New Girl S2 E8 – Parents

Last updated on June 23, 2021

This podcast covers New Girl Season 2, Episode 8, Parents, which originally aired on November 20, 2012 and was written by Ryan Koh and directed by Jesse Peretz.

Episode Recap

It’s Thanksgiving again and Jess’s divorced parents are coming to the loft along with Schmidt’s cousin who is also named Schmidt. Jess tries to get her parents back together while Schmidt begins competing with his cousin about who’s more manly.

Episode Notes

On this episode’s Pop Culture section we reviewed:

• LEGOLAND – Schmidt mentions that Big Schmidt never made him feel bad about not wanting to ride the rides at LEGOLAND. 
• The Parent Trap (1961 and 1998) – Jess tries to “Parent Trap” her parents into getting back together while they both visit for Thanksgiving. 
• Grey Gardens – Jess and her mom Joan joke how they always could be like the Mom and daughter in the documentary Grey Gardens as a back-up plan. 

Additional Pop Culture References such as:

• Rocky IV – When Cece mentioned the movie Jess made her watch a million times, Jess first thought Cece meant Rocky IV, which is a 1985 American sports film written, directed by, and starring Sylvester Stallone. It is the fourth installment in the Rocky series, which focuses on a professional boxer’s life. 
• Twilight – When Nick was sharing the premise of his book, Z is for Zombies, with Bob, Bob mentions it sounds like the plot of Twilight, which is a young adult vampire-romance novel by author Stephenie Meyer. 
• Katie Couric – After Jess and Cece did Joan’s make-up, Joan thought she looked like a “slutty Katie Couric”. Katie Couric is an American television and online journalist, presenter, producer, and author. She is founder of Katie Couric Media, a multimedia news and production company and has been a television host at all Big Three television networks in the United States: NBC News, CBS News, and ABC News.
• Jimmy Croche – When Nick and Joan were cooking, they had Jimmy Croche’s music playing. James Joseph Croce was an American folk and rock singer-songwriter. His breakthrough came in 1972, but in 1973, the day before the lead single to his fifth album was released, Croce and five others died in a plane crash.
• When the Schmidt’s were plating the Thanksgiving dinner, they made comments of how their plates appeared like: 
  • Picasso – Pablo Ruiz Picasso was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist and theatre designer who spent most of his adult life in France. He is known for his neoclassical style in the 1910s and early 1920s; his work in the mid-1920s often has characteristics of Surrealism. 
  • Bobby Flay – Robert William Flay is an American celebrity chef, restaurateur, and reality television personality. He is the owner and executive chef of several restaurants and has hosted several Food Network television programs.

We cover Schmidt and Big Schmidt’s “all day” dialogues as our Schmidtism. The masculinity contest in this episode kinda blurred the lines between the “not” and the “yes” for our “in the 2020s” section including not allowing Winston to consent to the kiss at the end of the episode as a “no”. Our other “yes in the 2020s” included normalizing self-prioritization (how Jess’s parents didn’t get back together and are happier that way) and your parents’ relationship status doesn’t dictate your own relationships. We also explore the careers of Jamie Lee Curtis (Joan), Rob Reiner (Bob), and Rob Riggle (Big Schmidt), the guest stars of this episode.

Also in this episode were the following guest stars who we do not discuss in the podcast: Matthew Jacob Wayne (Young Schmidt) and Michael Chey (Young Big Schmidt). We previously discussed Lauren Dair Owens (Young Jess) and Ariela Barer (Young Cece) in S2E5 Models.

We also discussed Jamie Lee Curtis’s website My Hand In Yours™ and how despite Schmidt saying he couldn’t kiss Winston because he was a man, he had previously fredo-kissed Nick many times.

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

• Julienne – When Schmidt is detailing what a post-Clinton manhood competition might include, he mentions being able to cut peppers in the classic julienne style. This is a French cooking term for cutting vegetables into thin strips, usually about 3 inches long and anywhere from 1/16th to 1/8th of an inch thick.
• Football Owners/Teams – When Nick is distracting Bob, he ends up bonding with him over various football references including specific teams and owners.
  • Al Davis – Al Davis was an American football coach and the main owner of the Oakland Raiders for 39 years. He died in 2011 at the age of 82 in Oakland and had also served as the commissioner of the American Football League in 1966. He was known for his motto “Just win, baby”, which paired well with the Raiders as they became one of the NFL’s most successful teams during the 1970s and 1980s, winning 3 Super Bowl Titles.
  • Ravens – The Baltimore Ravens are a professional American football team that competes in the National Football League and was established by Art Modell. They are one of the more successful franchises, qualifying for the NFL playoffs 13 times since 2000 and winning 2 Super Bowls.
  • Art Modell – Art Modell first owned the Cleveland Browns franchise for 35 years before establishing the Baltimore Ravens franchise which he owned for 9 years. He was a controversial figure in Cleveland due to the relocation but passed away in 2012 at the age of 87 in Baltimore, Maryland.
  • NFL – The NFL stands for the National Football League, a professional American football league which has 32 teams with 16 in the National Football Conference and 16 in the American Football Conference. It is one of 4 major professional sports leagues in North America and the highest professional level of American football in the world.
  • Steve Sabol – Steve Sabol was an American filmmaker and specifically was the president and founder of NFL Films alongside his father. He began working at NFL Films as a cameraman after he graduated and started in the industry when his father got the rights to the 1962 NFL Championship game. He went on to serve as an editor and writer in addition to the cameraman in the 1960s and 1970s. He became an on-air personality in the 1980s through ESPN and won 35 Emmys throughout his career.

This episode got an 8/10 rating from Kritika whose favorite character was Nick and Kelly rated this episode an 8.5/10 and her favorite character was (Big) Schmidt!

Thanks for listening and stay tuned for Episode 9!

Music: “Hotshot” by scottholmesmusic.com