'New Girl' Season 1, Episode 21 Recap - 'Kids'

I'm beginning to see a problem with delaying the inevitable Nick/Jess romance: while the characters around them grow and change, they're stuck in a bit of a stasis.

We know, for example, that Jess won't be with guest star Dermot Mulroney forever. We know that she won't be with any of the guest stars that she dates forever. So we automatically lean toward not caring whether things work out with Jess babysitting his daughter Sarah.

It's a pretty fun ride anyway, as Jess tries desperately to be entertaining and supportive, only to find that Sarah is more interested in her bras and in Nick, whom she is immediately in love with. The moment when Sarah's mother walks in to find Nick unhooking a mess of bras from Sarah's back while Cece yells about her period is exactly the kind of weird awkwardness we crave from this show.

But it's still much more interesting to watch Schmidt and Cece, who are making bigger strides as characters and whose relationship hits a big new milestone here. Cece fears she might be pregnant, and in the horror of imagining what a Schmidt baby might be like, decides not to tell Schmidt just yet. He finds out, though, and of course makes the situation considerably more unbearable.

Even without that knowledge, Schmidt still made a step: he asked Cece out on a date. The supposed pregnancy lead to even more of that, as Schmidt gives her a surprisingly touching speech about supporting her no matter what. By the end of the episode, we see that Schmidt was even ready to propose (by sky writing, of course), but Cece's 180 turn when she finds out she's not pregnant makes him back down.

So while Schmidt and Cece are making these strides, Nick and Jess keep making the same mistakes: Jess is too eager to please, Nick is still a man-child (and now dates 18 year olds, apparently). And poor Winston still gets crappy storylines: this week he has his own adventure in babysitting as he wrangles his boss, who is intimidated by Michael Strahan, back to the office for an interview. It's as weird as it sounds.

Still, as long as the jokes remain at the level they've been for the last few episodes, everything will be just fine. Bonus points this week for Nick's riffing about Italy On Ice.

Notes & Quotes:

- "Everything you say sounds creepy when you're not wearing pants."

- "There's a bit of a poopyish hue."

- Nick and Schmidt's entire phone conversation is amazing.

- Schmidt's Jewish names

- "She doesn't even know what Netscape is."