'New Girl' Season 1, Episode 9 Recap - 'The 23rd'

Who says "New Girl" can't be sad? Sure, Jess is "adorkable" (not a fan of that term) but she can be down, too! And this episode proved it.

It all starts with Jess trying to figure out what to give to Paul for Christmas (well, really it all starts with the guys roller skating, but that's not important). Eventually she settles on an anatomically correct plush heart, while Paul gets her plane tickets to Vienna. Dude makes a lot of money for an LA teacher, I guess.

That's when it happens: Paul is so overtaken by the quirkiness of Jess' gift that he hugs her and says "I love you," to which Jess responds, "Thank you." Ouch.

In fact, love is just generally not in the air as Schmidt visits Cece at one of her shoots to hand her a present: some custom perfume he made for her. However, he finds himself staring down (or, rather, being stared down by) Cece's new boyfriend.

At the party, things go from bad to worse. Schmidt finds himself unable to stand up for himself when he is relegated, yet again, to "Sexy Santa" duties. Nick makes the major mistake of talking to Paul about Jess and lets slip that she doesn't love him before they have a chance to talk. Even worse, Nick gets caught out on the balcony with them as they discuss their relationship.

Jake Johnson (Nick) was putting on a pretty serious display of hilarious tonight, especially in his attempts to backtrack from his snafus with Paul. Nice stuff.

But not all is lost: Schmidt sticks up for himself, Cece breaks up with her boyfriend and has yet another moment of realizing Schmidt isn't all that bad, and Winston manages to impress Schmidt's boss and lands a job babysitting her odd son (the kid from "Bridesmaids," who is hilarious) for a ton of money.

Things never look up for Jess, though, and it looks as though this is how Justin Long's arc on this show ends. But Nick manages to cheer her up by taking her to the street with all the Christmas lights and yelling at everyone to turn the lights back on in a surprisingly touching scene. Bet you didn't think "New Girl" would make you tear up a bit, eh? Maybe it was just Zooey Deschanel's background version of "I'll Be Home For Christmas."

Notes & Quotes:

-"I had roller skating lessons until I was 13 and my mom sobered up and realized I was a boy. Let's do this."

-"Judaism, son!"

-"I'm gonna cash this in and get some nerdy weird sex" ...aww, he still likes her.

-"Thank you LeBron!"

-"Cinco de Sexy" and "Sexy Martin Luther King Jr."