Everybody Hates Schmidt

New Girl, S02E04

Jess began to hang out with some kids that had just moved in, but didn't seem to like Schmidt because he was too old.  Winston worried about not having very long left to live.  Nick became obsessed with pranking Schmidt, especially in making him feel like he was getting older by the second.

It's funny what manages to ruffle Winston's feathers, and this time it was Schmidt's actuarial.  I mean, he really took that thing to heart, despite he thought at first it told him he should have died about 4 years ago.  Of the 3 guys, I would guess that Winston would live the longest because Nick both fails to take care of himself and is prone to stupid decisions, while Schmidt just seems like someone who would end up being stabbed or shot one day.  Still, I guess Winston freaking out about his life running short did inspire him to not so very eloquently demand that he be given a promotion at work.  Although he has his own show, it's at a graveyard time slot, so it's almost a non-promotion, but hey, he's at least taking a step forward.  I think that will end up being a very interesting new job for him.

Nick, on the other hand, was letting his insanity sink him further into debt because he wasted over a grand playing pranks on Schmidt!  What the hell??  One of the most elaborate was when Schmidt noticed that his height line was higher than his current height.  I was shocked at the detail he put into that when he explained it to Jess:

I took a photo of the wall, shrunk it down, made a copy at an architect’s office.  From there, it was just your basic spackle-and-silkscreen job.

Seriously??  I've never seen Nick put so much energy and work into something, and when he does it has to be something spiteful.  He is so crazy!  And Winston is also crazy because he doesn't know how to prank adequately.  I don't which is funnier:  the fact that he goes too small (like sprinkling dust near Schmidt's car) or goes too big (hitting people with skis or throwing acid on them).  I'm actually a lot more concerned about Winston attempting a prank than Nick.  Nick will bankrupt himself playing his tricks, but Winston is likely to kill you.

Finally, in the Jess and Schmidt story, it was a treat to see those kids looking upon Schmidt like an unwanted growth.  But I think when Schmidt first caught on that he was hated and had to pretend he had work so he could refuse the kids' invitation to hang, I did feel bad for him.  No one wants to be the unpopular guy, so I couldn't help but want Schmidt to somehow win them over.  But it was pretty funny in general watching Jess being treated like the coolest person in the world, while Schmidt, with all of his bad slang and nonsense hype, got nowhere.  I also loved when Nick said that nothing about Schmidt being hated was new:

If I had a dollar for everybody I couldn’t hang out with because they hated Schmidt, I’d be rich.  Like, fill my gas tank all the way up rich.

I wasn't too surprised that even when Jess tried to help him that Schmidt still failed because he was just trying too hard.  But what I really liked is that Jess came clean about stealing catchphrases from 80s sitcoms and realized that she wasn't really identifying with those kids, but had already grown as a person beyond them.  But the kids still liked her and wanted to hang with her.  Aww.  I like when people like Jess because she is sweet and fun, but sometimes people don't like her because she does things her own way and is overly awkward in the most simple situations (and is the victim of bad luck).  It really shows that interacting with younger people is what she was born to do.

 This was a great episode.  I wonder if Jess will continue to see her new neighbors every now and then--I think they could add a little more crazy situations in their apartment building.  I'm pretty sure Winston's little show is going to make his job even more interesting or probably make him go insane with the strange work hours.  Don't really care what happens with Schmidt right now, but I'd like to see Nick not do anything else to throw the money he doesn't have away.  Nick would be living in an alley right now if he didn't have his friends.