Winston Wins My Heart By Cutting Down A Child

New Girl, S01E14

 Well, it's finally happened--I found an episode where I liked Winston.  For once, he wasn't just an afterthought on this show, offering a few almost funny lines from time to time and boring stories.   I thought it was a fluke the first time he got me to chuckle, but he was pretty consistently hilarious this time.

Before I get into Winston, I want to talk about Schmidt and Cece continuing seeing each other.  I was surprised that Cece is addicted to Schmidt, despite he is pretty repulsive.  The sex is obviously good between them, but when he was comparing himself to a river and her being a canoe, I wanted to gag a little.  Yet, somehow it failed to send her packing.  I wanted to feel bad for Schmidt, but his mouth wouldn't stop making me cheer for Cece to run far away.  I did feel a little for him when he had to stay in her car while she went to a party, but it soon went away.  I guess in the next episode they will announce their relationship to their friends.  As long as Schmidt doesn't run up the wall and give them way too much information about the nature of their sex as he did in the Chinese restaurant, he might have a chance to get approval, rather than incredulous protest, from the others.

Now onto Winston.  He had me grinning when he said he liked meeting the girls Schmidt brought home by pretending to be his downlo lover.  Oh, God, how I would like to see that!  But I was really laughing when he and Nick were talking about the meaning of the cactus Julia had sent to him.  Nick, obviously a person who over-analyzes things, thinks that the plants means that Julia wants to break up with him:

[Winston] Who told you that? Did the cactus tell you that? Is this one of those fortune-telling cactus?

Later, after Jess describes a bully problem in her class, Winston says that he used to be a bully as a kid.  Not a stretch at all.  He seems like that type, with his lack of emotions and need to compete with others.  Obviously he has grown as a person, but he still has that mean vibe about him.  That being said, I was pretty shocked in an amused way to see Winston leap out of his seat in order to look at the crescent moon outside.  While Jess questions why they are so excited about seeing it, Winston longingly looks into the sky and says that he hopes to live there one day.  Wow.  Where did that comes from?  It's the first time I've thought he was kinda cute besides the one time he bonded with a child at Schmidt's Christmas party.

Winston was also good as the support for both Jess and Nick in this episode.  Jess had broken a bitchy, evil student's robot arm after the little brat asked her several rude questions including why Jess' voice was so deep and why did she break up with her last boyfriend.  She needed Winston's help to fix it and all he brought were his "good scissors."  Ha.  With Nick, Julia did end up breaking up with him (finally--knew they wouldn't last, especially after Valentine's Day) because Nick's voicemails made her realize that was what she really wanted.  So Nick was in a very, very fragile state and needed a friend by his side.  Schmidt was too busy sneaking around with Cece, so Winston had to do.  Nick was so scary, it was hilarious.  He was way too cheerful and uncharacteristically positive that you knew he was going to explode with despair and possibly rage that no one wanted to be on the other side of.

This forced Winston to come to Jess' science fair at her school along with Nick.  It's interesting that two guys who definitely weren't there to see their own children were allowed to walk around, as crazy as they were being (Nick anyway).  The best thing that happens there is that Winston steps in to say what Jess can't say about how "difficult" the bratty student, Brianna, is:

[Winston] Your daughter sucks.  She is a demon seed, she is the spawn of Satan, and I do believe I speak for the entire human race when I say that people like her should not be building robots.

[Brianna's Mother #2] Who are you?

Applause!  I can't believe Jess didn't give him five for that.  Who cares about being professional; that girl is horrible!  She's obviously smart, so why does she need to act like an asshole?  Anyway, this is one of my favorite moments in New Girl so far.  It's right up there with the awkward threesome with Remy.

The last good thing Winston did in this episode was snatch his "good scissors" (what are they doing laying around for children to get??) from Nathaniel:

 Eh! Get my scissors outta your mouth! What is wrong with you??

No wonder the kids in class didn't like him.  I was happy that this boy, though, seemed to be free from being the class target, and Jess had become the point of ridicule.  I didn't care much for the youtube video Brianna had made of her, but I loved that Jess got further revenge on Brianna by making her sing with her in front of the class.  That'll teach her!  I hope that girl doesn't pop up in any more episodes, even though I want to see more of Jess at her job.  I feel like someone as child-like as her would have some interesting adventures with her students.

Oh, and Nick walking around with the cactus plant he had abused in his dazed-out, happy mode was wonderful.  He was even sleeping with it.  I kinda want him to keep that mangled plant for while.

Great episode.  The Valentine's Day one set my expectations low this time, so it was nice to be blown away for a change.  I knew this show couldn't disappoint me for too long!