New Girl: “The Captain” – Recap

In this week’s episode of “New Girl,” Schmidt’s still upset over his relationship SNAFU, and he still plans to take it out on Nick and Jess. Winston, in one of his rare moments of zen advice, reminds Schmidt that he could’ve been happy with either woman, but he blew it.

Later, Winston tells Nick and Jess about Winston’s impending neuter surgery, and the two joke about throwing Winston a cat bachelor party so that he could get laid.  In Winston’s absurd world, this is a brilliant and doable idea.

The next morning, Winston’s runs into an attractive woman (Riki Lindome) picking up her cat, Fatty from the pet shop groomer. Winston slyly suggests, “My boy cat is looking for a girl cat.” The woman, believing Winston to be hitting on her in a weird but sexy way, suggests that their cats could go on a date, and Winston thinks it’s a step towards getting Ferguson laid. “How often do you groom your cat?” he asks her. Major signals crossed.

Schmidt brings in a cake in “honor” of Nick and Jess’s one-month anniversary, but Nick and Jess definitely don’t trust him (“After he saw the movie Titanic, he started the Billy Zane fan club.”). Nick goes in to confront Schmidt, but Schmidt hones in on Nick with mind games, reminding him that he’s usually nervous early on in his relationships. After his talk with Schmidt, Nick can’t get it up later that night, even after Jess uses everything she knows to turn Nick on, including punching Nick in the face.

In the morning, Schmidt uses Jess’s desire to read Nick’s feelings against her by painting Nick as a guy who’s into weird sexual fetishes, then reeling Jess in with a reluctant mention of “The Captain,” an elaborate sex act that includes, but is not limited to, racial slurs and dolphin sounds. Jess, desperate to fix her and Nick’s hiccup, enters the bedroom on a mission.

The next morning, an entangled Nick and Jess look confused and slightly repulsed, but they both figure out that Schmidt’s sabotaged them by exploiting their inability to communicate with each other. Schmidt asks Nick to reveal his feelings, expecting Nick to shut down; instead, Nick opens the floodgates to tell Jess that he really likes Jess and isn’t scared after a month of being with her (and that he likes when rap songs use choirs).