New Girl S2 E21 – First Date

Last updated on October 24, 2021

This podcast covers New Girl Season 2, Episode 21, First Date, which originally aired on April 4, 2013 and was directed by Lynn Shelton and written by J. J. Philbin & Berkley Johnson.

Episode Recap

The loft mates are back in LA and Nick and Jess attempt going on their first date, where they run into the only person they’ve both ever loved — Jess’s ex, Russell. Meanwhile Winston and Schmidt continue to bond as they think of ways to sabotage Nick and Jess’s date. 

Episode Notes

On this episode’s Pop Culture section we reviewed:

• When Winston was thinking of the worst thing that ever happened to him on a date, he thought of when a man serenaded him and his date by singing the following songs:
  • “Father Figure” by Sir George Michael
  • “Dude Looks like a Lady” by Aerosmith

Additional Pop Culture References such as:

• Mrs. Doubtfire – When the man is singing “Dude Looks Like a Lady” to Winston and his date he references the movie Mrs. Doubtfire. Mrs. Doubtfire is about an actor who disguises himself as a female housekeeper to spend time with his children held in custody by his former wife.

We also cover the scene where Nick asks Schmidt for help as our “Schmidtism” this episode. In our “Not in the 2020s” section, we discuss how Nick was turned on by Jess’s helplessness and how Schmidt and Winston were being selfish and unsupportive of Nick and Jess. We also explore the careers of Chelsey Crisp (Brandy), Ron Funches (Street Musician), and Brian Stack (cop), the Guest Stars we feature in this episode.

Also in this episode were the following guest stars who we do not discuss in the podcast: Steve Agee (Outside Dave – Previously discussed in S2E17), Dermot Mulroney (Russell – Previously discussed in S1E17), Ralph Ahn (Tran – Previously discussed in S2E7), Joe Zazzu (Marc), Leonardo Biasiucci (Bartender), and Loren Burgos (Winston’s date).

In this podcast, we also dive deeper into jaywalking and share how this episode contained a shot that was named #3 of all time most painfully distracting product placement by In Your Face Advertising magazine. We also share this article (which contains spoilers) where we learned that it was during this episode that they were adding a 25th episode to the season and how the motorcycle falling over was an accident as Brian Stack did not really know how to ride a motorcycle.

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

• Pledge of Allegiance – When Jess is talking to Cece about Nick touching her chest, Cece describes it as the Pledge of Allegiance. The Pledge of Allegiance was written in August 1892 by Francis Bellamy and is an expression of allegiance to the United States of America and its flag.

This episode got an 8/10 Rating from Kritika whose favorite character was Nick and Kelly rated this episode a 7.5/10 and her favorite character was Winston!

Thanks for listening and stay tuned for Episode 22!

Music: “Hotshot” by scottholmesmusic.com