New Girl 4.17: "Spiderhunt"

“I can hear it. I can hear it building its house. Building its sticky, deadly house that you can never leave. Building it. With its ass.”
-Schmidt

This was decidedly not a good episode to watch when recovering from a particularly nasty stomach virus. A major set piece throughout the episode was Nick cooking the famous Miller “sauce” for a midnight fondue date Schmidt was planning for Fawn. Under other circumstances, this probably would have been hilarious. Every time we see Nick, he is putting something else into this disgusting concoction. There’s mayo, there’s mustard, there’s seeds of some sort. My stomach just couldn’t handle it! Anyway, the main thrust of this episode is Cece’s feeling for Schmidt, and how those feelings reach a critical point when Jess enlists her in helping with a loft “spiderhunt.” Because apparently Schmidt is deathly afraid of spiders. Who knew?

The episode opens with Nick making the aforementioned sauce and Schmidt explaining his fondue date plans. Apparently, even though it looks disgusting, nothing tastes better in a fondue situation than the sauce. I guess I’ll have to take Schmidt’s word for that. Also in the relationship department, Coach is trying to write an email to May, the woman he hit it off with on the Valentine’s Day bar crawl. To say he is finding it difficult would be an understatement. Really, come to think of it, this episode is all about relationships. Jess, for her part, is wondering why she hasn’t heard from Cece in a while. In a phone conversation between Winston and Cece, we learn that Cece has been staying away from the loft because she still has feelings for Schmidt and doesn’t want Jess to know. She’s afraid that if Jess knew, she would try to “mix in” as they say on “The Goldbergs” (one of my favorite comedies right now…I love the 80’s northern Philadelphia suburbs nostalgia), and that would just make everything worse.

All of this comes to a halt when Jess spies a spider crawling on Schmidt. Schmidt is absolutely petrified of spiders. He says it dates back to when “American Pie” was popular and he fell asleep after doing some unspeakable things to a pie. Let’s just say some spiders thought the pie and what had recently been in it was awfully nice. I can see why that would be traumatizing, but what the hell was he doing things with a pie for!? Anyway, Schmidt is dancing on the table trying to stay away from potential spiders, and the roomies tell him he can’t possible have a date with Fawn in that state. Jess decides to organize a spider hunt, the only surefire way to get Schmidt out of this terrified spiral. Cece calls Jess because Winston has let Cece know that Jess is suspicious, and Jess ropes Cece into the spiderhunt too.

Jess breaks the gang up into teams of jar men and smushers, and they begin the hunt. Jess still thinks Cece is acting strange, though, so she shakes Winston down for more information. Winston says that Cece isn’t mad at anybody in the loft. In fact, it’s the opposite. This, of course, was a bad move on Winston’s part. She immediately surmises that Cece must “like” somebody in the loft (what are we, twelve?), and she wants to know who. Cece refuses to spill the beans, as she tells Jess, because it’s a situation Jess can’t help fix. She also swears she doesn’t have feelings for Schmidt again. Cece decides to try the sauce, and when she’s talking to Nick and getting a little teary (because the sauce is so disgusting), Jess starts to think that Nick might be the person for whom Cece has feelings.

Jess starts talking to Nick, and he thinks Jess is referring to a dispute he and Cece are having over whether or not they should buy a popcorn machine for the bar. He starts talking about worrying about smells and cleaning, and since Jess thinks he’s talking about a potential relationship with Cece, it’s all kinds of gross. Jess is understandably horrified at this turn of events, but she is nothing if not stupidly loyal to her friends. She decides that if Cece really wants Nick, then damnit, Cece is going to have Nick, whether or not Nick is acting gross. She locks them both in a bedroom and starts her setting the mood playlist on her phone. Cece and Nick still think they’re supposed to hash out the popcorn maker issue, so they do that and ask Jess to let them out. When Nick tells Jess that they compromised by agreeing to rent a popcorn maker for a couple months, Jess knows she’s been had. Cece eventually admits that she does still love Schmidt, and she begs Jess to do nothing more than just be supportive as she’s not taking Schmidt’s relationship with Fawn well.

The spiderhunt comes to a head when the spider makes its way on to Schmidt’s face. The guys can’t bring themselves to tell Schmidt about the spider, but eventually he figures it out, and all Hell breaks loose. The guys are all trying to help Schmidt, but Schmidt keeps jumping around and screaming. Fawn arrives on the scene (for the fondue date, presumably) and immediately takes charge, which I think is what Schmidt likes about her, even if it is very hurtful to Cece. The gang all joins Schmidt and Fawn for fondue (which doesn’t really seem like much of a date…I would have thought Schmidt and Fawn would have wanted the room to themselves after she heroically saved him from the tiny spider and all), and apparently the sauce isn’t all that terrible once it’s finished. Cece is clearly having a rough time seeing Schmidt and Fawn together, and Jess and Winston (awkwardly) take her hand. In other news, Coach also succeeded in scoring a date with May. The many, many drafts of his e-mail all got accidentally sent to her, but she is impressed by the show of effort, so she agrees to the date.