'New Girl' Season 2, Episode 21: 'First Date' Recap

Winston struts in and grabs the communal charger. The gang confronts him. The boys tackle him.

Schmidt chases him out and Nick and Jess laugh; they do it for fun. They wonder what they should do without Schmidt in the room-definitely not make out.

Nick puts his hand on her boob.

“So you’re an upper boob guy.”

Jess asks what is going on with them. Nick says they’re roommates who make out and are attracted to each other, but sometimes genuinely hate each other. He tries both hands—little bit better, little bit worse.

Jess later demonstrates and asks CeCe if it was a sexual act.

Nick talks to the silent old man in the park about the sexual tension.

“It’s like the wild west… whiskey for a nickel, whores caked in mud…”

Nick tells Tran that his father just died. Nick wants to do things—grown up things. He asks what Tran would do with Jess.

Nick decides Tran is telling him to take Jess on a date.

Nick goes home and knocks on Jess’ door. She answers in a towel. He tries to suavely ask her on a date but it fails miserably. She figures out he is trying to ask him for food later, and goes to get dressed.

Nick asks Schmidt for a favor regarding his clothes for his date. Schmidt dresses him. Winston grooms him, and lets him take his nice car. Nick claims that the girl is named Yolanda Winston, and runs off.

They realize he’s taking Jess out. They get upset—Nick is their glue. Flashback to college—when Nick leaves, Schmidt and Winston have nothing to say to one another. They decide to sabotage it.

Nick shows up at the restaurant. Jess is standing at the hot dog stand next to it, having assumed that was the address they were meeting at. An officer stops and writes Nick up for jay walking. Nick controls his temper.

In the restaurant he holds her chair for her and orders champagne. Jess asks, straight out, if it is a date. Nick panics and says no.

Schmidt and Winston debate plans for how to ruin the date. They think Nick would know best what to do—they call him. Nick ignores it. Jess looks at the menu, and she says, if it were a date…

Nick, however, sees Russell across the restaurant with a blonde. He comes over to say hello.

“So this is why ya dumped me!”

He says he is glad to see it finally happening and leaves.

Jess asks Nick if they can just start over and get a drink. They leave the restaurant to go to a bar and drink as friends. The officer stops, and they run back inside.

Schmidt  asks Winston what the worst thing he has ever experienced on a date was—Winston remembers a homeless man who approaches the table and sings to them.

They go to a homeless man named Outside Dave and ask him if he’ll take off his shirt and sing “Father Figure.” They offer TV time and a sandwich and bring him inside—he begins to trash the house and then locks himself in a room.

Jess and Nick drink, and she teases him for grabbing her boob. He tells her she’s putting it out there and being ridiculously hot. She tells him he has to stop gargling his beer then. She asks if he wants to get dinner.

“Like a date?”

Jess nods. They high five for going on a date and go outside—the officer hits his siren. They go back in and try to kick Russell out of the table they gave him.

They’re drunk. Russell says goodbye and tells them they’re “really something.”

They get upset at the comment. They race outside and yell at him.

“This may come as a shock—but I have no opinion about you two.”

They argue and he finally says they don’t seem to know what they are to each other. Russell tells them to write down what it is. They both consider.

The homeless man won’t emerge from the bathroom, and Schmidt has returned the phone charger to there. Neither one has battery. They decide Nick will know what to do, but Schmidt runs to the roof.

Nick and Jess write down their answers and hand it to Russell. He admits it wasn’t a good idea, and now they want to know what the other said. They decide to say it at the same time but don’t. Jess decides to do middle school rules, but Nick puts his hand on her boob again.

“They’ve got a great squish to them. I couldn’t stop thinking about them.”

Schmidt gets to the skylight and begins to drop into the bathroom. Winston hears girly screaming. He breaks in, and finds Schmidt hanging from the ceiling while the homeless man shaves his leg.

“It’s shorts season! Everyone’s gonna want to dance with you!”

Schmidt tells Winston to catch him and drops before Winston can. He tells Winston he saves his life. The two bond.

Nick is in the kitchen eating chips, and Jess comes in for a snack… she tries to open the jar but can’t, and decides rather than entire him she’s not hungry. Nick open the jar. Nick gargle his beer and walks her to her room.