New Girl - Episode 1.02 - Kryptonite - Review

Wow, Jess even does her signature pose when she's throwing a tantrum. I can just hear her "It's Jess!" singing, but in a more dreary tone, right there.

We're two episodes down and Fox has already ordered eleven additional episodes of New Girl. It's no surprise since the show is one of the biggest hits of the new season — and the most watched Fox comedy in nearly ten years. But I still think they should have waited a week to see how Damon Wayans Jr.'s exit from the show would fit with viewers.

I don't know how ten million other people felt about Winston's entrance into the show, but I know how this viewer felt: not too well.

Coach, Wayan's character, yelled all too much, yes, but at least he seemed redeeming. Winston is just self-serving, all-important, and veering into annoying (in a very different way than Coach) territory if they keep him this way. The guy hasn't lived there in two years (also, why are these thirtysomethings living together?), he decides to come back and feels like he should run the place again. We've already had characters established in episode one — so this supposed old friend is really the "new girl" in a sense, and he's not doing anything to make us like him.

Instead, he's mocking the characters we've come to like already. Making faces at Jess is something only Schmidt, Coach, and Nick can do. Trying to trick Schmidt into giving him the bigger room is obnoxious, not at all funny, and the fact that Nick would go along with it makes no sense. Why wouldn't he try to get the big room for himself?

And why would Schmidt fall for his manipulation? He's not stupid. He's just a douche. Hence, the Douchebag Jar. It was so far from believable I found myself rolling my eyes when Winston got his way in the end. That's when I realized I only laughed about twice the entire half hour. Once was when Spencer's hair was blowing in slow motion in the wind; the second was when Jess yelled after throwing the pot on the front lawn.

And what follows is a carbon copy from the pilot: all the guys banding together to show that they like Jess. (Or as Schmidt would put it: they've got her back, brah.) In the pilot, they all sang "Time Of My Life." In this episode, they all put on hats. Maybe next they'll all join a tap dance flash mob or some such nonsense.

New Girl still has its Deschanel charm, and I found myself smiling and enjoying most of the episode, but the new guy is throwing a wrench into the dynamic I think mostly worked in the pilot. I won't completely know how I like New Girl + New Guy until episode three. But until then, my hopes are lukewarm at best.

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More of my reviews: NoWhiteNoise.com | @MichaelCollado