“Cooler” gives us the moment we know would happen, and, for
many of us, wanted to happen, but then smartly leaves the door open for a
boatload of complications down the road. It’s a well-executed moment led up to
by a series of a well-executed moments between Nick and Jess beforehand in the
episode. Or in more layman turns: OH MY GOD! NICK AND JESS KISSED!
“Cooler” is an episode largely about contriving a reason to
get this particular moment, one the series has been building towards for almost
the entirety of its run. We might have expected the two of them to get together
as a couple before the incident happened, but it’s a far more interesting and
exciting narrative choice than to so easily guide the always destined couple to
their inevitable pairing (and there’s some potentially good story to be mined
from this down the road). It might have been nice if the show had built towards
this moment a bit more cleanly and with greater precision and focus; however,
it’s not implausible, and as someone who’s an ardent shipper when it comes to
his shows, I’m down with this. And I’m even more down with the mechanics that
lead us down this rabbithole.
The mechanics before the hangout in the apartment are more
scatterbrained in terms of plotting. The episode is largely unfocused in the
first half, splitting up into two plots and then three (and then finally grafting
in a Cece plot in), before drawing everyone back into the apartment. While this
is a hodgepodged, hazardous mess at times (the episode appears to have no idea
what it wants to be until about the halfway mark), things become sharper, more
focused, and more interesting after everyone comes back to the apartment.
Once we return to the apartment, the episode becomes much
more entertaining and much more satisfying. There’s some funny moments to be
had beforehand (Jess’s montage is a perfect set of little character beats at
once adorable and yet rather funny, Winston mumbling his way to failure trying
to pick up girls is also amusing, and the woman who has a thing for sad people
is surprisingly entertaining despite having no resemblance to a real human
being), but it really can’t compete with the return for the first time of
everyone’s favorite, incoherent drinking game “True American”.
However, the wandering aimlessness of this narrative, in
hindsight, feels like it’s merely distracting us like a magician, providing us
with so many red herrings that we don’t anticipate the true end game of this
episode. The plot leads to an unexpected, inspired sequence where the
attraction between Jess and Nick is put front and center. I didn’t see this
coming, and it’s a nice piece of plotting that creates believable enough stakes
to breakdown their defenses and lets their sexual tension seep out. Part of the
rules of True American apparently includes some bylaw that forces two people to
makeout behind the iron doors of the apartment. Jess brings it up to try to get
either Schmidt or Nick to hook up with the crazy girl addicted to sadness. But
it backfires.
Nick and Jess complain at length but no one will let them
out, and so they consider going through with it, but then they argue with their
usual banter about how the kiss should go down which leads them to talking themselves
out of it. When Sam, Jess’s boyfriend, arrives at the behest of Jess, he doesn’t
stop this but instead joins in the fratboy style chanting of “Kiss! Kiss!” Fed
up by all of this, a frustrated Jess insists they just get the dirty deed over
with. “Kiss me!” she yells; “Not like this!” Nick cries, unintentionally
revealing his true feelings. The look on Jess’s face says all we need to know:
whatchu tryin’ to say Nick? *Raises eyebrow* Nick can’t deal with this; it’s too
real for his fragile mind, and he dashes out the nearest window to climb back
to the adjourning room.
Cue some time passing, and this moment appears to have blown
over. As Jess walks back to her room though, Nick can’t handle it anymore, and
grabs her arm and pulls her in close, kissing her, and she doesn’t fight back
at all. “That’s how I would have done it,” Nick lets her know, and quietly, sadly
returns to his room.
Begin the countdown to Nick and Jess dating by season’s end!
Stray Observations:
-“Now are you two going to have sex with me?”
-There’s an odd running gag involving Nick accidentally receiving
a package containing a woman’s coat and deciding to wear it for the rest of the
episode. It’s funny and Jake Johnson's very committed to the gag, but it’s still
strange.
-Jess’s melon with Nick’s face drawn on it is creepy and funny,
and has got a fair amount of subtext to it: Subtext that by episode’s end has
become text!
-Winston is befriended by a seemingly engaged chick played by
Brenda Song that tries to help him overcome his flirting problems. Anyone else
see her being single from the get go? Well, at least Winston has a new beau.
(Also, did anyone else feel the age difference was odd?)
-“Nick I need you”; with lines like this, I should have seen
the end coming. The writing was on the wall.
-“Lets suck it up and French a little”
-“I don’t really know what that accent is but please speak
English”
-“We’ll talk about this in the morning … but now I’m going
to do things to a girl”
- The only thing that we learn from the Cece plot is that
Schmidt and Cece are totally going to get back together at some point since she
seems disinterested in every other person she dates.
Grade: B-
Despite the Nick and Jess stuff, this is one of the weakest episodes this seasons that had some major identity crisis problems in defining and deciding what it wanted to be
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