New Girl - "Fired Up"
Now that the trilogy of Abby Day has concluded, New Girl is back to basics, and "Fired Up" feels like a very basic episode of New Girl. Not in a bad way. But in its third season, New Girl spends much of its time posing some complex questions about its characters that it doesn't always feel like the simple hang-out sitcom it started out as. This is, perhaps, why the show has sort of fallen out of flavor with a lot of people (as its ratings would reflect), but I think I've made it clear how much I appreciate the work that New Girl puts into digging into its characters. It isn't always completely successful - I didn't really think the Sister three-parter worked as the examination of Jess the show wanted it to be - but the fact that it is willing to examine its characters so closely gives it some depth that isn't necessarily needed for a hang-out sitcom to work.
Fired Up, though, felt like an episode the show could've done back in Season 1, when it was mostly just a fun show with occasional glimmers of depth. It was light, simple, and funny. It centered around two clear, basic plotlines that had plenty of gags and were well-executed overall. It didn't get too deep with its character work, but it was rooted in the heart of these characters enough to have some impact. And it re-discovered the surprisingly successful comic pairing of Jess and Coach, which worked so well in "Basketball" (one of the shows' all-time funniest episodes) and continues to work well here. I haven't always felt New Girl is using Damon Wayans Jr. to his full potential (certainly not as well as Happy Endings did - miss you every day), but pairing him with Zooey Deschanel seems to be a really great match. I think it's because they're both high-energy performers, and they tend to bring out the craziest in each other. I don't know that I could tolerate an entire show about just Jess and Coach, but when they're given a plotline together, it's seemingly guaranteed to be golden.
The truth is that New Girl could be a show this simple every week and still be good. It might even be more consistent, because the shows' soul-searching has led it to some questionable territory this season. In my opinion, it would be a far less interesting show. But it's still nice for a sitcom to sit down and relax every so often, especially one like New Girl, which has had a lot to prove this season. And if it's going to give us scenes like Nick Miller forgetting how to ride a bike, or Winston Furgason, then hey, I'm not complaining.
* * * * (4 stars out of 5)
Brooklyn Nine-Nine - "Fancy Brugdom"
I like nearly everything about Brooklyn Nine-Nine at this point, but if there is one quibble I consistently have with this show, it's the plotting. I don't expect every sitcom to have intricate, story-circle plotting like Community or anything, but I find that Brooklyn too often relies on overly-familiar beats to tell its stories, to the point where I can almost pinpoint everything that's going to happen. It also is incredibly reliant on the typical A/B/C plot format, which is sometimes a necessity but is always one of my least favorite ways for an ensemble sitcom to function. Obviously, a show with a cast as large as this one cannot always have everyone in the same story, but if you're going to to split everyone up into 3 different plots, I would prefer that the characters still interact with each other at some point, or at the very least, that the plots have some sort of thematic connections. Telling 3 completely separate stories is a way to ensure that none of the stories will have the time to make the impact they're intended to.
"Fancy Brugdom" didn't suffer too much from this problem, actually. There are 3 different plots at play here, true, but they all seem to be about these characters being honest with themselves and trying to use that honesty to better themselves, which has subtly been the shows' thesis all season. Honestly, I don't think Brooklyn is *all* that interested in character development, but it's interested enough that it's clearly pushing its characters to some sort of season endgame, and "Fancy Brugdom" was a nice step in that direction. Rosa learning to apologize is simplistic, but it's earned because we've been moving towards Rosa learning how to deal with people all season. Terry struggling to stay on a diet that he's on to help out of his wife is sweet and consistent with his character. Boyle being pushed to be honest with his wife is a nice push for his character. None of this is world-beating stuff, but it's just enough that we get a sense that we're supposed to care about these peoples' growth, and we do. Of these three, the one the show wants us to care about the most is Boyle, who is forced to be honest with his wife-to-be for the first time, otherwise he could risk losing everything he has in Brooklyn. And I thought most of this was quite well-executed. Using Jake as a catalyst for Boyle to be honest with himself was especially great, because it allowed a more mature side of Jake to shine through, a side of his character that's more than welcome. (I criticized Jake a lot in my earlier reviews of this show, but I think the show has been increasingly discovering how to use him properly. I don't think he'll ever be my favorite sitcom lead, but he's turning into a pretty good character).
The only part of "Fancy Brugdom" that really left me cold was the ending, which completely cuts away from the moment where Boyle faces his fiance and tells her the truth and instead hastily informs us that it went okay but there's "more to talk about". I'm assuming this plotline will be back next week, but it feels like a cop-out to spend the entire episode building up to a big character moment for Boyle and then to not show it. In the end, that's my biggest problem with Brooklyn Nine-Nine's plotting - it often feels too scared to hit on the really interesting points about its characters, and instead goes for easier and more conventional endings. The reason why I thought last week's "Tactical Village" was the shows' best thus far is it gave us a sort of ambiguous, melancholy ending where none of the characters really got what they want. That sort of risk is what separates a good show from a great one. Brooklyn Nine-Nine is currently a very good show that is very close to being great, and I'm hoping it'll take that leap soon.
* * * * (4 stars out of 5)
RANDOM NOTE: Okay, I didn't know where to put this in the review, but I was impressed by a lot of the jokes and the editing in this episode. A lot of the jokes were fairly dark for a light-hearted network sitcom (Boyle/Jake's suicide pact and Santiago hoping Scully would die), and there were some very creative editing choices, particularly when Santiago dropped her almond on the floor. I like that the show is starting to take some risks in those departments.
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