New Girl and the Art of Romcom Writing: Part 3 (False Leads)
Added 2025-02-07 21:15:02 +0000 UTCSo. Last week we discussed how New Girl’s Jessica Day and Nick Miller (as well as Schmidt and Cece) try and ultimately fail to make it work during season 3. Thus, going into season 4, the entirety of the core cast is single, as demonstrated in the opener ‘The Last Wedding.’ All five of the loft-mates (Coach is back full time this season- we’ll circle back to him next week) are looking to hookup and by the end of it absolutely none of them have succeeded AND we find out that Cece is single again as well. But hey, at least they have each other, as the very heartwarming end of the episode demonstrates with them taking down a summer’s worth of wedding invitations from their fridge (remember this- it will be important later).
So, how does season 4 of this romcom work with none of the core couples being together? Well, it actually does something incredibly clever by way of a common genre trope known as the Romantic False Lead. This is exactly what it sounds like: a temporary love interest introduced with the explicit purpose of being wrong for the person they get with in order to help said person realize they actually belong with their One True Love. In general, New Girl does this trope exceptionally well, and season 4 is something of an extended case study. Jess, Nick, and Schmidt each spend the season with someone who, on the surface, seems perfect for them, but in actuality is fundamentally wrong for them because they reflect and, in some cases enable, each of the leads’ respective primary flaws. Remember, this is the midpoint of the show: by now, all of them have been through three seasons of character development and are right on the precipice of entering the next stages in their lives. Getting with someone who is bad for them can cause them to regress into earlier, less mature, less functional versions of themselves. And once again, due to the longform format of the show, we get to actually see the consequences of that play out.
We’ll start with Schmidt because his is the most straightforward. Early on, we’re introduced to Councilwoman Fawn Moscato (Zoe Lister-Jones). Described by Jess as ‘a shark’, she a ruthless, ambitious, charismatic, devastatingly hot career politician who wants to turn Schmidt into her arm-candy. At first, Schmidt (the dumbest boy in the whole school district) has no objections to this whatsoever, and by this point, it’s hard not to root for him. As much of a heel as he spends season 3 being, by season 4 he’s eaten quite a bit of humble pie. He’s still an obnoxious dickhead much of the time, but he balances it out with more moments in which his sibling-like affection for Jess and ambiguously romantic affection for Nick cause him to just be nice and helpful instead. And he and Cece have actually gotten to a place where they can be friends. He still has a tenuous grasp of boundaries (and simple words), but his copping to the fact that he ruined his chances with Cece and that all he can do now is support her as she figures out what she wants to do with her life post-modelling is really endearing. He wants to be a better man. However, Fawn does not want him to be a better man.
Councilwoman Moscato is… Not completely without likeable qualities: there a few moments in which she shows a softer side, demonstrates that on some level she does have real feelings for Schmidt; but on the whole, she sees him as a means to an end. While I wouldn’t call her abusive, I would call her toxic. Shye constantly steamrolls Schmidt in conversations, prioritizes her sleezy politicking over him, tries to get him to downplay his goofy sense of humor and proud Judaism for the sake of optics, is openly dismissive of his found family, and in general appeals to his greed and vanity in a way that other women in his life don’t. She’s the allure of money and status and sex squeezed into a tight skirt-suit and reinforced by years of training in how to work people to get what she wants out of them. Season 1 or 2 Schmidt would’ve had no problem with any of this. But this is season 4 Schmidt. He’s lost the woman he loves, put himself in hot water with his best friends on multiple occasions, faced massive financial setbacks, finally stood up to his overbearing mother, and in general taken a good long look in the mirror and concluded that he has to be better. Arguably, the fact that he spends as much time as he does going along with Fawn’s bullshit is proof that he’s become better: he’s finally the type of guy who’s willing to put his partner first, who’s willing to take a hit for someone he loves. Trouble is, Fawn doesn’t deserve that.
By the final stretch of the season, in which Fawn, after suffering a humiliating public scandal that is ENTIRELY her own fault, throws Schmidt under the bus in a very public, very anti-Semitic way, and then doubles down by promising Schmidt a future as the husband to the mayor of Los Angeles. Finally, FINALLY, Schmidt realizes he deserves better. He wants to be in love, and he’s become a man who’s worthy of it. He has the option to regress back into a shallow, vain, weak-willed manchild, but he chooses to be more. But as far as he knows, Cece isn’t interested in him… Or is she?
Yeah, it turns out that seeing Schmidt saddled with a girl who’s fundamentally bad for him, combined with seeing how much he’s grown the hell up, reignites the fires of Cece’s love for Schmidt. She spends the majority of the season pining from afar, with first Winston and then Jess finding out and helping her through it until FINALLY, she and Schmidt are both single and aware of each other’s feelings and… Well…
I really need to emphasize how much I never, ever thought I would squee over these two, but… SQUEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!
It’s brilliantly executed romantic storytelling, told piecemeal over a tight twenty-two episode arc that shows two lonely people orbiting around each other and trying to avoid what they feel for one another until finally they realize they don’t need to deny it anymore. They’re ready for happily ever after. And it is so freaking cute!
So, that’s these two, but what about Nick and Jess? Well, that’s complicated, because they both wind up with two prominent False Leads apiece over the next three seasons (I don’t count Jess’ brief relationship with perennial fan-favorite and resident cosmic chew-toy Robbie in season 6- even putting aside the very good reason they broke up, he was never a serious love interest for Jess because she’d already realized she was still in love with Nick by this point, and also they can’t be near each other without Jess accidentally injuring him). But, for now, let’s focus on season 4.
Nick winds up dating Kai (Greta Lee), granddaughter of his very old, very wise park-bench buddy Tran. On the surface, she’s Nick’s perfect female counterpart: slothful, gluttonous, straightforward, and sarcastic. While Winston initially mistakes her for a homeless woman, in actuality she’s independently wealthy and only has to work a few days every month. The rest of the time, she wants to do nothing, and she wants Nick to do nothing with her. Which at first, he’s completely okay with. In many ways, this is his dream relationship. Kai is even willing to pay him to not go into work so they can lay on the couch together. However, Schmidt, of all people, successfully calls Nick out on how his laziness has gotten worse and worse over the years, prompting the two of them to go into business together and, ultimately, buy a share of the bar where Nick works. And after an episode spent with Kai trying to get Nick to stop working and be lazy, only for him to rebuff her, she breaks up with him. For being too ambitious.
And yes, the other characters immediately lampshade the irony of this.
Kai is honestly a fairly likeable character: adorably unkempt, believably flawed, and possessing of strong comedic timing. She also legitimately makes an effort to get along with Nick’s friends (attending Winston’s police academy graduation with the group, assisting Nick in his quest to force Schmidt to take a day off- that kind of thing), which is arguably the biggest point in her favor. But she doesn’t want the person Nick is becoming; she wants the person he used to be. However, it’s in this breakup we see something very important: Jess loves the person Nick is becoming. She’s proud of him for what he’s doing, for taking charge of his life. No matter what, she wants him to be happy, and she’s tired of him hating himself so damn much.
Jess, meanwhile, gets into a torturous stop-and-go relationship with a guy who circumstances keep telling her she can’t have, which of course makes her want him even more. His name is Ryan (Julian Morris), and he is hilariously perfect. He’s impossibly kindhearted and warm and supportive, unspeakably handsome, stupidly rich, and has a dreamy RP English accent. He’s the epitome of ‘too good to be true,’ and he appeals to Jess’ pretension and whimsy and hopeless romanticism to a dangerous degree. He’s a dream-boy who wants to sweep Jess off her feet and move way too quickly, something Jess knows from experience is a bad idea.
Plus, there are external factors: at first, Jess can’t have him because he works at the school where she’s the vice principal and it’s inappropriate; and then it’s because the other teachers don’t approve; and then it’s because Ryan needs to find a new job; and then it’s because he’s moved back to England for his dream job and is absolutely terrible at long-distance relationships (I’m talking SPECTACULARLY BAD at them). And if we hadn’t spent an entire season with Ryan ignoring Jess’ desires in favor of his own coupled with Jess ignoring her own desires in favor of Ryan’s, disregarding her instincts in favor of trying to cling to a dream-boyfriend seemingly straight off of an early 2010s Tumblr blog, I wouldn’t believe it… But we did. And I do. He seems too good to be true because he is. After spending the episode ‘Oregon’ crying over Ryan’s inability to do long-distance, Jess finally breaks it off, and it is painful to watch but also clearly necessary for her growth and happiness.
By the end of the season, Jess and Nick are both single again, while Coach moves out to be with his girlfriend May (Megan Rath (once again, we will get to these two next week)), Schmidt and Cece are engaged, and Winston is Winston. But we get a very telling hint: Jess left out a mug that she and Nick used to use as a signal for when they wanted to fool around, and when Winston points it out, Nick covers for her. This leads to a beautiful moment in which Nick reveals that yes, he does still think about Jess, as well as a sequence in the closing montage of the episode in which both Nick and Jess go to get the mug, only to find it missing (Winston gave it to his cat).
It’s an incredibly poignant scene, in which two lovers narrowly miss a chance to reunite while another pair celebrate the fact that they’re finally together for good, ending with a fantastic callback of a note being put on the fridge: “Cece and Schmidt. Save the date.” It’s beautiful.
So, you would think that this would lead to Jess and Nick slowly rediscovering their feelings for one another while their respective best friends get married, right? You would think Jess and Nick get back together at the wedding as a callback to how they first decided to commit at Cece’s failed wedding in season 2, right? That would make perfect sense, follows the romcom logic the show adheres to pretty well while still leaving time for the show to explore what the new and improved Jess and Nick would look like together, right?
Well, that’s not what happens (though unlike last time, the writing quality remains strong).
Okay so, sometimes real-life circumstances force a story to change from what it might have otherwise been. This is never truer than it is with television, in which you have an entire room of writers balancing the creative impulses of an entire cast as a diverse and dedicated crew works to bring their vision to life, all while soulless studio executives try to keep them on time, under budget, and coloring within the proverbial lines. And sometimes, the actress playing your title character becomes pregnant, and there’s no plausible way to work that into the story. And this is what happened with Zooey Deschanel going into season 5. She’s even visibly showing during the early sections of it. They find a plausible if slightly convoluted reason for her to be absent for about a third of the season (Jess gets jury duty on a high-profile celebrity trial and is sequestered for the duration of it) while Deschanel was on maternity leave. Trouble is, this leaves New Girl without a new girl. Granted, Cece does officially move in around this time, but while she’s new to the loft and this does open the door to explore her dynamics with Nick and Winston in ways the show had never really gotten to before (seriously, Winston and Cece are one of the best-executed, completely platonic male/female friendship in the history of television, aided by the fact that Lamorne Morris and Hannah Simone apparently get along famously IRL), she’s not actually new to the group. And just in general, only having one woman in the regular cast for a number of episodes leads to the show feeling like a bit too much of a sausage fest. So, New Girl needs a newer girl.
Enter Reagan.
At the beginning of the episode where she’s introduced, Nick talks about how he wants ‘magic’ in a relationship. He wants the lights to dim and the music to swell and for him to not be able to focus on anything except the woman of his dreams standing there in front of him. And after meeting the cool, aloof, snarky Reagan Lucas (Megan Fox, who it turns out is extremely funny)… Well, this happens:
Reagan temporarily moves in, and she and Nick bicker like two teenagers trying to deny their attraction to each other for a few episodes before they come within inches of hooking up… Right when Jess shows returns.
It’s awkward. But not nearly as awkward as Jess getting back together with Sam, the hot doctor she fumbled in season 2 (I told you he’d be back). Yes, that’s right. Strap in. Time for some more False Leads.
If Ryan and Kai represented the ideas of Jess and Nick regressing on their hard-earned character growth, Regan and Sam represent the idea of trying to force a relationship with someone who’s just fundamentally incompatible. Even putting aside the less-than-ideal circumstances in which Jess and Sam get back together (seriously, mere words don’t do justice to the sheer level of insanity achieved by the sequence of events in question), Sam doesn’t really respect Jess all that much and doesn’t really fit into her life in any meaningful way.
And perhaps most tellingly, Sam does not get along with Jess’ friends. Like the song goes, ‘if you wanna be my lover, you gotta get with my friends.’ Having dated people who did not get along with my friends- one who tried and failed, and another who didn’t even put in the fucking effort- I can say from personal experience that it’s kind of a red flag. Especially when those friends are people you live with, people who are as close to you as your blood family, people who you would bend over backwards to help. Sam… Well, he doesn’t really interact with Schmidt all that much, but his most notable scene with Cece (you know, Jess’ bestie since she was ten, her sister in all but blood) is a demonstration of how the two have no idea what to do with each other and are just painfully awkward when forced to talk. Meanwhile, he and Nick spend an entire episode screeching at each other and thumping their chests like cavemen (for admittedly understandable reasons, but they still take it way too far) until Jess forces them to not fight when she’s around (which is freaking hilarious- once again, Jessica Day is an insane person). And Winston… Well, to Sam’s credit, he does like Winston (because how could you not), but Winston doesn’t like him. It’s a lot of red flags.
And that’s why it’s deeply unsurprising when Sam breaks up with Jess in the penultimate episode of season 5 (ironically, after an episode spent with Jess panicking over the idea that he might be proposing to her). And when she asks him why he concluded they could never work, he only has this to say:
BRUH.
And for a bright, shining moment, it looks like Jess might just go for it. She’s just on the cusp of asking Nick for a dance at the wedding… When Reagan re-enters the picture. And Jess does something she will spend the majority of season six doing: pushing Reagan and Nick together.
It’s well-intentioned. And neither of them are really objecting to it at first. But you can see the exact moment where Jess, sweet, adorable, charming, self-sacrificing Jess, gets her heart ripped in half. And then it happens again and again and AGAIN. I don’t know why New Girl has two cases of a girl realizing she’s still in love with a guy partially because of how much it hurts seeing him with someone else, but dammit if it’s not effective. Jess basically serves as a de facto relationship councilor for Nick and Reagan in practically every episode that focuses on them as a couple, to the point where Jess realizes she’s not just acting like Nick’s girlfriend, she’s acting like BOTH of their girlfriends1. And time and time again, we are shown that Jess understands Nick, and Reagan does not. Jess accepts and works with Nick’s idiosyncrasies, while Reagan wants to fix him. Jess knows what to say to make Nick feel better, and Reagan needs to be told by Jess what to say to make Nick feel better. Jess wants to be emotionally intimate with Nick as well as physically intimate, while Reagan is all physical all the time. And when Jess acknowledges all this, she runs away. And when Nick realizes Jess was the only thing keeping his and Reagan’s relationship alive, he also runs away, then tries to get Reagan to run away, only to finally, FINALLY, FINALLY get cornered by her and end the relationship. They both realize it’s essentially a mercy-kill, leading to a clean break. They care about each other, yes, but they’re not right for each other.
And, with one episode left in season 6, both Jess and Nick single but afraid to talk to each other, things begin to look grim as Jess decides it’s better if she just moves out. But Schmidt, having completed his ascension into God’s Perfect Himbo, comes in clutch:
As the episode comes to a close, as Jess is leaving and Nick goes to find her, finally, mercifully, they cut the bullshit and just go for it:
After three seasons of near-misses and not-quites, after False Lead after False Lead after False Lead, our two beautiful crazies finally make it back to each other, embracing and kissing like there’s no tomorrow, and it is PERFECT. Fun fact: when I first watched this scene, I squeed so hard I literally broke a rocking chair. Not hyperbole: my bouncing up and down and rocking back and forth while I squealed wound up breaking the axis of it. And every time I watch this scene, even now, it never fails to put the biggest, goofiest smile possible on my face. It’s just SO GOOD. Because sometimes, you don’t wind up with the person who’s wrong for you. Sometimes the False Lead is just that: false. Sometimes, true love wins out.
And God, it’s fucking beautiful.
Next week, we’ll close this out by talking about how the show handles happily ever after, but for now, let’s just live in this moment. This beautiful, beautiful moment where ships sail and love blossoms as a new tomorrow dawns.
Happy viewing, y’all.
1 in a perfect world, this would lead to a golden polycule ending, but while Reagan is canonically bisexual, Jess is tragically straight
