New Girl S2 E20 – Chicago

Last updated on October 14, 2021

This podcast covers New Girl Season 2, Episode 20, Chicago, which originally aired on March 26, 2013 and was written by Luvh Rakhe and directed by Jake Kasdan.

Episode Recap

When Nick finds out his dad died of a heart attack, the whole loft goes to his funeral that Nick has to plan. Jess tries to help and support him while drawing the line at writing Walt’s eulogy. Meanwhile, Winston helps Schmidt get over his fear of death and open caskets.

Episode Notes

On this episode’s Pop Culture section we reviewed:

• Elvis – Jess impersonated Elvis at Nick’s Dad’s funeral and sang two of Elvis’ songs. 
  • “In the Ghetto”
  • “Burning Love”

Additional Pop Culture References such as:

• Trail Blazers – When sharing about Portland, Jess mentioned she was “from the land of books” and simply, “Trailblazers”. The Portland Trail Blazers are an American professional basketball team based in Portland, Oregon. The Trail Blazers compete in the National Basketball Association as a member of the league’s Western Conference Northwest Division. 
• Wrigley Ticket Stub – As they are leaving Chicago and saying goodbye to Bonnie, Winston mentions he took a Wrigley Ticket Stub to remember Walt by. A Wrigley Ticket Stub comes from Wrigley Field, which is a baseball park located on the North Side of Chicago, Illinois. It is the home of the Chicago Cubs, one of the city’s two Major League Baseball franchises. As of 2021, Wrigley field is the second oldest baseball stadium in the United States.

We cover Schmidt’s breakdown over the middle-class button system and death as our “Schmidtism” this episode. For “Not in the 2020s” we discuss how Nick’s mother asks Jess if “she is a Spanish” and refers to Schmidt as “Fat Schmidt”. In our “Yes in the 2020s” we talk about how everyone in the loft came to the funeral with Nick, Jess putting on the Elvis costume, and Schmidt’s “eulogy” to Winston. We also explore the careers of Margo Martindale (Bonnie), Bill Burr (Bobby), and Nick Kroll (Jamie), the guest stars of this episode.

Also in this episode were the following guest stars who we do not discuss in the podcast: Eric Edelstein (Elvis), Ellen Albertini Dow (Aunt Ruthie), Lila Lucchetti (Deann), Emily R. Wilson (Carol), and Kai Caster (Cousin).

We also discuss how Dennis Farina, who plays Walt, passed away 3 months after this episode aired and how this was Ellen Albertini Dow’s last television appearance before she passed in 2015 at the age of 101. We also share this article (which contains spoilers) where we learned that they knew this episode was always going to be part of Season 2 but that this was supposed to be earlier in the season and would be the first kiss for Nick and Jess. This episode also had an initial cut of 43 minutes and a lot of the improv with Nick Kroll, Bill Burr, and Jake Johnson had to be cut to make the episode time. On the podcast, we also mention the following articles where Mac Davis did an interview about his song “In the Ghetto” and Zooey Deschanel’s time on Conan where she talked about how she prepared for the Elvis impersonation.

While not discussed in the podcast, we noted other references in this episode including:

• Pop vs Soda – When the loft enters Nick’s house, Bobby and Jamie are fighting over whether a fizzy carbonated beverage would be called pop or soda. Across the United States, there are regional differences in what soft drinks are called with Soda being used in the Northeast, most of Florida, and California while Pop is used for most of the Midwest and West. In the South, the term “coke” is often used to represent all fizzy drinks.
• Logan – When Bobby is threatening Schmidt, he says he’ll keep him out of the whole city because he works TSA at Logan. The Boston Logan International Airport is located in East Boston and was opened in 1923. It is the largest airport in New England and is the 16th busiest airport in the United States.

This episode got an 8/10 rating from Kritika and a 7/10 from Kelly and we both had the same favorite character: Jess!

Thanks for listening and stay tuned for Episode 21!

Music: “Hotshot” by scottholmesmusic.com