Zooey Deschanel is perhaps the most ‘marmite’ actress of the moment. Some find her ‘Manic Pixie Dream Girl’ shtick wonderful and want to ride off with her into the eternal sunset over fields of roses and daffodils on bedazzled horses that smell of Lenor. Others want to run as far away as possible when a ukulele appears for fear they might be “treated” to an indie twee rendition of The Wire theme tune (cause that’s what the kids today do, right?)
Herein lay the problem with the first season of New Girl, it pushed Deschanel’s character Jess to the forefront while keeping the supporting cast far out on the periphery as simply characters she interacts with as opposed to primary characters in their own right. This is often a problem when creating an ensemble comedy, even more so when the character focused on is one that could polarise an audience. I’m somewhere on the fence about Deschanel; she does what she does well but it can get grating in large doses. What annoyed me more about most of the first season of New Girl was its squandering of an excellent supporting cast.
But something happened over the Christmas break. It seems as though Elizabeth Merriwether and her staff of writers realised that they were holding on to some real comic gems in Max Greenfield, Lamorne Morris, and Jake Johnson and suddenly they began to flourish. Things weren’t so focused on Deschanel as the show started to pair up the likes of loveable douche Schmidt and the try-hard Winston leading to a fantastic end to a shaky series.
Now that New Girl is back for a second season, this streak continues and shows no sign of dwindling. As Jess loses her job as a teacher, she’s thrown into an unemployed limbo. As she goes about her own thing trying to find a job while trying to find love, Schmidt is distraught to find Cece dating another man while Nick just goes around being Nick (meeting a version of himself from the future, consoling in a silent man in the park and dating numerous girls he meets in his bar). This is also a great season for guest stars, particularly in regards to parents. Jamie Lee Curtis and Rob Reiner are wonderful as Jess’s parents and Nelson Franklin is perfect foil for Schmidt as Cece’s new boyfriend.
If there’s one problem with this season is that Winston stays very much in the background until the return of everyone’s favourite nonsensical drinking game “True American” when he begins to get decent separate storylines.
The rest of the season really is something to look forward to, with a “will they, won’t they” story arc that might just be the true successor to Cheers’ Sam and Diane (sorry Ross and Rachel) and the discovery that Schmidt and Winston are the greatest comedy pairing the show has made so far. Never has my show on an opinion fluctuated so much from apathy to pure adoration, but I’m just glad it has!
