'New Girl' Season 1, Episode 6 Recap - 'Thanksgiving'

Ah, the Thanksgiving episode. Every sitcom has to have one, even one as quirky as "New Girl." Can we use a word other than quirky for this show? How about "strangely awesome?" And no, I refuse to use "adorkable."

But dorky and cute were in abundance in "Thanksgiving," as Jess decided to invite her co-worker and crush Paul (guest star Justin Long) to her impromptu dinner with the guys that had as of that point not been discussed. That's met with hesitance from the guys, who would much rather just watch football and then go to Best Buy for Black Friday (or, as Winston calls it, Friday).

When Paul shows up, his behavior is so close to Jess' that Nick gasps in horror: "Oh my god, there's two of them." Sure enough, Long puts up a great performance in this episode, matching the mostly-in-parentheses awkwardness that makes this show the joy that it is every week.

That's all bad news for fans of Jess and Nick, though, as Jess is into this guy "big time," and Paul is nice enough to stick around through every disaster, which includes Nick being less than pleasant, the turkey catching fire in the dryer (it needed to thaw), and Paul discovering the dead body of the elderly next door neighbor Mrs. Beverly, just a month after his grandma died.

Thus it seems that last week's episode was in place to tell us that the whole Jess and Nick thing isn't happening yet. But of course we all knew that, since this is only episode six. Where would "The Office" be if Jim and Pam got together that early on? Not in its 20th season or whatever it's in now, I tell you that.

It seems like "New Girl" is really finding its footing, despite last week's fairly rocky episode (it was funny, just a bit disjointed and poorly edited). The best thing is that all of the characters, even Cece, are starting to fill out a little more and become more and more entertaining each week. Max Greenfield as Schmidt has a killer line almost every episode now.

That's a wonderful thing, because television is starved for good comedy these days and could be even more so soon with "Community" on the bubble. We can't be left with "Two and a Half Men" and "Whitney," people. We just can't.

Other notes and awesome stuff:

-Hanksgiving. Ha!

-Hey, the douchebag jar made another appearance! I thought they had forgotten about it. Bonus points.

-"You beautiful savage."

-"The mighty Lions of Des Moines!"

-"It's like a Prince video!"

-Almost, Schmidt. Almost.

-Double bonus points for everything having to do with Jess' rambling speech about wanting to have sex with Paul, and the "gimme that hat."