New Girl 1.15: "Injured"

"The only way to get through it is to get through it.”
- CeCe

So overall, I thought “Injured” was a pretty good episode. We start with the gang playing touch football in the park. Jess gets a little overexcited and ends up tackling Nick. He lands funny and starts grimacing in pain. Schmidt starts listing off parts of the spine that could be injured which really doesn’t make Nick feel any better. Jess understandably feels awful and tries to help Nick but he’s not interested. He does manage to get up and to his car but he doesn’t make it far. He hits Winston’s car. Well okay so it’s pretty much held together with bungee cords and such. So for at least a little while, the roommates split off with Nick and Jess going to see Sadie (Nick doesn’t got to doctors because he has no insurance but Jess doesn’t give him much choice about getting checked out) while Winston and Schmidt go to the auto repair shop.

Of the two storylines this week, I have to say the Winston’s car story was the weaker of the two. He doesn’t want to accept that his car is a piece of junk that needs replacing. He says that “things” have happened in the car (including some random girl flashing him). Schmidt reminds him that it was an illegal recruitment gift from a college Winston didn’t even attend. And Winston has been routinely borrowing Schmidt’s car since Winston’s makes weird noises. Over at Sadie’s office, Nick is freaking out when he realizes he’s at an OBGYN office. Sadie checks him out and says he bruised his spine. There’s a funny bit where Sadie tells Nick not to take some pills she gave him (but since it isn’t an official appointment she’s prescribing the meds) while Jess tells him to take them. But things turn serious when Sadie notices something odd when Nick swallows. He has a growth on his thyroid and so she’s going to set up an ultrasound for the next day.

Nick and Jess are out to lunch and Nick keeps coming up with excuses for why he can’t go to the doctor. Jess says he’s just being scared but he denies it. She does a rather frightening Daffy Duck impressions and Nick immediately says he has to get to work. But Jess tags along. And she’s told Schmidt and Winston and they’re all kind of bummed and trying to be supportive. Nick brushes them off. At least CeCe has the smarts to not act all weird. She just orders a vodka soda. Things go from sad to sadder as Jess, Schmidt and Winston are looking up on their phones what the growth in Nick’s neck could be. Nick ends up joining them and he’s a little wonky from the pills Sadie gave him.

It devolves into some really bad singing and rapping on everyone’s part until Jess says that Nick doesn’t do anything. He accuses her of not knowing how to be real so she’s being real. Nick admits he’s always been the guy who can’t just jump into something if he doesn’t know the outcome (probably why he’s scared to go to the ultrasound). I think this need for control says a lot about Nick and what we’ve seen before. I mean, going through it myself, a lot of law school (and taking the bar) is out of your control. Sure you can study all you want but after the test, you don’t know the outcome for months. I don’t think Nick could have handled that. So, the roommates plus CeCe head out to the beach so that Nick can do something impulsive. He’s going to run into the ocean naked. Drunkenly, Schmidt runs after him hoping to catch a glimpse of Nick’s penis (I have to say I’m not a huge fan of that storyline resurfacing but it’s only for a few seconds so whatever).

It seems CeCe is actually the calmest out of the group. She can’t believe Schmidt is thinking about things (like the imprint CeCe’s butt will leave in the sand) when Nick is going through what he’s going through. He has kind of yelled at Jess again. CeCe shares some stuff from her past. Her dad died when she was 12 so she knows what loss is like. A little later, Nick tells Jess he likes her a lot but that he probably won’t remember anything from the night in the morning. Everyone falls asleep on the beach (Winston ends up in his junk heap) and come morning, Nick’s made the decision to get the ultrasound. It turns out that Nick doesn’t have cancer (the growth is benign) and in what is a really touching moment, Nick comes out to pay for the appointment to find out the rest of the gang split the cost. We end with everyone climbing into Winston’s car but it won’t start. And so once everyone else has left, Winston climbs out, takes his license plate and says goodbye.