‘New Girl’ Possible Series Finale Holds Few Surprises

The end of "New Girl"'s sixth season struggles to engage the viewer. The episode rehashes old problems for Nick (Jake Johnson) and Jess (Zooey Deschanel) and pushes significant events into the background. As the end of the season, these events hint towards changes in the lives of the secondary characters. But if the show continues, Cece’s pregnancy and the introduction of Winston’s father read more as a desperate attempt to find something new for the show rather than acting as a sweet and complete ending.

Cece (Hannah Simone) having a child and Winston (Lamorne Morris) calling his father are thrown in like insignificant events, though they really aren’t. While celebrated in passing, these events take a backseat to the peripheral romantic relationships. Winston does not seem as agonized over finding his father’s phone number as he seems infatuated with his fiancée? for finding the information. This does not seem realistic.

The misplaced emphasis is just another casualty of the exaggerated importance of Nick and Jess’s relationship, which doesn’t hold up to the excitement built around it. In the end, the final struggle for Nick and Jess to finally be together requires very little difficulty. They fall together all too easily. Their only obstacle occurs at Nick’s reading, when Nick casually implies that the two should not be together. Nick’s ex-girlfriend disappears from his life and his mind without difficulty or drama. The surrounding characters push Nick and Jess together more seamlessly that can be expected from a romantic comedy. The lack of tension is unexciting and makes their previous separation, so easily resolved, seem unnecessary.

Without tension, their happy ending feels less satisfying, and their path to love feels too predictable. If this is not the series finale, there appears to be little left to do with Nick and Jess that has not already been explored, as proven by the repetitive, almost redundant, dialogue about their relationship in the episode.

If this episode was the finale of the entire show, it wears out Nick and Jess, but leaves the side characters with room to live happy and interesting lives. The end of the episode, in which all of the characters are happily coupled, wraps up the show well in theory, but falls short in its execution.