'New Girl' Season 1, Episode 18 Recap - 'Fancyman, Part 2'

"New Girl" has seemed a tale of two shows in this first season. Some episodes, like last week's "Fancyman, Part 1," are packed with great jokes, believable storylines and motivated character actions. Others, like this week's "Fancyman, Part 2," seem like they're a whole different show, eliciting few laughs and taking a much more lowbrow approach.

The story is this: Jess and Russell are starting to date, but things aren't going so well. Russell gives Jess a pat on the back after their first date, and bolts out of the second one, and Jess can't quite figure out why. That leads her back to the apartment, where Nick and his college buddy Dirk (guest star Martin Starr) are throwing a party with a bunch of undergrads.

As Jess and Nick both act like college kids, Russell shows up and reveals to Jess that he was just nervous and wasn't sure when to make the first move, since he hasn't dated since 1989. Fair enough.

Meanwhile, Winston and Schmidt have relationship problems of their own. Schmidt is being pressured by Cece to have sex when he needs to work, so she finally lures him in by offering "fantasy location #3," which is apparently the back of Schmidt's van. Considering this is Schmidt, I was expecting something much more exotic and/or exciting.

Winston tells Shelby it'll be "good to have some space" when she's about to leave for a bachelorette party in Mexico, which causes her to immediately flip out on him. Later, he decides he doesn't want space, and starts driving down to Mexico with Schmidt and Cece still in the back.

A drive through customs ends up revealing Schmidt and Cece to Winston, who is now unsure that anything in the world is true if something like this can happen.

It's not that this wasn't a well-structured episode or anything, but the characters seemed to lose who they really are and just become line machines, as they sometimes do when the wrong writer is in charge. Cece's increasing desperation for sex with Schmidt and Schmidt's increasing disinterest is tough to believe, as is Shelby's sudden outburst at Winston despite how well things have been going (and generally how dumb Winston is... doesn't she know?). Nick has completely lost himself here, and while Martin Starr is hilarious, dumping a character as broad as Dirk on us with all this other stuff happening is a bit too much to handle.

Bonus points for Winston singing the "Wicked" soundtrack in the car, though.

Notes & Quotes:

- "Harold, Kumar."

- Why is the cast of "The Social Network" in our apartment?"

- "They don't know what 'Saved By the Bell' is and they've never felt pain!"