S3 E2 - Nerd

Who's That Girl? A New Girl Podcast

This podcast covers New Girl Season 3, Episode 2, Nerd, which originally aired on September 24, 2013 and was written by Kay Cannon and directed by Fred Goss.

Here’s a quick recap of the episode:

Jess doesn’t fit in with the teachers at her new school so Nick comes to the rescue! Schmidt spends the episode trying to balance his relationship with Cece and Elizabeth while his coworker Beth tries to sabotage it and Winston watches Daisy’s cat, Ferguson.

We discuss Pop Culture References such as:

• Mad Men / Don Draper / Peggy [Olson] / Don Draper’s Office - When Schmidt is showing Elizabeth his office, he comments that it is a ⅔ replica of Don Draper’s office from the television show Mad Men and he fantasized about Elizabeth being his “sexy Peggy”.

Additional Pop Culture References such as:

• “I Believe I Can Fly” - R. Kelly - When the guys needed to wake Jess up to go to work, they sang her the song “I Believe I Can Fly”, which is a 1996 song written and performed by American singer R. Kelly. The song was originally from the soundtrack to the 1996 film Space Jam.
• James Taylor - Nick told Jess not to worry because she’s “Nick Miller's girl now. [She’s] my old lady,” to which Jess thought he was talking like a James Taylor song. James Vernon Taylor is an American singer, songwriter, and musician, who was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2000 and has won six Grammy Awards. He is one of the best-selling music artists of all time, having sold more than 100 million records worldwide.
• “What’s Up?” - 4 Non Blondes - When Jess is standing on the toilet while drunk, she is singing the song “What’s Up?” This song was released as the second single from American Rock group, 4 Non Blondes’, 1992 debut album, Bigger, Better, Faster, More!. It reached number 14 on the US Billboard Hot 100 but was number one in many other countries. From San Francisco, 4 Non Blondes were active from 1989 to 1994 and “What’s Up?” was their most popular song.

On our new section of our podcast called “Most Likely To” we discussed who we think would be most likely to be like Beth, steal their partner’s cat, commit a crime to fit in, and sneak into their boss’s hot tub but not get caught. We also covered when Schmidt went to go see Cece to uninvite her from his work party as our “Schmidtism” this episode. For “Not in the 2020s” we highlighted the way Elizabeth spoke about people from Hong Kong and Dr. Foster forcing Nick and Jess into his hot tub. Our “Yes in the 2020s” included Winston standing up for himself and Nick helping Jess get new friends. We also explored the careers of Dreama Walker (Molly), Mark Proksch (Dan), and Angela Kinsey (Rose), the guest stars of the episode. We also mentioned this article about Mark pranking the news as a "yo-yo master".

Also in this episode were the following guest stars who we do not discuss in the podcast: Merritt Wever (Elizabeth - Previously discussed in S2E22), Eva Amurri (Beth - Previously discussed in S1E8), Curtis Armstrong (Dr. Foster - Previously discussed in S2E24), Brenda Song (Daisy - Previously discussed in S2E23), Grace Holley (Hot Girl), Sergio Cilli (Director), Jimmy Kaplanges (Jimmy), and Erika Stillwater (Hot Girl #2).

We didn’t find the bear this episode but we did discuss how Schmidt being a Sagittarius but having a January birthday didn’t match and an AV club article that mentioned the belief that less lines were ad-libbed in this season.

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

• Shorty - This episode Schmidt tried to call Cece “shorty” in public. Shawty, shorty, or shortie is an American slang term used as a term of endearment for an attractive woman or a girlfriend, that was particularly popular in hip hop from the 2000s.
• Hacky Sack - In a flashback we see that Nick used to be popular as he was good at the game Hacky Sack. "Hacky Sack" is the name of a brand of footbag popular in the 1970s, which has since become a generic trademark. A footbag is a small, round bag usually filled with plastic pellets or sand, which is kicked into the air as part of a competitive game.

This episode got a 7/10 rating from Kritika and an 8.5/10 from Kelly and we both had the same favorite character: Nick!

Thanks for listening and stay tuned for Episode 3!

Music: "Hotshot” by scottholmesmusic.com

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Website: https://smallscreenchatter.com/

Music: "Hotshot” by scottholmesmusic.com

Follow us on Twitter, Instagram or email us at [e-mail]!

Website: https://smallscreenchatter.com/