One of my favorite shows on TV is New Girl….which was recently affirmed by my re-watching binge fest on Netflix/Hulu of past seasons. I love watching this gang of friends and their shenanigans, and I especially love Ferguson (if you don’t you have no soul). Of course not every episode is a winner but overall (to quote Nick and Jess)…I’m “all in”.

I want you to keep all of this in mind when I say the following….is it just me, or is New Girl completely off so far this season? I felt a little bit of this in the premiere episode, but I cut them some slack, then the 2nd episode felt the same and I was perplexed. I just finished “Single and Sufficient” and I am officially worried. This just does not feel like the same show. Literally the only thing I enjoyed about this episode was the reuniting of Winston and Aly.

Quick side tangent – I am sooooo happy that they are letting Winston have an actual functioning relationship. I was a little worried once Aly was away that this whole thing would fizzle out But good ol’ Winnie the Bish aka Brown Lighting is finally getting his!

Back to the main topic at hand….what’s off you ask?

• Where’s the bar? Don’t Nick and CeCe both work there? I need to see Jess drinking some pink wine.
• We spent all this time in the first episode with Schmidt and CeCe trying to afford to buy a house and move out….and yet since then there has been no mention of it. PLUS if you are trying to fix up a house are you going glamping in a world class yurt?
• Robby as an actual love interest for Jess – TERRIBLE! One of the best things about Robby as a side character is that you never know when he’s going to pop in, his amazing / weird bromance with Schmidt and his consistent love of CeCe. Writers, please don’t force this romance to happen.
• Nick isn’t a mess – don’t get me wrong, I understand characters will grow and change but honestly  having Nick struggling with “no notes” is not the Nick Miller we know and love. I need some awkward moonwalking or sweating from him stat!
• No group shenanigans – other than them all going to the above mentioned house the whole group has not been together in any scene…does this seem right?!!! Part of what makes this show great is how the characters play off each other, and I’m just not feeling it this season.
• Nick and Jess – listen I get it, they are probably the end game here, but honestly the season that they were together was probably the weakest for me, outside of the reintroduction of Coach. Plus I didn’t hate it last season when Reagan (played my Megan Fox…honestly just realizing their names rhyme) came into the picture, it was great for the character of Nick. So the reintroduction of this whole Nick/Jess thing seems to be interfering with the rest of the show’s dynamic, so just have it happen or not.

I dunno maybe I’m the only one that feels this way, but I just want my New Girl back. My only hope is that the writers are doing this on purpose….to make it all the sweeter when they come back together for what I’m only assuming will be an epic game of True American.

UPDATE – After watching the crossover episode with Brooklyn 99 – I have more thoughts….NO, JUST NO!

**One final note (best line of the season so far is from when Nick arrives home from New Orleans).

“Bonjour! Crawdaddy’s home and he’s ready to see his crawkids!”

“Who’s home?”

“Schmidty, Jess? Winston? Winston’s cat?

“Fine. CeCe?”