New Girl Open Thread

"It's a terrible table!"
[Spoilers are making sturdy tables out of newspaper and masking tape herein.]

Oh girl! There is a lot to talk about after the episode following THE EPISODE! Jess and Nick are dealing with THE THING in totally expected ways: Jess wants to talk it out, and Nick wants to literally moonwalk away from mature discussion. So much LOL at Nick's evasive moonwalking!

Meanwhile, Jess is unhappy that Sam wants to fist-bump her first thing in the morning. In real life, this could be solved by Jess saying, "Hey, you know, it kinda annoys me when you want to fist-bump me good morning!" to which Sam would probably respond, "Oh, okay. I won't do that anymore," but this is a sitcom where we need to feel okay about Jess and Sam's relationship being DEFINITELY DOOMED, so it's the fist-bump heard 'round the world.

Actually, this was the fist-bump heard 'round the world—or "terrorist fist-jab," if you work for Fox News—but you get my drift. THAT FIST-BUMP WAS IMPORTANT.

And of course it all comes back around to the fist-bump when, at the end of the episode, Jess mentions the fist-bump to Nick right before bed, only to have Nick immediately offer her his fist goodnight. "Too soon?" LOL! OH NICK MILLER DON'T EVER CHANGE.

Also: Other stuff!

"I literally haven't said a word for like over an hour."

"Yeah, I saw through space and time for a minute, but that's not the point!"

"You look like the fortune teller in Big."

"Can you drive in that dress?"

"I'm a squirrel. You're my nut. Winter's coming, and I'mma store you in my cheek, girl."

"Blammo! THAT happened!"

"So this is rock bottom."

"This is a weird date. I always thought we'd go bowling before we went to an Indian marriage convention."

"You were like a dog and my mouth was like a bowl full of dog milk!"

"I will Calcutta bitch!"

"He's in such terrible shape! You could have killed him!"

"Is there another doctor in the house?"

"Get your crap together, India! Schmidt—OUT."

[Content Note: Sexual violence.] On a serious note, this episode underlined a very fundamental problem with doing "ironic" humor, especially around rape culture. The character of the convention organizer, an Indian woman who aggressively comes onto and sexual harasses Winston, was certainly intended to be a send-up of the demure, sexually passive, exoticized virgin to which female Indian characters are reduced in Western media. But it was eminently possible to mock that trope without crossing the line into drawing her as a predator. This episode may well have been written before the highly publicized recent rape case in India, but that's the problem with "ironic" rape culture humor. It evokes awful truths about the way the world really works, and who the real predators and victims tend to be, for anyone who cares to pay attention to the world. I desperately hope the team over there will reconsider the efficacy of that sort of commentary. I know they can be smarter than that, and I hope they will.

Discuss!