how they don't really know each other when they actually do. Nick is completely right in his assessment of Jess and she manages to correctly deduce that he's not okay with being in an open relationship with Angie. The whole point of her character has been to draw him out of his comfort zone into different places. Nick's issue might have been with Angie but Jess' ended up being two-sided. One was with her best friend Nick and the second was the fear that Sam isn't her perfect boyfriend. Sam is able to address this concern when he tells her that of course they're not perfect but he rejected a stripper rubbing his leg while he was on absinthe high.

The sub-plot was around the third issue and it concerned Winston and Schmidt's relationship. Schmidt gets it in his head that Winston isn't able to be his black self. Schmidt decides that he's going to do what it takes to make Winston comfortable with his race. It's a surprising episode that tackles the issue of race within the show before coming up with the conclusion that it doesn't matter. Winston is okay with living with three white guys because he's not defined by the color of his skin. That Schmidt attempts to do this is in politically incorrect ways is akin to how some people view race (or the lack of it) on television. That Schmidt is the character who suffers white guilt is perfect because of course he would. That Winston decides to use this to mess with Schmidt makes perfect sense since that's a favorite past-time of his. And of course, Winston's prank went to far which fits established information just about perfectly.

Cabin is a pretty great episode of New Girl. It was hilarious from beginning to end and it did some really good work with the characters and their relationships. The main plot in the cabin had some pretty great comical scenes and good drama. The sub-plot with Winston and Schmidt explored the race issue by pretending to make a big deal out of it. It's a nice episode to return from the mid-season break and to begin the new year.

Other Notes:

Nice little Perfect Couples re-union between David Walton and Olivia Munn. Funny how this episode happened to deal with what constituted as a couple and Jess' desire to have the perfect relationship with Sam.

“I have it on good authority that my bed is disappearing.”