Schmidt ignites a war between Jess and Cece as Winston attempts to study.

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“BECAUSE I HAVE… SISTERS.”

Note: The following review goes into detail about the episode. SPOILER ALERT!

New Girl took a break from relationship stories this week to focus on the different ways men and women fight. From the opening scene, it’s made clear that everyone does things a bit differently, from Coach hitting Schmidt in the crotch to Jess’ passive-aggressive compliments, all leading to great moments. While the episode mainly stands alone, it doesn’t feel like the disjointed episodes from earlier this season, using clever callbacks and Nick’s new relationship with Tran’s granddaughter to keep things feeling fresh.

When Jess and Schmidt explain to each other how they fight, Schmidt with physical strength and Jess by bottling things up, Schmidt spills Jess’ secret to Cece, reigniting a fight. Things hilariously escalate from there as Jess and Cece entered a passive-aggressive standoff. Schmidt and Coach on the other hand argued over how to solve it, with Schmidt insisting he can handle it (“I had boobs for years. You can’t buy that kind of insider access”) and Coach repeatedly reminding him his sisters have taught him how to handle things. Meanwhile, Nick is loving his new, lazy girlfriend but starts having second thoughts when Winston “deduces” that she’s homeless. There was a ton of laughs in both storylines, from Jess’ reactions to Cece’s emojis (“Double needle! How dare she!”) to Coach’s insistence that the two fight it out. Max Greenfield continued to put in excellent work as Schmidt here, with the character unable to help himself around Cece and being drawn more and more into the two ladies’ world of passive-aggressive carnage. The jokes got a bit uneven when things went to Cece’s apartment, but Jess and Schmidt’s tale of fighting hit far more often than it missed.

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Nick’s B-Story provided plenty of laughs as well, with his new girlfriend Kai proving every bit his equal in the lazy department. While the “she could be homeless” aspect felt a bit cliched at times, the reveal that she actually had quite a bit of money was a clever twist, and the chemistry between Jake Johnson and guest star Greta Lee was certainly entertaining. Winston also got some nice scenes here, including a hilarious shot of him duck-taped to a chair to study for his police academy exams. Lamorne Morris sure can pull off physical comedy like nobody’s business.

THE BREAKDOWN

“Girl-Fight” proved to be a solid episode that did what New Girl seems to be doing best this season: looking at the way each character, and more so each gender, approaches things. Not to mention it had some great moments between the trio of Jess, Cece and Schmidt, and some great material with our good friend Nick. Let’s hope that every standalone episode from here will be this engaging.

What did you think Jess’ approach to fighting? Put your verbal fists up (respectfully) in the comments below.

78/100 – ‘Good’

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