‘New Girl’ season 2, episode 15 review: Nick and Jess [spoiler] in a classic

Over the past few weeks, we have at times been rather critical of “New Girl” being over-the-top this spring, and stretching the characters a little too far from where they originally were. Take Nick, for example: a man who is crazy, but is far more entertaining when he comes across as normal at first.

Well, this Nick Miller was back this week, and what we had in total was the funniest episode of television produced not just of this year, but the entire 2012-13 season thus far. This was not only “New Girl” at its finest, but a classic half-hour that we could see being the equivalent of “Casino Night” from “The Office” season 2, the infamous turkey episode of “WKRP in Cincinnati,” or even a certain clown tragedy from “The Mary Tyler Moore Show.” There was so much that happened over the course of thirty minutes, but all of it culminated with Nick kissing Jess in the middle of the night, and while her boyfriend was in the other room.

Basically, Nick, Winston, and Schmidt all decided to bring some women back to the place following a night out, and this included one lady who in particular fed off of the sadness of men. Nick seemingly had the title of “saddest human being ever” in the bag until Jess, who was staying at home paranoid that someone was trying to break into the loft, ruined everything and brought some fun into his life with True American. This was a perfect time to bring the game back, so it led to Nick and Jess being locked up until they found a way to kiss each other.

There were so many brilliant little moments that emerged out of this sequence, from Schmidt convincing Cece to cast her own date aside in order to convince “sad woman” that he was perfect prey for her to a hilarious “Homeland” reference to Winston figuring out that he is very good at forming bonds with woman when he thinks that they are already in another relationship first. The writing was also great here in that nearly everyone in the house led to Nick ultimately kissing Jess in the end, as they forced them to stay locked up for so long that Jake Johnson (who played this scene brilliantly) said that he didn’t want his first kiss with Jess to be “like this.” (Then, he tried to jump off of the roof.)

While we don’t know where exactly Nick and Jess go from here following the actual kiss, we’ll be more than interested to find out. We’re just glad that the big moment occurred in this gem of an episode, and one that we could see ourselves buying on iTunes and watching a million times over.

What did you think of the big moment this week? If you want to watch a clip from this episode, you can do so here.

Photo: Fox