SEASON 1 – FOX
Created by Elizabeth Meriwether
Theme song: “Hey Girl” written by Michael Andrews, Zooey Deschanel, Elizabeth Meriwether, Dave Finkel, and Bret Baer. Performed by Zooey Deschanel.
- Pilot – 9/20/2011
- Bubbly schoolteacher Jessica “Jess” Day (Zooey Deschanel) discovers her boyfriend Spencer (Ian Wolterstorff) cheating on her with a girl named Rochelle (Ashton Swinford), so she immediately moves out, and answer an ad on Craigslist for an apartment with three female roommates. However upon arrival, she finds that the roommates are actually men: Nick Miller (Jake Johnson), a bartender who has just broken up with his girlfriend Caroline (Mary Elizabeth Ellis), Schmidt (Max Greenfield), a successful marketing associate and wannabe ladies man, and Coach (Damon Wayans Jr.), Schmidt’s personal trainer. Jess loves the apartment and trusts the dynamic between the guys – who have started a ‘Douchbag Jar’ to call each other out when one acts like a jerk, and wants to move in. The decision is split amongst them, but they decide to allow her in, despite the warnings from Jess’s best friend, fashion model Cece Parikh (Hannah Simone). The guys nearly regret it when Jess spends all her days crying from her breakup and watching Dirty Dancing. The try to help get her back out in the dating world, and after Schmidt runs into two of his ‘frenemies’ Benjamin (David Neher) and Peter (Jack Yang), Jess secures a rebound date with Peter. While the guys finagle an invite through Caroline to a big party, they are taken aback when Peter shows up at the party, stating that Jess seemed too needy so they stood her up. Despite an offer from Caroline to get a drink, Nick and the others decides to abandon the party to meet up with Jess to cheer her up, showing that they can be true friends. Gillian Vigman is Schmidt’s boss Kim. Lauren Dair Owens in young Jess. Hayley Marie Norman is the hot hostess. Steve Bannos is the cab driver. 6/9/18
- 002. Kryptonite – 9/27/2011
- With Coach having left to move in with his girlfriend, the guys’ old roommate Winston Bishop (Lamorne Morris) returns from playing basketball in Latvia. He and Schmidt go around to decide who is the ‘top dog’ of the apartment and thus who should now get the big room. Meanwhile Jess still has not retrieves her things from her ex-boyfriend Spencer, but when she breaks the TV in the apartment with a basketball, the guys insist on her getting her old TV and other items from Spencer. However when she meets him, she ends up driving his new girlfriend Rochelle to the airport for him… and not getting her things. The guys declare that Spencer is her ‘Kryptonite’ and encourage her to get angry with him, and go with her to assist. At first she falls prey again, but when she sees that he has never watered the flowers, she gets angry and demands her things and starts breaking his. When Spencer won’t return a t-shirt of her, the guys intervene and Schmidt slaps him in the face. Winston finally declares Schmidt the top dog, but has fooled him into thinking that the top dog would want the small room in the apartment. The TV is broken during the movie, so they have to watch it while it is tilted to the side. Paul Renteria is the pawn shop proprietor. Danna Brady is the hot waitress. 6/9/18
- 003. Wedding – 10/4/2011
- Jess agrees to be the Nick’s date at the wedding of their friends Steve and Bree, so that Nick won’t be tempted to get back together with Caroline. Although at times awkward, she does the job well, but when Caroline begins feeling jealous, Nick rushes to be by her. He then finds out that she has a boyfriend and gets drunk and hangs out in the photo booth. Meanwhile Schmidt is worried he will wind up with homely and insulting Gretchen (Natasha Lyonne), although he would prefer to get with recovering alcoholic Brooke (Katie Cassidy). In order to do so, he pretends to be a recovering alcoholic himself, all the while sneaking drinks at any time possible. Jess inadvertently ruins it for him when she appears to threaten her with a knife while trying to cut off her tight underwear. When Winston is late to the wedding, the young teen alternate usher Jimmy Longjam (Armaan Juneja) tries to usurp his power and they wind up in a dance contest with Jess in the middle. Jess eventually is able to talk some sense into Nick, who tells Caroline that they can’t continue to see each other. The four friends wind up on the dancefloor doing a slow dance version of the the Chicken Dance. Schmidt winds up with Gretchen as he expected. Eric Winzenried is the bartender. Darren Capozzi is the DJ. Will Hawkes is the videographer. 11/3/18
- 004. Naked – 11/1/2011
- Jess walks in on Nick while he is dancing naked in front of a mirror. Her reactionary giggle fills him with doubts about his manhood, when he finally scores a date with his rather obtuse co-worker Amanda (Lake Bell), and consequently he is nervous about taking his clothes off on their date. Nick refuses to talk about it with Jess – even when she pulls out her Feeling Stick – and is further incensed that she isn’t mature enough to say the world ‘penis’. Meanwhile Schmidt is infuriated that he is the only roommate who hasn’t seen Nick’s penis, and makes several attempts to correct it. Winston has trouble on job interviews when he is unable to discuss any current events since he has spent the last couple of years playing basketball in Latvia. Schmidt tries to cheer him up by going jogging with him, and immediately feels better when Schmidt relays the troubles in his live and hurts himself running. Jess plans to make things up with Nick by letting him see her naked, but picks the worst time to expose herself as he brings Amanda back to his room. Nick lectures everyone about knocking, while Winston and Schmidt use Jess’s Feeling Stick to try and convince him to show Schmidt his penis. Jess is finally able to say ‘penis’ and makes up with Nick, while Schmidt continues to increase his efforts by hiding in the shower. 11/3/18
- 005. Cece Crashes – 11/8/2011
- When Cece catches her latest boyfriend Gavin (Edin Gali) cheating, she has Jess come pick her up at a nightclub and goes to her place to stay for a while. Nick had been hoping for a quiet night, but Schmidt and Winston take full advantage of her being drunk, but dancing the night away with her. Both vying for her affections, Winston taunts Schmidt and tells him he will never ‘close the deal.’ The next morning Schmidt begins trying to impress her, but she simply toys with him. Meanwhile Cece also tries to convince Jess that Nick is falling for her, giving her silly signs to look for. When Nick buys some flowers from a vendor (Aixa Maldanado) for her, Jess gets out of his car and walks home, much to Nick’s surprise and consternation. Jess apologizes to Nick for being weird, and convinces Jess that she’s being cruel… but also tells Schmidt that he should stop going after Cece because she would eat him up. Cece has a change of heart and allows Schmidt to sleep in the same bed with her, and holds his hand through the night. Although Winston disagrees, Schmidt believes he’s sealed the deal. Josiah Barajas is Eduardo. Sean C. Graham and Kassie Hight are the happy couple. Warren Sweeney and Jeanette O’Connor are the unhappy couple. 8/11/19
- 006. Thanksgiving – 11/15/2011
- Jess has a crush on a music teacher named Paul Genzliner (Justin Long) at her school and invites him to Thanksgiving at the apartment, despite the fact that none of the guys were planning on having a meal. Winston and Schmidt quickly get on board, especially when she agrees to let Schmidt cook. Paul is put off by the arrangement, and is rude to Justin, who has a few quirks of his own. While Cece is helping Schmidt cook, she pokes fun at his germaphobia and neatness compulsion, causing him to yell at her. She actually gets turned on by it, but after he apologizes for it, nothing she does to him can get him to yell at her again. When attempting to defrost the turkey in the dryer causes it short circuit and fill the apartment with smoke, they move the party over to the neighbor Mrs. Beverly’s apartment, who is away visiting her sister. Jess finally gets angry at Nick for being rude to Paul and they have an argument in the hall where Jess tells him how much she likes Paul, all of which can be easily heard by everyone inside. The evening ends with Paul playing violin and everyone discovering Mrs. Beverly dead on the toilet. Schmidt invites Paul to join them for Black Friday sales at Best Buy. Much to everyone’s surprise, he shows up with his violin, but when a man (Christian Anderson) says he can’t cut in line, Nick allows him to take his place in line. The kids in the school play are Chaz Marcus Fleming (pilgrim), Troy Doherty (Frankenstein), Jerrin Padre (Pumpkin and Native American), and Ada-Nicole Sanger (werewolf). 8/11/19
- 007. Bells – 11/29/2011
- Jess has taken charge of a troubled youth bell choir called Ensembell, who have chosen to go this route with the Community Center rather than face detention. When Winston pick up the bells, he is amazingly good and impresses the four kids Desiree (Raven Goodwin), Hector (Ki Hong Lee), Bianca (Tiffany Ariany), and Krystal (Esther Povitsky). He agrees to join the choir, but while attempting to teach them to play Eye of the Tiger, he becomes a perfectionist and gets himself fired from his temp job by his manager (Brian Patrick Farrell) while practicing at work. He also starts to yell at the group, getting himself kicked out by Jess. Meanwhile Nick does some rigging to stop the toilet from overflowing, while Schmidt wants to spend his money to have a plumber (Fitz Houston) take care of the job. They begin to argue about it, with Schmidt taking back everything he ever paid for, and Nick undoing any of the things in the apartment he had previously rigged. It nearly escalates into a fist fight, but when when Schmidt hurts Nick’s feelings by calling him a loser, they both start to feel bad. Jess explains to Winston that she wants to bring positivity to the kids’ lives and that his yelling at them hurts their self-esteem. Winston re-joins the group and they perform Eye of the Tiger in their lackluster way at an outdoor concert. Schmidt and Nick watch the concert together and return to their good-natured ribbing. Drew Droege is the restaurant manager. 3/12/20
- 008. Bad in Bed – 12/6/2011
- Jess is ready to go all the way with Paul, but since it’s been so long and she hasn’t been with anyone since Spencer, she is too nervous to go through with it. She turns to watching porn for hours on end, and then to the guys for advice, but they can only manage to argue over who is the best in bed. Meanwhile Schmidt is competing with a co-worker named Beth (Eva Amurri Martino) to become the favorite of their boss Gina (Michaela Watkins), and manages to finagle an invite to Gina’s baby shower. Although he gets off to an awkward start, he manages to win her and everyone over by getting them all drunk, but then nearly messes up when he throws Gina into her pool. However Gina ends up seeing it as wild and fun, so Schmidt follows her in. That night one of his co-workers Cheryl (Katie Walder) spends the night with him. Jess buys stringy lingerie from a clerk (Jennifer Wenger), and then wears it over her underwear, acts like an old-timey newsman, and chokes Paul during their next attempt at sex. He tries to reciprocate by talking like Jimmy Stewart, but ends up getting scared and leaves. Both Winston and Nick tell Jess that Paul is clearly crazy about her and should just relax. Paul visits her and tells her that he doesn’t have much experience so she makes him nervous, and they end up going all the way in the elevator. Meanwhile Nick hates getting his hair cut, so he attempts to learn from a guy (David Hoffman) doing an online tutorial. He ends up going to Winston’s barber and gets a more ethnic haircut. Hugh Dane is the old customer. 3/12/20
- 009. The 23rd – 12/13/2011
- It is two days before Christmas and the guys are enjoying the roller skates that Jess gave them. Schmidt is depressed that everyone is leaving for Christmas, but they all agree to attend his office party with him with the females in his office before they drop Nick at the airport for an early morning flight to his parents house. Schmidt’s boss Kim is forcing him to play ‘Dirty Santa’ posing topless with all of the ladies. Meanwhile Jess struggles with what to give Paul for Christmas, so she settles on a fuzzy anatomically correct heart. From him she gets two tickets to Vienna and passes to the Salzburg Music Festival. He also tells her that he loves her, to which she can only respond ‘thank you.’ She tells Nick her dilemma for advice. Later when Nick sees Paul appearing to sulk on the balcony at the party, he tells him how he understands how hard it is when someone doesn’t love you the way you love them. This is all news to Paul, who then becomes sad and gets a hug from Nick. When Jess sees this, Nick admits what he did and Jess attempts to talk to Paul, with Nick is locked out on the balcony forced to listen to their conversation. Paul doesn’t think he can move any slower with Jess, so they break up. Schmidt gives a Cece perfume that he made, and despite the fact that it smells terrible, she wears it when she becomes irritated with her boyfriend Kyle (Stephen Amell), who has no sense of humor when she wars the mustache that Jess gave her. Winston wins over Gina when her son Elvin (Blake Garrett Rosenthal) hides at the party, after being upset by Schmidt’s portrayal of Santa and then telling Kim that he had ‘killed’ him. Schmidt finally stands up to Kim about being treated as a sex object and when he tries to turn the tables on her, she likes it. They finally leave for the airport to get Nick to the airport, but at the last minute Nick veers off to take Jess and the gang to see the Candy Cane Lane neighborhood Christmas lights. By the time they arrive, all of the neighbors have turned off their lights, but when everyone beings screaming in the streets to turn them back on, the angry neighbors comply. However this causes Nick to miss his flight back home for the fifth year in a row. Aline Elasmar is the diet pill ‘before’ girl. 6/24/20
- 010. The Story of the 50 – 1/17/2012
- Schmidt is being forced by his friends to add an unprecedented $50 to the Douchebag jar, and they all recount the events that lead up to it. Three days earlier Schmidt is devastated when the party bus he intended to hire for his 29th birthday becomes unavailable when Frankie Muniz hires it. He is particularly worried about how his frenemy Benjamin will react. Jess decides she will throw him a party to make up for it, and goes to work to rent a school bus, hire a stripper, and get some drugs that were confiscated at school. In order to do this, she is forced to invite her boss Tanya Lamontagne (Rachael Harris) to come along. Meanwhile Nick has been dating a lawyer named Julia Cleary (Lizzy Caplan), but has been too embarrassed for him to meet his friends. When she asks if he is married, he is forced to take her to the loft and meet everyone. Winston invites her to attend the party, much to Nick’s horror. All night long, he tries to disassociate himself from his friends, until she tells him that none of it matters to her, asks him to be honest, and tells him that she too has plenty of secrets under the rug. The stripper shows up and ends up being a man named Martin Fuller (Matt Besser), whom they have to pay to not expose himself. Benjamin has been taunting Schmidt all night, but when he starts to aggressively hit on Jess, Schmidt tells him to back off. Benjamin begins insulting the party, Schmidt, and all his friends, provoking everyone to stand up for Schmidt… including Julia, who uses her karate to pummel him and cause the bus to crash. Anger management turns out to be Julia’s hidden fault. However this only proves to be more of a turn-on for Nick. Schmidt is appreciative of how fun Jess made his birthday and tries to kiss her. This calls for the $50 fine into the Douchebag jar. E-Kan Soong is Ben’s sidekick, and Erik Valdez is douchebag #2. 6/24/20
- 011. Jess & Julia – 1/31/2012
- Nick’s relationship with Julia is going well, although they both claim to not want to put a label on it. Julia even agrees to help Jess get out of an $800 traffic ticket, but Jess starts to feel that Julia doesn’t care for her when she refuses her baked goods, and tells her that the judge might buy her whole ‘thing’ personality. She also asks if Nick is seeing other women, which makes Jess feel uncomfortable so she takes this to Nick. He confronts Julia about it, and she says she just wants to make sure that he doesn’t think it is exclusive because she is seeing lots of other men. This leads to both Nick and Julia going off to the bathroom to cry, and when Jess goes into the bathroom after Julia and is told that she doesn’t like her, Jess cries as well. Julia still shows up to help Jess in court, but the case is lost immediately when Jess accidentally and immediately tells the judge (Clyde Kusatsu) that she is guilty. Meanwhile Winston has been going through a dry spell, so he looks up his old girlfriend Shelby (Kali Hawk). She is turned off with Winston’s lack of dating skills, but Winston finally goes to her place of business and humbles himself, and she gives him permission to ask her out again for an official date. Schmidt is upset that with so many people in the apartment that he never has a dry towel. Even Jess’s suggestion to hang the towels on bars doesn’t work. They finally solve the reason why it is always wet when Nick reveals that he’s been using the same towel all along. Julia comes over to see Jess, who invites her to crochet with her, Cece, and their lesbian friend Sadie (June Diane Raphael). It is therapeutic and when Nick comes home, they both confess that they only want to see each other… but still avoid the phrase ‘boyfriend’ because they don’t like labels. 10/10/20
- 012. The Landlord – 2/7/2012
- After Jess diffuses a situation with a road rager (Steve Humphreys) who pulls a gun on her and Nick, she decides to try and appeal to the unreasonable landlord Remy (Jeff Kober) to do some work in their apartment. When she lets it slip that there are four people living there instead of three, he comes to investigate. Despite attempting to pass of Schmidt as a visitor, he surprisingly tells them he is okay with four. He also agrees to help Jess with fixing up some things. Nick thinks that Remy is just hitting on Jess, and decides to stay with them when she offers to make dinner for him. Meanwhile Nick is reading into everything his boss Kim says to him and interpreting that she wants to sleep with him, although he has had similar false interpretations about a woman in the elevator (Alex Lynn Ward), a barista (Piper Major), and a delivery guy (Potsch Boyd). At one point he licks some files seductively when Kim asks him to sort them, making a fool of himself. Ultimately he finally rushes to her and kisses her passionately in the parking garage… only to get beaten up by security guards (Faruq Tauheed, Mario Perez) who think he is assaulting her. Jess, Nick, and Remy all have a nice evening with some good discussions, but when Remy returns from the bathroom with no pants and says he is ready to have a threesome, Nick tries to get Jess to admit she was wrong. She won’t admit it and won’t decline the threesome, until Nick gets ready to kiss her. Later he confesses that he’s always had a crush on her and shows her his 2007 list of New Years resolutions to prove it. She tells him to go dial into the Tokyo call in the conference room, so he goes in and gets undressed and starts to dance on the table… all in the view of a roomful of Tokyo businessmen on the video. Aaron R. Landon is young Nick. Portia Berman is young Jess. Brad Carter is the stranger with candy. 10/10/20
- 013. Valentine’s Day – 2/14/2012
- It is Valentine’s Day and Jess just wants a one-night stand, so she talk Schmidt into joining her for a night on the town, and a concerned Cece also insists on coming along with her boyfriend Kyle. Nick goes to pick up Julia at her office, and when she keeps getting delayed on business calls, Nick winds up waiting and drinking champagne with her assistant Cliff (Clark Duke), who has a crush on Julia. When Nick accidentally talks him out of devoting his life to law, which causes him to quit, Julia has to send Nick home since she now has even more work to do. He sticks around anyway and helps her organize her papers, and even though he did it all wrong, she is touched by the sentiment. Winston scores a date with Shelby, but is surprised when he arrives at her place to find that she is having a girls night with her friend Tia (Leslie L. Miller) and another friend (Vanessa Ragland). Fortunately he is able to win them over by being a gentleman, and manages to score points with Shelby, who remembers his past Valentines Day foibles when he stood her up. Jess tries some lackluster flirtation with a guy (Nick Greco), whose cherry she nearly chokes on. She’s also told by Nick and Cece not to go for a guy named Brent (Drew Brooks) since they both hailed from Oregon, and could potentially make a connection. She finally meets a guy named Oliver (Ryan Kwanten), and the only thing they have in common is they like lunch. Since he has no car, Schmidt gives them a ride back to his place, and then accepts his invitation to come in and watch Planet of the Apes. Cece offers to come get Schmidt so he can leave his car for Jess. Schmidt tries to leave anyway and finds that his wheels have been stolen. While Jess and Oliver are making out, his ex-girlfriend Amy (Melissa Stephens), who still lives there, comes home and screams at Oliver. Cece and her boyfriend Kyle, who is wasted on mushrooms, show up, and Amy makes out with Kyle to get even, causing a fight between her and Cece. After everyone leaves but Amy, Oliver and Jess try to make out while Amy eats tacos right by them. Jess decides to leave, and when she gets home, Schmidt comforts her before going to bed. She decides to try and sleep with Schmidt, but Nick comes home and stops her. It turns out he has Cece in the bedroom and they sleep together. The next morning Jess talks to Cece on the phone and tells her that she almost tried to sleep with Schmidt, while Cece is in bed with him. 1/27/21
- 014. Bully – 2/21/2012
- Schmidt is in seventh heaven that he gets to sleep with Cece regularly, and even more so that she can’t seem to say no to him and is turned on by his silly, narcissistic ramblings. However she is ashamed to be seen with him, and won’t go into the apartment if anyone else is around. She makes him stay in the car at parties, and when he insists on taking her to breakfast, she picks an Asian restaurant where no one speaks English. She finally gives him permission to announce it to the folks dining there, none of whom understand. Meanwhile, Jess writes a song about bullying when her student Nathaniel (Daniel Jenks) comes to her saying he doesn’t want to go to lunch because the others pick on him. Another student named Brianna (Joey King) records her performing the song and publishes a video mocking her. When Jess tries to talk to her, Brianna mocks her even further, causing Jess to get angry and break her robotic arm science project. Jess feels terrible and tries to fix it, but it ultimately catches fire during the Science Fair. Nick receives a cactus from Julia when she is out of town. He suddenly becomes neurotic about their relationship, thinking that it means he can’t take care of a normal flower. He leaves seven rambling voicemails for her, so by the time she returns, he’s convinced her that she doesn’t in fact want to be with him. He mopes around sullenly, even attending the Science Fair with Jess, expressing the futility of anything but love. Jess admits that she broke Brianna’s project when she starts to blame it on Nathaniel. Brianna’s two mothers Greta (Roxana Ortega) and Karen (Tressa DiFiglia Handfield) complain to her boss Tanya, who promises to discipline Jess. However, instead of that, she tells Jess that she is now one of them, as it has become clear that she too hates kids. Jess makes Brianna perform a song with her in front of the class and encourages everyone to take videos of it. Delton Woods is the young Winston. Pratima Anae is the hot girl that Winston shows off to Nick via flashback. 1/27/21
- 015. Injured – 3/6/2012
- When Jess tackled Nick during a game of touch football, he winds up with a back injury, and affects him so badly that he crashes into Winston’s clunker car as he leaves the park. Jess insists on taking him to see a friend of hers, a gynecologist named Dr. Sadie, who gives him some pain pills for menstrual cramps. As he is taking them, she also notices a lump in his thyroid and advises him to get an ultrasound to check for cancer. He is resistant since he has no insurance, but Jess insists. That night they all hang out at the bar and get drunk, with Nick’s medicine compounding it for him. When Jess tries to make him feel better with jokes, he tells her that she can’t speak at his funeral because she is never ‘real’. She takes issue, and finally tells him that he does nothing, and doesn’t have anything he wants to accomplish. They wind up at the beach and Nick attempts to run into the freezing ocean. The group spends the night on the beach, then goes to the hospital the next day, where Nick tells the receptionist (Lyn Alicia Henderson) that he’ll pay in cash. He gets his ultrasound and finds out the he has no cancer, and when he’s done, he’s pleased to hear that his friends all covered his bill. Winston’s car, which the mechanic Sherman (Ben Hoffman) tells him cannot be fixed at this point, finally dies at the hospital. Nancy Lantis is the lush who gets menstrual cramps. Cindy Drummond is the lady willing to give up her vagina. Elizabeth Bell is the girl who shows Winston her breasts. Craig Anstett is the guy in the gyno waiting room. 5/22/21
- 016. Control – 3/13/2012
- Although Schmidt admits that he has no control in his relationship with Cece, he still rules the roost at the apartment, and won’t allow Jess to keep a pine hutch that she brings home. She retaliates to his control freakishness by filling the apartment with junk, and storing Schmidt’s things in the hutch. He finally can take no more, so he pushes it over and destroys it. Jess then forces him to go to the beach where he thinks that everyone is dirty, and tell him to let some of his control go and just go with the flow. He is finally seduces by a hippie girl (Guerrin Gardner) who invites him to her beach circle to play bongos. Soon his transformation is complete, and he stops showing up for work or doing any cleaning at the house. Winston and Nick warn Jess that she is unleashing something terrible, and soon the entire apartment is destroyed. Meanwhile, Nick has lost $547 to Nick in a poker game, and has trouble getting him to pay any of it. Eventually Winston tells him he’ll accept $200, which Nick jumps on… but then starts naming all of the money that Winston should owe him, both in cash and favors, and even for seeing Nick’s mother naked when they were in Junior High. When they go to the store together to buy groceries, they wind up in a slap fight over money. They eventually reconcile and call it even, and Jess leads them in begging Schmidt to come back to his old self. Nick tempts him by telling him that he can clean Nick’s room, while Jess offers him a new pair of Calvin Klein slacks. When Cece shows up in the middle of the night for a bootie call, Schmidt tells her that he knows he has no control with her, but since she is the one showing up and begging for sex, he must have some control after all. She finds that he is wearing his new slacks in bed. Nate Shelkey is Gary the cashier. Lukas Martin is the kid eating ice cream. Van Allen is the silver street performer. 5/22/21
- 017. Fancyman, Part 1 – 3/20/2012
- Nick tries to buy a mobile phone, but when his credit score comes back at 250, the clerk Will (Randall Park) laughs and shares it with co-workers Mojan (Ajay Vidure), Claire (Julie Brister), and Brendan (Justin Piccari). Jess convinces him it can be his ‘thing’ – to be the guy who doesn’t have a phone. Meanwhile, Winston gets embarrassed when Schmidt goes out with him and Shelby, and Schmidt dramatically shows him up playing trivia. A wealthy, successful father named Russell Shiller (Dermot Mulroney) whose daughter Sarah is in Jess’s class comes in and to complain that Sarah is concentrating more on imagination than the actual curriculum. Jess’s boss Tanya orders her to go apologize to him and promise not to use imagination in the class. Jess is furious but heads over to Russell’s office. Along the way, her car stalls, and Russell happens to see it… so he has her car towed and loans her his car, only asking that she stop by to return it while he’s having a cookout the next day. Jess is reluctant to go there, but she takes Nick along to help level the playing field. It doesn’t take long until Nick sees his fancy study, and falls in love with his house, and Russell himself. Winston enlists the aid of a little boy named Elvin (Blake Garrett Rosenthal) to help tutor him in trivia, and he memorizes the answers to a slew of questions. However, it doesn’t help one bit and he ends up mixing up all of the answers. Shelby thinks he is acting strange, but says she wants to be with him no matter how much trivia he knows. Nick is further charmed by Russell, when he gives him a free phone and allows him to keep his sweater. Jess also is charmed by him, but when she causes his bidet to go off and nearly flood the bathroom, she gets embarrassed and tries to leave. Nick talks her into returning, and Russell asks her out for dinner. She accepts the invitation, and then falls into the backyard pond. Beth Crosby is Donna, the trivia girl. Naomi Matsuda is the lady who wants Russell to tell his baby delivery story. Claire Titelman is Val, a trivia contestant whose part must have been mostly cut. 9/17/21
- 018. Fancyman, Part 2 – 3/27/2012
- The guys are hanging out with an oddball named Dirk (Martin Starr), a professor at the university, and Jess thinks he ultra-creepy. He tries to hit on CeCe, but she tells him that she’s seeing someone, and then proceeds to tell him how she owns him as her ‘sexcretary’. This causes Schmidt to give her the cold shoulder, and even deny her sex. Meanwhile, Jess tells everyone about her awkward first date with Russell, when he gives her nothing more than a back-patting hug at the end of the date. Shelby is heading off to Mexico, and even though she offers to cancel the trip and stay with him, he tells her that after five nights together, they probably need the space… which doesn’t sit that well with her. Nick sits in Dirk’s poetry class, and after the class, he is approached by two groupie students Miriam (Jazz Raycole) and Skyler (Natalie Dreyfuss), who talk them into partying that night. Nick brings everyone back to his apartment, and they have a giant party, where the girls are turned on by Nick because he’s a bartender and can mix drinks. Dirk also advises Winston that asking for space in a relationship, implies that they can have sex with other people. This scares Winston so he decides to take Schmidt’s car and head to Mexico. CeCe tries to seduce Schmidt by dressing up as a secretary, but he holds steady, until she offers to do whatever he wants. It turns out one of his fantasies is doing it in the back of his car, and before they know it, they are on their way to Mexico along with Winston, who has no idea they’re in the car. Jess and Russell have a second dinner date, but when she asks why they didn’t kiss on the first date, he gets a phone call and has to rush out, leaving her money for the bill and cab fare. She goes home to find the big party, and starts drinking as well. Russell later shows up the party, and asks to take her out for doughnuts, with Dirk, Nick, and the two girls in tow. Russell tells her that he really wanted to kiss her – and more – but he had to take his son his inhaler. He says that it has been so long since his last date, he forgets how to behave on a date, and when the right time is for kissing or lovemaking. Winston makes his way to Mexico, but then hears from Shelby that she had returned to see him and is currently at his apartment. Winston turns around, but when he crosses back into America, the border patrol agent (Doug Sinclair) finds CeCe and Schmidt in the back of the car. Schmidt makes Winston promise not to tell anyone. While his talking to her, Nick has left the car to pee, and is so drink, he can’t find it afterwards and thinks they have disappeared. Fernando Rivera is the valet attendant. 9/17/21
- 019. Secrets – 4/3/2012
- Jess is training for a marathon, and tires to get CeCe to train with her, but she shows up to pick her up, Cece and her roommates Nadia (Rebecca Ballantine Reid) and Masha (Sasha Neboga) conspire to hid Schmidt from her. Meanwhile, Nick has a one-night stand with a girl named Lindsey (Sophie Kargman) and has to resort to a coughing fit to get rid of her. Adding to Nick’s stress, Winston shares the fact that fact that Schmidt and CeCe are sleeping together. It only takes minutes before he folds and spits out the secret to Jess. She confronts them both and finds out that it’s true, which causes her to become really angry at CeCe. Nick sees another girl named Holly (Katrina Bowden) who proves to be overly jealous when anyone calls him. Nick finally resorts to asking Schmidt how he handles juggling women and lying to them. Schmidt begins tutoring him, while Jess keeps avoiding CeCe because she always counted on CeCe to share everything with her. Jess also finds out that her three roommates all think about her in their fantasies. She vows to wear her winter clothes always until she can get past it. Nick has more women trouble when Holly comes to get her scarf and finds another girl named Lena (Jessica Blair Herman) wearing it, leading to a girl fight in the apartment. CeCe admits that she’s lied to Jess about various things all of their lives. Winston breaks up all of the fights by going through a strange tirade involving black spirituals. At the marathon, Jess is still ignoring CeCe, but then realizes that Schmidt is wearing a shirt with her name on it and that CeCe let her wear it, meaning that CeCe really likes Nick. She deduces that CeCe hasn’t admitted that to herself yet, which is why she didn’t tell Jess. Nick runs into two girls named Willow (Brenda Koo) and Megan (Maitland McConnell), who he slept with and ended up being roommates. He is able to diffuse the situation with deception and lies. Jess and CeCe finish the race last, but the guys bribe the organizer (Bob Rumnock) to keep the finish line open. David Wain and Zandy Hartig are race participants. Rakefet Abergel is Schmidt’s fat ex-girlfriend Claire. 3/16/22
- 020. Normal – 4/10/2012
- Jess and Russell attend a political fundraiser for Harold Kirk for State Senator, and Russell invites Jess to go back to his place after the event. Jess says she needs to get home and check on the boys, who are sure to be missing her. However, they are busy at home playing True American, their made-up game. Meanwhile, Winston gets an interview to work with radio host Joe Napoli (Phil Hendrie) as a research assistant, which will mean he needs to stop babysitting Elvin. Jess wants to have Russell stay over at her place, so she asks the guys if they can attempt to behave around him. Nick sees one advantage to the situation: he can share his visionary ideas with Russell, including his latest, Real Apps, which makes turns a Smart Phone into something akin to a Swiss Army Knife. Winston goes through a strange interview with Joe Napoli’s interviewer (Rizwan Manji), and Joe himself. As soon as Winston sees that Kareem Abdul Jabber (himself) works for Joe, he accepts the job immediately, despite the fact that Joe seems quite rude. The night with Russell starts off awkward with the guys being rude to Russell, and a temperamental garbage disposal, but soon they start playing True American, a made-up combination of historical trivia, floor lava, and drinking. The guys all start to get along after they’re drunk that Jess starts to feel left out and goes to bed alone. Jess doesn’t feel like she can fight with him because she thinks Russell likes to be peaceful. The next morning Nick shows Russell his Real Apps creation, but Russell points out that the name sounds like ‘Relapse’. In the ensuing chaos Russell is stabbed in the hand by the device, completely ruining Jess’s planned day. Things get worse for Winston and he wants to quit, so Russell advises him to put his ‘beans’ into Joe’s milkshake on his way out. He goes over to tell Elvin’s mother that he can nanny again, but Elvin thinks Winston needs to move along in his career, so he tells his mother that Winston asked him if he can smoke weed, causing Gina to throw him out. Winston returns to the office and tries to stop Joe from drinking the milkshake, and then tells him why. Joe finds it hilarious and tells him that they need to try it on Kareem sometime. Jess goes to see Russell, and he says he only played the drinking games because she asked him to. She explains that this is part of her world, and her world is just as important as his. He says he is willing to try again and suggests that they go back to her house. She says she just got there, so they head inside to spend the day at his place. Joe tries to get Kareem to drink a milkshake, but when Kareen pushes it away, Joe drinks it himself. 3/16/22
- 021. Kids – 4/17/2012
- Cece is freaking out because she thinks she might be pregnant. She and Jess discuss it and decide not to tell Schmidt until they known for sure. However, Schmidt knows she is acting strange so he think she might want to start acting like a real girlfriend and going on dates, but when he invites her to go to the Italy on Ice, she tells him to take someone else. He pretends to call a girl named Nicole, but he really calls Nick. Meanwhile, Jess is asked to babysit Russell’s pre-teen daughter Sarah (Annalise Basso), who she picks up from her mother Ouli (Jeanne Tripplehorn), and who also happens to be one of her student. Jess has warned Nick to be on his best behavior and to not bring any of his young girlfriends over, which Nick takes issue with. He thinks his newest girlfriend Chloe (Chloe Bridges) is mature and intelligent so he insists on bring her over. Jess tries to get Sarah to open up to her as an older friend, so Sarah immediately hits her with a barrage of sex questions, as well as telling her that she is madly in love with Nick. In fact, it causes Sarah to lock herself in Nick’s room to roll around in his laundry. Cece faces a meltdown about her potential pregnancy while Jess is trying to help Sarah, and Schmidt overhears that she is pregnant. He takes it as a sign that it might be time to settle down and just be with Cece. He promises to support her no matter what she decides, and he can’t keep his hands off her nor stop talking about her possible pregnancy. Nick brings Chloe back to eat the homemade spaghetti lunch that Jess and Sarah prepared, but Sarah won’t stop staring daggers at Chloe. She tells them that Chloe used to ride her bus to school, which causes Chloe to reveal her age to be eighteen. Sarah think Nick knows about her crush, so she locks herself in Jess’s room and puts on all of her bras. Nick is disgusted with himself for dating someone so young. When Ouli arrives, Jess sends Schmidt down to try and stall her while they coax Sarah out of Jess’s room. Ouli finally gets through Max and goes upstairs, only to find Nick helping her get the bras up, and Cece rejoices because she finds out she’s not pregnant. Schmidt walks Cece to her car and rushes her into it before she sees the skywriting he hired which read: MARRY ME. Winston has an adventure trying to get his new boss Joe to the studio to appear on the television talk show On the Strahan Narrow. Joe seems to be doing everything possible to delay the drive there, and finally admits that the host makes him nervous. Winston is finally able to talk him down. William Ingo is the Asian card player chasing Joe out of his house. 7/18/22
- 022. Tomatoes – 4/24/2012
- Nick announces to everyone that he is giving up on women and plans to concentrate on raising tomatoes that he is growing on the roof. He also makes it very clear to Winston that he is completely fed-up hearing him talk about Shelby and their successful relationship, and then later admits it is because he misses them being miserable together. Jess runs into Russell’s ex-wife Ouli in the steam room and after giving her hug while Ouli is naked, she invites her to join her and Russell for dinner. The meeting quickly devolves into a fight between Russell and Ouli, which escalates quickly and reaches a fever pitch. Jess starts to question why there is never this kind of passion in their relationship and starts trying to anger Russell to get a reaction out of him. Russell won’t take the bait, so she goes home annoyed. Later she tells him that if she can’t have that kind of passion with him, even if it is more painful, she wants to break it off with him. Meanwhile, Cece tells Schmidt that she’s thinking of ending things with him after the pregnancy scare, so Schmidt immediately accepts a date witth her wild Russian roommate Nadia. Their date winds up strangely with Nadia telling him everything she likes in America, leads into sex, and winds up with Schmidt in the hospital. When Cece finds out he is in the hospital and Nadia doesn’t seem to care, Cece heads off to visit him. Schmidt tells Cece not to get him excited at all because he broke his penis inside Nadia. This angers Cece, and she admits that she likes him, even if she has trouble admitting it. He tells her that he likes her as well, but insists she leaves as she keeps getting him excited and causing him physical pain. Jess comes home and finds that Nick has his ex-girlfriend Caroline in his bedroom. She chastises and berates him loudly for making such terrible relationship decisions, and he dishes it back telling her that he wishes she would just be silent for once. Their argument devolves into them shaking their butts at each other, and her passionately stomping off. Winston plants some fully-grown tomatoes in Nick’s rooftop garden to trick him into thinking that he grew some, while he tries to talk about things that get Schmidt excited just to be cruel. Juana Samayoa is the waitress. 7/19/22
- 023. Backslide – 5/1/2012
- Jess is in the throes of her emotional pain after breaking it off with Russell, while Schmidt is still suffering the physical pain of his broken penis. Being around Cece is particularly hard because everything about her turns him on, in addition to almost everything else as well. Winston and Schmidt take Jess out for drinks and won’t give Jess her phone so she can’t backslide to Winston. They also consider showing Nick a video that he made when Caroline broke it off with him and broke his heart multiple times. Jess also approaches Nick and talks to him about ‘backsliding’, but Nick tells her that they were in different places when they used to date and now they are in a better place together. As Schmidt and Cece discuss what they can do together without Schmidt getting too excited, Jess sneaks her phone from him and calls someone and tells him she’s thinking about him and asks to get together. It turns out to be Paul Genzlinger, and they hook up and sleep together. The guys tell her that she is really backsliding. Meanwhile, Winston stays out all night with his boss and winds up getting his ear pierced, which everyone makes fun of repeatedly. Schmidt and Cece decide to go visit her grandmother Nana (Madhur Jaffrey). Nick and Caroline go looking for a new apartment for her, and she asks Nick to move in with her. Paul confesses to Jess that he has a girlfriend named Jenn Toyogi (Melissa Tang), which really upsets Jess and makes her feel like Monica Lewinsky. She feels so guilty that she wants to tell Jenn what she did, but Winston and Schmidt try to talk her out of it. When Schmidt meets another old couple named Burt (Jack Carter) and Marjorie (Angela McEwan) who have been together all of their lives. Cece and Schmidt confess to each other that they both want something that lasts and want it with each other. The emotional intimacy really turns Schmidt on, and it causes Schmidt to bellow out in pain. When Nick tells Winston and Schmidt that he’s planning to move in with Caroline, they force him to watch the video he made, begging himself not to get back with Caroline. Even after watching it, he still wants to move in with Caroline. Jess tells Paul that he needs to tell Jenn they slept together or says that she will do it. However, when she sees that he had bought her an engagement ring two weeks early and planned to propose, but he was so nervous and confused that he slept with Jess. She changes her mind about telling Jenn, but then Paul does it himself. Jenn and Paul break down in tears and Jenn is about to leave him, but Jess tells her how much Nick loves her, and then she asks her if she will marry Paul. Jess is excited when she says yes that she rushes home to tell Nick and the others. She also tells Nick that he wrong to run back to Caroline just because the time is right, and he should only be with her if he is crazy about her. Nick thanks Jess but tells her that she just signed the lease, and they are going to move in together. 11/12/22
- 024. See Ya – 5/8/2012
- Nick tries to talk to the others about his moving out of the loft and in with Caroline, but Jess can only talk about what a huge mistake he is making. The guys only seem interested in getting another roommate in place, so they interview a recent divorcee and weirdo named Neil (Thomas Lennon). Jess tries to scare him off by acting like she is strict and mean, but Schmidt and Winston approve him moving in. As Nick moves his things out of the apartment and into a moving truck, he takes a lamp from Winston, who has to admit that he is scared of the dark. Meanwhile, Schmidt goes to see Cece and tells her that the doctor (Timothy Brennan) put his penis in a cast. When Schmidt sees Cece posing for a photographer (Matt McVay) half naked with a model named Gino (Matthew Smith) atop a missile, he gets rather jealous. Nick finally gets packed up, and he and the guys head to his new apartment. When Nick reaches the destination, he keeps driving… 140 miles into the desert. When he gets there, he freaks out even further and throws his keys over a cliff. Schmidt calls Jess and they head out to help rescue them. When Jess hears that Nick wants to return to his new apartment with Caroline, Jess also throws her keys over the cliff. As Winston frets about it getting dark soon, they are all stranded in the desert. They all hang out and drink beer and listening to one of Nick’s old mixtapes into the night. When Schmidts reads a sultry text message on Cece’s phone from Gino, he starts to realize he will never be able to keep her happy. He decides to ‘White Fang’ her by setting her free and seeing if she comes back to him. Cece knows exactly what he is doing and asks why he is pushing her away. When he admits that he read her phone, she gets angry and sad that he doesn’t trust her. Nick decides to go looking for his keys so he can go home. Jess joins him, and the two of them run into a coyote. When Jeff realizes that a ‘meep meep’ ala the Roadrunner won’t work, she pretends to be a coyote herself and scares the coyote off. The next morning, Jess pulls her keys from her pocket and pretends she just found them. They drive back to town and drop off Nick at his new place. That night, Jess notices that the moving truck is back in front of their place, and Nick is in his room blasting You Shook Me All Night Long. Schmidt and Jess are excited and dance in their rooms, while Winston asks him to turn it down. 11/12/22
SEASON 2
- 025. Re-launch – 9/25/2012
- Jess is called in to see Principal Lamontagne and is told that she is being laid off. Meanwhile, Schmidt gets the cast off of his penis and plans to host a re-launch party with a theme of ‘danger’. He invites the girls he knows, including Cece. Jess comes home in shock and says she doesn’t want comforted by any of her roommates. Schmidt talks Nick into being the bartender at his party, but he refuses to make any of his fancy, fruity drinks, despite the fact that Winston is desperate for them. Jess asks if she can be a shot girl at the party, and Schmidt reluctantly agrees. Cece shows up at the party with a guy named Robby (Nelson Franklin), who seems nice, but has no discernible qualities that would put him in league with Cece. Jess is overshadowed by the more experienced shot girl Casey (Parker Posey), and drops and breaks a bottle of whiskey. Nick tries to be nice to her, but she demands that he be mean. He finally motivates her by yelling at her to be a better shot girl, and she finally gets up on the bar and dances. However, once she starts getting cheered, she becomes sad again since she knows she’s a teacher, and not a shot girl. She heads to her old school to cry outside of it. Schmidt tries to impress CeCe by bring out the fire at the party, and nearly hits Robby with once of his burning chains. Cece tells Schmidt that they would have never worked since they are so much alike but tells him that he will do alright. Winston buys all of the fruit for the drinks so that Nick will have to make him his fruity drinks. He spends the evening getting drunk and wild, singing Groove Is in the Heart. Nick goes to see Jess at the school, and she forces him to mean once again, which helps her feel better. Ross Mackenzie is the proctor in the flashback. Cicero Salmon III is the shot guy. 4/17/23
- 026. Katie – 9/25/2012
- Jess has been keeping busy cooking and creating felt art to keep busy following her layoff. Nick encourages her to spend some time doing whatever she wants and go off the grid. She decides to spend the morning and afternoon at Nick’s bar. Meanwhile, Winston’s mother Charmaine (Anna Maria Horsford) and sister Alisha (Keenyah Hill), a WNBA player, come for a visit. Charmaine can’t stand Schmidt, who is desperate to get a date with Alisha. Jess meets the beer delivery guys Andy (Josh Braaten) and Bearclaw (Josh Gad) and develops a crush on Andy. When she asks Nick to give him her number, Nick mistakenly gives it to Bearclaw. Jess also meets a guy named Sam Sweeney (David Walton), who is there to meet a girl named Katie who he met on Cupid Match. Another older customer named Nick (Raymond J. Barry), who claims to be Nick from the future. Nick doesn’t believe in him, but many of the things he says about Nick are uncannily correct. Jess likes Sam so much, so she pretends that she is Katie and she has him spend the night with her. She continues to be Katie and takes on the attributes that she finds out about the real Katie, including pretending that she is a dancer. Jess and Andy also begin exchanging sexy text, but when she arranges a date with him, she finds out that she’s actually been texting with the oddball Bearclaw. Jess calls Nick and tells her to come up with a way to get her out of the date. She also gets a text from Sam who want her to meet him the bar bathroom, so she feigns an illness and steals away to the bar. Schmidt infiltrates a dinner with Winston’s family and some of Alicia’s fellow basketball players. She tells Schmidt that she only dates basketball players. The old Nick tells young Nick to tell Jess that he’s sorry but won’t tell him what he did. As Jess and Sam are in the bathroom stall making out, Andy and Bearclaw come into the bathroom and catch them. She finally has to come clean with all of them and tells Bearclaw that she really like Andy, and she tells Sam that she’s really not Katie. Old Nick tells Young Nick that he has to go and to make Jess an Old Fashioned. He then gets into a cardboard box in the alley and puts on a foil hat. Jess tells Nick that she’s going back on the grill. Nick tells Jess that he might do something really bad to her in the future and he hopes she forgives her; he also makes her an Old Fashioned. Sam comes and tells Jess that he really doesn’t care that she lied to him, since much of his Cupid Match was mostly a lie too. He offers to have a physical relationship without having to be honest. Alicia agrees to play Schmidt in basketball and starts off by slamming him in the face with the ball. 4/18/23
- 027. Fluffer – 10/2/2012
- Jess enjoys have booty calls with Sam, but since they have nothing in common and have trouble easing into the sex without a date, Schmidt offers for all of them to go out together so she can feel like she has been on a date. Nick reluctantly agrees to go along, but Schmidt and Winston stand them up so they can try to meet Kanye West at a nightclub, since Schmidt has an obsession with becoming friends with him. When Schmidt catches Winston staring at other women in line, he notes that Winston is free to cheat on her in his mind, since he and Shelby haven’t had sex in weeks. Jess and Nick smuggle in their wine and eat very little since it is so expensive, before Jess finally leaves to go meet Sam. Schmidt and Winston finally get into the club by claiming to the doorman (Steve Turner) that Schmidt is one of Mitt Romney’s sons. Word gets around, and three girls, Megan (Taryn Southern), Courtney (Rebecca Delgado Smith), and April (Anish Adusumilli) become infatuated with him because of his supposed lineage. CeCe, who happens to be incredulous about the situation, while Winston merely pretends that he’s having sex with CeCe. Schmidt goes alternately by the names Tagg and Tug, but eventually the girls finally a Romney family portrait online and realize he is lying. When Nick agrees to go with Jess to Ikea to get a new dresser, Winston tells Nick that he’s basically in a relationship with Jess, but without the benefits. Nick is resistant to Winston’s accusation. but when Jess asks him to help her put together the dresser, he tells Jess that he feels like her ‘fluffer’ or boyfriend without the rewards. They each admit that they’ve each thought about sex with each other, but both realized that it would never work because they drive each other nuts, then launch into a tirade of complaints about each other. Nick is later angry at himself, but Winston encourages him to stick to his guns, and draw the lines between being a fluffer and a friend. Although he tells him unequivocally to not build the dresser, Nick can’t help himself and starts work on it. CeCe comforts Schmits, who has always wanted Mitt Romney to be his father. She holds him and encourages him to call his father. Winston admits to Shelby that he’s been cheating on her in his mind. She’s okay with it, and wants to watch TV with him. Jess tries to talk Nick out of building her dresser because she thinks being her fluffer is hurting him. He admits that they like being friends and are sometimes attractive to each other… but doesn’t want anyone telling him what they can and can’t do together. He says he wants to build her the dresser, but that she should have her dates with the guy she wants to have sex with. He gives her a mix tape to take the place of a fluffer, which Sam insists they shut off immediately after sex. Tarina Pouncy is the waitress. 8/31/23
- 028. Neighbors – 10/9/2012
- While the guys are encouraging Jess to look for a new job to move away from the Casserole Shanty, Jess is more interested in watching TV all day and perfecting her impression of 80’s sitcom stars. Meanwhile, a group of our twenty-somethings, Chaz (Charlie Saxton), Fife (Morgan Krantz), Sutton (Jinny Chung), and Brorie (Jasmine Di Angelo) move in next door and come over to introduce themselves and warn them that they are going to be having a party. Schmidt takes this as an invitation, although this is not what they mean. When Schmidt goes on and on about how he is the most successful and still the youngest in their apartment, Nick decides he needs some pranks pulled on them to make him question his age. They all four go to the party, but only Schmidt and Jess decide to stay. While it is obvious they cannot stand Schmidt, they all take to Jess and are impressed with her sitcom impressions, even though they think she made up the characters herself. Nick shaves an eighth of an inch off of each left heel of every set of shoes that Nick owns, causing him to wind up with an achy hip. Nick also pees in a pitcher and then puts it in Schmidt’s bed. Nick also makes his pants shorter. Winston wants to contribute, but his jokes are always either not enough or way overboard. Schmidt and Jess go over to visit the neighbors, but Jess warns him that the neighbors hate them. It becomes clear that they don’t want him there, so Schmidt pretends to get a phone call from work demanding that he report to work. Based on actuarial tables, Winston thinks he doesn’t have much longer to live, so he reports to work and demands to produce his own sports talk show… and gets it, even if it is the middle of the night. After more jokes from Nick, making Schmidt think he is getting constipated, he is sinking into chairs, and that his has shrunk, he feels he is too old to hang out with the neighbors. He decides to start dressing much younger and showing the neighbors how to do proper burpees. When Jess realizes that the neighbors can’t do their own laundry or their dishes, she admits that their friendships are based on lies and she shows them Family Matters on YouTube. Jess tells Schmidt that he went overboard, and that he needs to stop trying so hard. Schmidt says he’ll never stop trying and that Jess shouldn’t have stopped either. Jess says she didn’t quit and that she loved teaching, and that she liked hanging out with the neighbors because they are kids who never criticized her. The kids all her that they don’t care if she stole her catchphrases and that they liked her for herself. However, they tell Schmidt that his age had nothing to do with them not liking her, but that he was an ‘ass-head.’ Schmit is thrilled that it had nothing to do with his age. Nick admits to Jess that he spent over $1200 of money he didn’t have to pull the pranks on Schmidt, much to her annoyance. Jess winds up getting a tutoring job. Nick substitutes blurry contacts for Schmidt’s real ones and gives him a hunchback in his shirt. Winston attacks him with a ski. Stone Eisenmann is young Nick. Jordan Fuller is young Winston. 8/31/23
- 029. Models – 10/23/2012
- It’s Cece’s birthday, and Jess brings her a cake that she can’t eat because she’s booked a car show modeling job and doesn’t want to gain an ounce. Cece also tells Jess that she is going out with her model friends that night and pleads with Jess to come along. Meanwhile, Schmidt brings Nick home a cookie and tells him that he was thinking of him. Nick is astounded to find out that Schmidt thinks of him, when he claims that he never thinks of Schmidt. Jess gets ready for her night out, trying her best to keep up with the models. Jess feels that the best way to talk to models is to point to objects and name them. The models generally think that Jess looks like a monkey from a Russian cracker ad. Nick wants to buy a pet turtle, but Schmidt doesn’t support the idea, mostly because Nick says he never thinks of him. Jess tries to entertain the models at the bar by dancing like a monkey for them, but once they start chanting “monkey!”, Jess tells them that she doesn’t understand why Cece would want to spend her birthday with them, also stating that years of modeling have made her dumber. Cece overhears Jess’s comments, and the two get into a breast-slapping fight, causing Cece to ask Jess to leave her party. Winston takes Schmidt’s side and remembers that as a kid, Nick often ignored Winston as well. Schmidt starts to give Nick the silent treatment, and Schmidt begins crying. Jess comes home and asks Nick what is going on between them. Nick tells Jess how they first met when a fat Schmidt suddenly appears in Nick’s college dorm room eating dry ramen. He says it scares him how much Schmidt loves him since he always makes fun of Schmidt. Jess tells Nick that she thinks Cece could do so much better than being a model. She recalls being there when a model scout (Johanna Parker) discovered that young Cece (Ariela Barer) could be a model. Nick wonders if they met some of their friends now if they’d still become friends. Jess goes to see Cece and help her with her horrible hangover. Cece insists that she has to model at the car show, but when they arrive, Cece looks so hungover that the guy in charge (Jason Antoon) threatens to report her to the modeling agency. Jess offers to go on in her place, but quickly finds out what a difficult job it is, mostly because she can barely walk in her high-heeled shoes and gets stuck on the rotating platform. After locking herself in the car and then falling out of it, Jess tells Cece what a hard job modeling is and that she is brave to do it. Nick brings Schmidt a rigged-up Jewish Star cookie. Schmidt thinks the cookie is terrible but is touched that Nick is moved to tears by the rejection. Nick agrees not to get the turtle, since Schmidt is the only turtle that he wants. Cece comes over and eats some of the cake that Jess made for her. Jess asks Cece if she thinks they would be friends if they met today. Cece doesn’t know, but says they are friends now. James Michael Connor is the car announcer Gary. Robert Reinis is the car account executive. Agnes Olech is the model Olya. Greice Santo is the model Maria. Britni Stanwood is the foreign model. Jesus Solorio is the fake Wilmer Valderrama. 12/25/23
- 030. Halloween – 10/30/2012
- Nick is going to be visited by a girl named Amelia (Maria Thayer), on whom he had a massive crush on during their college years. Unfortunately, although he made it painfully obvious, he never told her how he felt about her, and consequently nothing ever happened between them. Now, she is coming into town for her job and is going to crash at their place. Meanwhile, Jess is working at a haunted house at a Halloween festival and plans to see her friend-with-benefit Sam after her shift. She makes a point of reiterating to everyone including Sam how they aren’t in a relationship. However, the more she sees him in his work as a pediatric doctor and how good he is with the kids, she starts to start to fall deeper and deeper for him. Winston and Shelby agree to dress sexy for Halloween, which they hope will lead to sex. Schmidt is jealous because Cece is dating a new guy named Robby and hopes to divert her attention from him by dressing up as young Abraham Lincoln at the carnival. Amelia starts to finally fall for Nick but kisses him over-zealously after they go to bed together. Now that they’re together, Nick starts to have second thoughts about her. Jess invites Sam to come to the Haunted House, but he says he doesn’t wear costumes. She decides it will be a test of how much he likes her if he shows up in a costume. Winston shows up at the carnival as a police officer, nearly getting beaten by a real cop (Ryan Christiansen) in the process, while Shelby shows up as royalty covered in stuffed animals – ‘reigning cats and dogs’. Schmidt shows up and tries to undermine Cece’s relationship with Robby, who is dressed up as a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle. One patron (Kenzie Dalton) thinks that Schmidt and Cece are dressed up as a bride and groom. Robby tells Schmidt that he can make fun of him and hit on Cece all day long but he’s not going anywhere. Schmidt tries several times to head butt him, but Robby says he telegraphs the move and blocks him every time. Sam shows up at the carnival without a costume but puts on a clown nose to make her happy. While Jess works a Zombie in the haunted house, she confides in the Frankenstein monster (Nate Hartley) and the Mummy (Lora Plattner) that she is going to tell Sam she wants to take things to the next level. However, Nick sees that Sam is texting another girl with whom he has a ‘weekend thing’. Nick has to force him to go int)o the haunted house, of which he is scared to death, to warn Jess. He winds up getting scared of many of the monsters in there, including Jess, whom he reactively punches in the mouth. All of the monsters come to her defense and beat Nick to a pulp. Schmidt and Robby start to become friends, and Schmidt tells Cece that he wants to hang out with her more… with Robby there. A demon nurse (Zoe Hall) in the haunted house draws attention to Winston and Shelby’s awkwardness, prompting them to agree that their relationship just isn’t working. Sam comes to Jess’s aid after being punched, and she picks this time to tell him how she feels about him and asks him out on a real date. He turns her down and tells her that he still doesn’t want a real relationship. Nick talks to Amelia and tells her that he is still scared of her after all of these years. She recalls that this is why they never went out all those years earlier. He admits that he fell in love with her the first time he saw her, even though it was just the idea of her since he really different know her. When he questions the way she kisses, she slaps him and tells him that she is a person, not an idea. Schmidt takes off his clothes and gives his costume to Robby so that he will match. He begins walking around in his underwear, posing as Matthew McConaughey. As they are leaving the festival, Winston sees Shelby with a girl (Hesley Harps) in a ‘coat of arms’ costume. Schmidt notes that he has seen the emancipation of one black man from a terrible relationship. Back home, Nick tells Jess that she deserves someone who really cares about her, then she takes the opportunity he offers for her to punch him in the face. Evan Kishiyama is the child patient Ben. 12/25/23
- 031. Menzies – 11/13/2012
- With Jess out of work, she is unable to contribute to the household bills. Schmidt threatens to turn off the gas in the apartment until she can pay for it. She counters their jeering of her by telling them that she is having PMS, although they see it as a weak excuse for her to be moody. When Nick is called out for being moody every day of his life, he storms out and tries to sit alone in the park. However, an Asian man named Tran (Ralph Ahn), who seemingly can speak no English, helps calm Nick down by just listening. Nick returns to the apartment refreshed, only to find that the gas has been turned off and Winston thinks that he is suffering from sympathy PMS. This enrages Nick once again, who returns to Tran. Meanwhile, Schmidt has a new boss at work named Emma (Carla Gugino), who hits on him and tells him that she wants to have some sado-masochistic sex but wants him to sign a waiver first. As he tells this to Cece and Robby, Cece becomes distraught when Robby says that she’s a nice girl. She goes to talk to Schmidt about this, and he verifies that she is indeed a ‘bad’ girl. The two start to kiss, but Cece stops and realizes that she doesn’t want to hurt Robby, indeed making her a nice girl after all. Jess goes on a job interview to teach an adult class on creative writing, but as the interviewer Marion (Molly Cheek) tells her about her little dog that has died, Jess can’t help but cry during the entire interview. Tran takes Nick to a private pool where he teaches him water yoga while cradling Nick like a baby and a flute player (Jacqueline Suzuki) provides ambient music. When Nick sees that Jess is depressed, he takes her and tries to introduce her to the water massage. Although he is inept at it, he gives her a pep talk to get back on the horse and try again. She returns to the same school and meets with another interviewer (Dalila Ali Rajah) and winds up getting the job. Schmidt signs the waiver and adds a few stipulations of his own, but then finds that this is Emma’s first go-around with this type of foreplay. In celebration of Jess’s new job, Schmidt has the water turned back on. Winston admits that his PMS is actually a side of effect of missing Shelby. Nick and Jess take his for a water massage, with again unsatisfactory results. 5/3/24
- 032. Parents – 11/20/2012
- For Thanksgiving, Jess plans to have two meals, one for her mother Joan (Jamie Lee Curtis) and one for her father Bob (Rob Reiner). However, when her father shows up early, they agree that they will be able to get along for Jess’s sake during the holiday. Cece recognizes what Jess is doing, as she has been trying to “Parent Trap” them ever since she was a girl. Meanwhile, Schmidt’s cousin Big Schmidt (Rob Riggle) is coming over for the holiday as well. Ever since they were kids, big Schmidt (Michael Chey) and the young Schmidt (Matthew Jacob Wayne) were in competition with each other, but Schmidt claims that his cousin has changed since he got married to a wonderful woman named Krista. However, when Big Schmidt arrives, he reveals that he and Krista have separated. It seems the competition between them has started again, so they decide to have an ultimate competition to determine the one true Schmidt. Joan and Bob start arguing and seemingly can’t stop, so Jess decides to have Cece give Joan a makeover so that she will attract Bob. She enlists Nick to first keep Bob busy while they make Joan over, and then to make passes at Joan in order to make Bob jealous. He does a good job at both, but then he starts to become attracted to Joan for real. When Jess tries to put a stop to it, she and Nick accidentally spray Bob with a turkey baster. Joan takes him into the bathroom to clean him up and they wind up making out, which is seen by Jess and the others. After the two Schmidts seem to be neck and neck with the physical contests, they then move on to who can cook better, so they each prepare fancy plates for their Thanksgiving meals. Cece tells them that the real test is for them to be confident in their manhood by kissing another man. They both agree that they will kiss Winston after dinner. During the meal, Jess tells everyone how thankful she is for their family, but her parents tell her that they merely used each while kissing, and that they will never get back together. Jess gets upset and dumps the turkey in the sink and goes off to her room to sulk. Winston is finally the only one left at the table to enjoy his meal when the Schmidts decide to make their moves. Schmidt can’t go through with it, but big Schmidt lands a big kiss on Winston, much to his consternation. Joan goes in to talk to Jess, who admits that she will follow their example and wind up on her own. Joan tells her that this will never happen, but if it did, she and her mother could get a condo in Miami and start solving crimes together. Schmidt concedes that his cousin is the one true Schmidt, while big Schmidt can only lament missing his wife. They both refer to each other as ‘Schmidt’. Joan finally gets Cece to admit that she drove and scratched her van, but Cece only confesses that she drove it because Jess was high. As Joan and Bob head out to go home, they start making out again on the elevator. 5/3/24
- 033. Eggs – 11/27/2012
- Jess and the guys host a dinner for Jess’s lesbian friends Sadie and Melissa (Kay Cannon). When Sadie, a gynecologist, announces that she is pregnant, it leads to a discussion about how women often lose 90% of their eggs by the time they reach the age of 30. This sound alarm bells for Jess, who is now 32. Meanwhile, Schmidt and his boss Emma have sex in the other room within earshot of everyone at the dinner. Privately, Emma tells Schmidt that she ultimately left unsatisfied, which crushes Schmidt’s self-confidence. Jess makes an appointment to have her fertility checked with Sadie, while Schmidt wants sexual advice from her as both a lesbian and gynecologist. Cece agrees to go along with Jess and take the test as well. When Nick sees how happy Winston is on the job at The Joe Napoli Show, he decides to finally move forward with his dream of writing his zombie novel. He decides to try and become more like Ernest Hemingway in order to get inspired to write. The next day, he wakes up Winston, who is on his adjusted sleep schedule because of his radio job and takes him to the zoo to drink and get inspired. Schmidt meets with Sadie in her office and describes his performance when he has sex, using bizarre hyperbolic terms, which somehow turns Sadie on. She tells him that he is definitely a “vagenius” but asks him to leave because her hormones are getting the better of her. Sadie then meets with Jess and Cece and tells Jess that she has a tremendously high level of hormones for her age. As Jess is celebrating, she tells Cece that they should talk in private. She has a low count and should immediately start trying to get pregnant if she ever wants to have a child. Jess tries to cheer her up and suggests that they be ‘guys’ for the day, so the meet Nick and Winston at the zoo. Schmidt tries again with Emma, but she still isn’t satisfied. Nick says that after the words he got from Sadie that the problem must be with Emma. She notes that it a problem with them as a couple, and Schmidt realizes that he enjoyed sex so much more with CeCe, and it was because he must have loved her. Schmidt and Emma declare their sex contract null and void. Winston tells Nick that he is not getting life experiences to motivate him but is rather procrastinating starting his novel. CeCe meets up with Robby, who tells her that he would like to have kids one day, like maybe in ten years. Jess says she has a lot of eggs but doesn’t have any sausage. In an all-night writing fury, Nick writes his zombie novel Z Is for Zombie and forces Winston to wake up and read it. Winston reads it and declares it the worst thing he ever read. He notes that Nick put a word search within the text and that he spelled ‘rhythm’ wrong 38 times. Nevertheless, they all beg Winston to read it out loud to them. 9/17/24
- 034. Bathtub – 12/4/2012
- Jess proposes installing a bathtub in the apartment, but she is vetoed by all three of the guys. Meanwhile, Emma asks Schmidt if he wants to pitch the Double V vodka with vitamins for Associated Strategies, and he jumps at the chance. She tells him to put on his best suit and present his proposal in her office the next day. Nick has his eye on a girl named Angie (Olivia Munn) at the bar who he only knows the name ‘Thirsty’, because he refuses to ‘cross the bar’ where he always seems to get into bad situations. Winston privately tells Jess that he is willing to help her pay for and install a bathtub as long as the other guys don’t know that he helps. They plan to put it on the roof and then sneak it into the bathroom in the middle of the night. Schmidt finds out that CeCe has dumped Robby as he has failed to even comment on her desire to have kids. Schmidt jumps at the chance to try and win her back, especially that there is now a real threat of her mother setting her up with a bunch of boring Indian guys. Winston and Jess get the tub onto the roof and fill it with water to test it, but when the legs on the tub collapse, it breaks a hole into the ceiling and spills water all over Schmidt’s suit. They decide to pretend that they were robbed so that he can file a claim with their renter’s insurance. However, they both start to panic when they find out that he has a camera in his room to identify the thieves. Winston has a case of the ‘willies’, like he once did when he was a teenager (Jeremiah Langston Barrow) and got nervous in the presence of his driving instructor (Paul McKinney). These ‘willies’ cause him to strip to his underwear and curl up in his own little world. When Nick sees ‘Thirsty’ get into a fight with her boyfriend Mike (Craig Gellis), he decides to cross the bar and introduce himself to her. They wind up drinking together and he takes her back to her place. Schmidt rehearses what he wants to say to CeCe and then shows up at her place with a box containing a pigeon and tells her how much he loves her. She agrees to give him a chance if he is really serious and invites him to meet her that night for dinner. Mike shows up at the bar and attempts to attack Nick, but Angie hits him over the head with a napkin holder. Nick then helps her take him to the place where she strips so that the bouncer Steve (Peter Navy Tuiasosopo) can stitch him up. Angie then gets into a fist fight with Steve’s wife Tiffany (Alicia Sixtos), and Nick has to try and break them up, all while wondering why he ever crossed the bar. Schmidt shows up for his meeting with Emma, who forces him to try multiple shots of the Double V, which causes him to get drunk and show up late for CeCe’s. She is disgusted by him coming late drunk after having been with Emma. She calls her mother and asks her to start setting her up with some Indian men. Jess tries to make Winston feel less foolish about getting the Willies by telling him how claustrophobic she is and locking herself in the closet to prove it. When the closet door gets stuck, they have to get the maintenance man Remy down to let her out. He thinks they are trying to ask him to have a threesome with them. Jess and Winston decide to have all of Schmidt’s suits dry cleaned, and then they tie themselves up and tell him that the robber brought back his suits whe he gets home. Schmidts is clearly devastated by blowing it with CeCe, so Winston and Jess inexplicably untie themselves to comfort him. After wondering how they go out from their shackles, Schmidt begins practicing in the mirror what he will say to CeCe to win her back. Angie comes into the bar to flirt with Nick, but he tells her about his rule of crossing the bar. She tells him that she has no rules, so she crosses the bar to make out with him on his side. Porscha Coleman is Blade, the dancer on stage. 9/18/24
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