' ' Cinema Romantico: New Girl: Bells

Wednesday, November 30, 2011

New Girl: Bells

"What do you mean? I make bells fun."

The latest episode of "New Girl" centers around the mercurial Zooey Deschanel's Jess bringing a few students over to her loft in lieu of detention to form a not-so-super group of bell players. Yes, bell players. This inevitably leads to Winston (Lamorne Morris), still trying to land a job of any kind after the failure of his professional basketball career in Latvia, discovering he is - gasp! - a naturally born bell player which naturally leads to many "Eye of the Tiger" references. Meanwhile the other two roommates Nick and Schmidt wage figurative war over......uh......well......I forget. I confess I had my mind on something else. Namely, the way Jess behaved around her students, which is to say not all that unlike the way she acts around her male roommates - wild hand gestures, ridiculous accents, every now and then bursting into song.


Have you seen the 2002 French film "He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not"? In it Audrey Tatou plays an art student who is desperately in love with a married man who, as she explains to her friends, plans to leave his wife and take up a new relationship with Tatou's character. Except midway through the film it rewinds back to the beginning and we see the same story told from the married man's perspective and realize that, in short, Tatou's character is a rabid stalker.

I propose an episode of "New Girl" in which we see a day in the life of Jess at school from her viewpoint - twee and adorkable, her spontaneous accents and songs delighting the children, so on and so forth - and then see the same day from the viewpoint of her students to whom she comes across as weird and annoying, her spontaneous accents and songs being laughed at behind her back.

Hmmmmmmm......I don't know. That sounds more like an episode of "Community." Speaking of "Community", how 'bout a Jeff Winger speech to bring us home?


"Look, 'New Girl', I've been watching you for over two months now. Friends tell me I should abandon you, other friends tell me I'm being too analytical and not giving you a fair chance. What they don't understand is our situation has gone beyond that. I made a promise to you, 'New Girl', a promise to watch every episode of your first season and blog about it and, so help me God, that's what I'm going to do. This is Christmas, and Christmas is not a time to renege on your commitments. If you promise your son you're getting him the biggest, baddest action figure on the market, then you're getting your son the biggest, baddest action figure on the market, even if you have to pepper spray an innocent Wal Mart Greeter to do it. If you promise to feature real life sheep in the town live nativity, then you're featuring real life sheep in the town live nativity even if you have to steal a few of them from the local petting zoo. And I'm not reneging on my commitment to you, 'New Girl.' But I might I ask of you just one thing: that you don't give us a Christmas episode featuring an end where all your main characters put aside their differences, gather around the Christmas tree and ponder the 'true' meaning of Christmas. Because that's the 'true' meaning of Christmas. Getting what you want."

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Least favourite episode so far. Losing interest .. must become better soon or will stop watching.

Nick Prigge said...

Yeah, it was so.....average. Everything was yawningly predictable. I think that's why my mind was wandering.

Anonymous said...

I hope they bring back Justin Long, he had a great dynamic.

Are they showing these episodes in order? I just feel like, somehow the episodes feel disconnected and that dynamics that were established in the previous one had dissolved.. I mean are they or aren't they trying to make this love connection between Nick and new girl happen? Not even all the characters are in all the episodes. I feel that when you're already an established comedy ensemble you can do seperate episodes that don't relate to anything but if you're just starting out people need to see the same characters every week, not the same actors in random situations.

Enjoyed the bells though.

Nick Prigge said...

You're totally right. At least so far they're all just stand-alone episodes. It would certainly seem like Justin Long should be back. I mean, they completely set it up. Who knows? It's kind of like the douchebag jar in the first episode. One mention and then never heard from again.

It's nice to finally see this supposed teacher interacting with her students. I'll give it that.