Ranking the Roomies: Who Won Last Night's "New Girl" Season Premiere?

Image via Complex Original

In keeping with a recurring theme of “The Last Wedding,” Coach winds up in his most comfortable role throughout the wedding: smug asshole. Last season invested a fair amount of time into distinguishing Coach from his possibly schizophrenic replacement Winston, which allows Damon Wayans, Jr. to coast on playing him as a replacement Barney Stinson without any of the vulnerability or uncomfortable enthusiasm he’s gotten in the past. On the other hand, the string of wedding mainstays upset at Coach for sleeping with them and never calling is pretty great (seriously, who steals a phone charger?).

Best line: “It’s called being a gorgeous black man with the body of an action figure.”

Winston is literally left out of the beginning of the episode—he’s sore from the police academy. If this is a metajoke about his lack of screentime or character definition, the fourth season of a network sitcom might be a good time for the writers to give those up and just treat him as a normal, if utterly insane, character. But his suggested mating strategy of just being there all the time (the “Biden”) is both perfectly Winston and more than a little creepy (it’s hard to imagine the same tactic being as endearing coming from Coach or Schmidt).

Best line: “The only thing I want in my mouth is Mr. and Mrs. I.B. Profen.”

She’s a little hamstrung trying to force the “sex fist” thing down our throats, but “The Last Wedding” is, more than anything, about Jess’ readjustment to single life. She’s subjected to a weird sexual competition with a totally unrealistic, super-genius-slash-sexual-trend-watcher played by Jessica Biel (who doesn’t bring as much star power to the role as you’d think), but it’s not about whether or not she’ll win this one dude’s love (or whatever weird stuff)—it’s about her ability to be a social, happy person again. And hiding in the bathroom from their problems, she and Nick get to be sweet, awkward mirror images.

Best Line: “My first sexual feelings were about teenage Simba, because he was super hot and I actually still find him hot.”

Caught between an ex and a foursome with Schmidt, Nick is deeply, profoundly, uncomfortable, which is the best place for him to be. Oddly, Nick gets to be the most well-adjusted loft-dweller for most of the episode, bouncing off Schmidt and trying to avoid an unpleasant “surprise.” Best of all, Johnson does a great job making Nick’s chemistry with Jess a little more big brother and a little less ex (which, though I’m a fan of them together, bodes well for this season). And his ability to run away on a dime somehow hasn’t stopped being funny.

Best line: “Laurie and Mitchell, they had a cash bar. I hope they can’t have kids!”

How could the top spot have gone to anyone else? Schmidt is the one who pushes for the roommates to come together and try their hardest to get laid, he’s the one who tries to force Nick into a foursome, and he’s the one who has to try to avoid going bananas when he learns Cece is single again. Season three did some unfortunate things to Schmidt’s character, and hopefully he’ll either get together with Cece or give up on her real, real soon, but for now it’s enough to hear national treasure Max Greenfield pronounce things like “Academy Award winner Anna Paquin” and treat a wedding being on a Thursday as the biggest faux pas in existence. Welcome back, Schmidtty. We missed you.

Best line: “You go to housekeeping, have them give you as many shower caps as they’ll give you.”