New Girl - "The Last Wedding"

 

It's no secret that New Girl had a bit of a rough third season. While I would argue the season was never as bad as some of its worst critics claimed it was, it was certainly a messy comedown from the sky-high achievements of the shows' excellent second season, one of the strongest seasons of network comedy in recent years. While many sitcoms begin to falter after they become too comfortable in their own skin and stop taking the risks that made them stand out in the first place, New Girl actually had the opposite problem last year - it changed the status quo so much that it wound up losing sight of its core. It spent so much time trying to figure out Jess/Nick and Schmidt/CeCe/Elizabeth and the re-addition of Coach and how to better utilize Winston that it never managed to figure out any of it. There were some undeniable high points in the third season, from series highlight episodes like "Menus" and "Basketball" to big, well-calculated moments like the Super Bowl episode and the Jess/Nick break-up, but much of the season seemed to be frantically trying to figure itself out, only to throw up its hands and give up towards the end.

So "The Last Wedding" feels like something of a relaunch, a clean slate that brings all of the loft members more or less back to the place we met them in Season 1 and lets them loose on their way. This is a tricky decision. As I stated before, many sitcoms eventually lose their way because they stop attempting to progress their characters and become content with keeping them as stock types, never growing or changing or learning. And while parts of Season 3 are better left forgotten, these characters have made some real emotional progress in these past three years, and forgetting all of that would be a huge mistake. But this decision winds up working incredibly well - or at least, it does for now, as "The Last Wedding" is a hell of a season premiere. It's an always fun, often hilarious, and overall sweet and entertaining half-hour that reminded me why I loved this show and while I still consider it to be one of the increasingly few current network comedies that's capable of achieving greatness. If the rest of the season plays out like this episode, then what's going to work about this "back to basis" approach is that it won't involve New Girl ignoring the emotional weight that make these characters stand out in the first place. "The Last Wedding" is a simple episode, sure, but it's still an episode that feels rooted in three seasons of well-earned character development. When we see Jess and Nick sitting together in a bathroom stall, it has a poignancy that's different than what it was in...say, "Wedding", way back in early Season 1. This is the Jess and Nick that's been through "Fluffer" and "Cooler" and "Virgins" and "All In" and "Mars Landing", and seeing them continue to connect even through all of that is what makes this premiere have that extra layer that separates a good comedy from a great one, a show that's capable of an episode like "Dance" and a show that's capable of an episode like "Parking Spot". It's still unclear if New Girl can reach heights like the latter episode again, but "The Last Wedding" is certainly a big, promising step.