New Girl 1x05 (HDTV-LOL)

i've been sticking with this show just because i like zd, but they really need to give jess a better
backstory. i'm glad that they've at least started having flashbacks to her being an awkward chubby kid, but
that doesn't go far enough towards explaining why she's such a monumental spazz- or more importantly
why her appearance doesn't match her behavior. as socially inept as she is, you'd expect her to dress like
ugly betty in her poncho phase.

i agree, if it wasnt for zooey i wouldnt watch this either, just like i wouldnt watch happy endings
if it wasnt for elisha cuthbert!
i really liked zooey in weeds, somehow this show kinda ruins her, but hey maybe it will get better,
one can hope..........

good morning,

does anyone know why i can't add this show to "my shows" on "my page". it does not come up under the
search results through my page but it comes up through the search on the homepage.

when was she on weeds?

season 2 she was in about 4-6 episodes, she played andys crazy ex from alaska......

it's still 'new' and doesn't have a show page.

i read that since they built the show around her, they let her pick her own wardrobe. apparently,
she wanted to look like a modern day marlo thomas from that girl, which makes sense for zooey
deschanel- but is totally incongruous when it comes to jess. frankly, i think that her character seems
more like a gloss on jennifer garner in 13 going on 30 than an actual gorgeous school teacher. (how
did she make it through college and never learn how to behave around adults.)

how about this for a backstory: she was shy, awkward, unpopular, and overweight in junior high.
she was an only child raised by a single father in the military. at 14 they had to move to a listening
outpost in the himalayans, where she was sent to the local convent to be educated by two elderly nuns
and only permitted to visit her father at the army base one weekend every other month. unsocialized
and unaware that the spare diet at the nunnery left her with a killer figure, she returned home and
reconnected with her childhood friend cece, now a model- who made over her look and got her an
entirely new wardrobe.

<or>

she has some form of asperger's and her disability renders her unable to understand the rules of
normal social interaction (like a much milder version of the kid from alphas).

i'd accept either scenario.

well, obviously she's not as severe. asperger's is an autism spectrum disorder. the kid on alpha's is
pretty close to 'rain man' territory and can't really process a lot of the information that is necessary in order
to behave normally. people with asperger's tend to be mostly just inhibited with regard to social
relationships and tend to get kind of obsessed with particular subjects. a lot of people have suggested that
bill gates may have asperger's.

i don't think that jess is just a "screw your judgments. i'll act how i want" sort of person (which i think is
what you're suggesting). she seems to me to be someone who wants to fit in but either cannot or doesn't
know how. remember when she tried to pick up that guy in a bar with her "hello sailor" routine (as if her
knowledge of how men and women behave in a bar came from 30's era movies)? what was up with her not
being able to say "penis" and being unable to avoid laughing when she saw one? that was really bizarre.
does she sing to herself all of the time because she enjoys it, or is it a compulsive behavior that relieves
social anxiety? when the guys were watching that horror film, she seemed to genuinely want to be
included, but she drove them away instead. that wasn't a case of not caring what people think of her.

by dance/reunion, do you mean the wedding, or am i forgetting an episode? my recollection was that
she wasn't doing a very good job of pretending to be a girlfriend prior to the roommate telling her
to stop. as to the ex-boyfriend, that is something that really bothers me about my interpretation
of her too. either her having a long term relationship with him (and living together) doesn't fit,
or he was trading on her naivete even worse than it appeared.


i'd thought that she just wanted to hang with the guys and didn't mean to drive them away. if she'd
just wanted them to stop watching the movie so that she could have the tv to herself, then i'd
agree. as to the 'penis' thing: i didn't think that she was just being goofy when she couldn't say
the word because of the use of the flashback and because she admitted that the laughing was
involuntary. (after all, if the laughing had been intentional, then it would have made her seem mean.)


that was a great show. my take on jd was the same as yours: that he typically knew when he was
doing things that others would find weird/irresponsible. he did it for dun and would adjust his
behavior based on how important/serious things were.

what would you have said about the andy dick character on news radio?