New Girl: Models

     I'm struggling a little with how to tackle these New Girl posts.  It's a different beast then the other shows that I write about since it focuses more on the jokes then the plot.  The shows style falls somewhere between How I Met Your Mother's high concept devotion to story and 30 Rock's laugh packed devotion to stacking jokes.  Since the show deals less with where things are going it's hard to write about how the plot has been developed.  I could list all the jokes that made me laugh, but that would be way to long and not at all interesting.  So I'm left somewhere in between.
     Sometimes I think this issue becomes a dilemma for the writers of the show as well.  How much attention should they pay to plot and how much to jokes?  This episode felt like a mini exercise in that argument.  While the premise of the episode, if we met now would we be friends, was really interesting and well set up, by the time we got to the end of the episode it felt a little under served.  I felt like the conclusion to the question was, who cares, but that wasn't very satisfying.  And once again, the Winston character is left as an also ran, third wheel who has little to no involvement.  There could have been more conflict involved and, if the writers were more apt to focus on plot, it felt like a big enough issue to carry into other episodes.  Instead, we get a funny episode that serves its jokes well but falls short of what it could have been.
     Now that I got that small criticism out of the way, Holy Cow, that was a funny episode.  New Girl is quickly becoming the most quote filled episode on TV.  "You want to momma bird me the cookie?" is as totally absurd and totally hilarious a line as I could imagine hearing.  Other favorite lines of mine included, "You should take that off.  It's crazy," and "Did you guys watch porn together again?"  I could also use more Russian cracker ads, that whole bit was silly and would make a great joke to carry through the season.  But the genius of this show isn't just in its writing.  The physical humor is amazing as well.  Zooey's work in the scene where she is trying to model the car is probably the funniest thing broadcast all year.  It was something I could see Lucile Ball or Carol Burnett doing and I couldn't imagine those two legends making it any funnier.  I was on the floor laughing.
     It may not always know how to deal with the story lines, but New Girl certainly knows how to handle the funny and for that I give it another win, 2-0.