Nick and Jess: OTP Forever

New Girl’s (On Fox Tuesdays currently) Nick Miller and Jessica Day. Arguably current TV sitcom’s greatest off and on relationship. The two first met when she moved into the loft, and as Nick would later put it, “I fell in love with Jess the minute she walked in that door.” In season two, Jess was casually hooking up with the handsome Dr. Sam until she started to develop feelings for him. She didn’t know how to deal with her emotions so she turned to Nick as a friend for emotional support, which upset him, because he had real feelings for her. Then, the fateful, infamous episode “Cooler,” happened when during a wild game of true American, Nick refused to kiss Jess for the sake of the dare, because he wanted a real kiss. Later that night, he grabbed her in the hall and we were #blessed with one of the sexist kisses in sitcom (TV ever??) history.

After a bit of will they won’t they and other respective dating partners, they finally became official. Their dating days were glorious and hilarious, and #Ness shippers could not get enough. Devastation came at the end of season 3 when, after weeks of constant bickering, Jess started to overanalyze the entire thing. She brought up what essentially was her 10 year plan of marriage and a family, and Nick freaked out. In the final heartbreaking conversation, they decided that love was the only thing they had in common, and it was not enough, ending it with an awkward salute/finger pistol combo. Honestly, it was really sad, mostly because we as the audience understood there was and always will be so much love (and chemistry) between them. The content of their conversation though, is worth considering going forward with the series, now that Jess realized she’s still in love with him, but I’ll get to that in a minute. After a season and half where it really seemed like were moving on and their relationship was behind them (besides the great sex mug storyline), the second to last ep and finale of season 5 brought about this realization, jam packed with callbacks to Nick and Jess’s past relationship. The handsome and excellent Dr. Sam broke up with Jess as she realized she didn’t want to marry him anyway - postgame time of true American (sound familiar?). In the moment, Jess couldn’t articulate her feelings for why she couldn’t marry him, but good ol Dr. Sam knew. “It’s Nick.”

(Call back to Sam before: HE EVEN EXITS COOL).

The next morning, Jess broke the news to Nick: “He was in love with his best friend, so. Predictable. Hah.” (all the feels.)  Throughout the wedding festivities, Nick frets about trying to reconnect with Reagan (Megan Fox, who was their temporary roommate), unsure if he should pursue a relationship with her or give up. “You of all people know that I’m just the weird detour you take before you find the guy you want to be with.” “Stop it Nick. I’m tired of you being the only person who doesn’t see how incredible you are. You’re always so ready to believe the worst in yourself and right now i need you to believe in the best, okay.” I believe this was the moment Jess finally admitted to herself that she still loves him, deeply. The way Nick and Jess of season 5 ended, he was going to leave with Reagan to travel with her doing her job in New Orleans, dancing (and looking hella fine with his beard I might add) while Jess stared wistfully.

Season 6 is almost certainly going to be #Ness focused, or it’s at least going to be a major theme. Show creator (and straight up awesome writer) Liz Meriwether said as much in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, she had this to say about the two: “We're trying to figure out a way to reintroduce the dynamic but in a new way. I love the two of them together, and I think this season we did a good job of using the guest stars to be catalysts to the Nick-Jess relationship. I think we're going back into that story area, but hopefully with growth for both characters and a new dynamic that will be still give us some tension between them.”

Has anything changed? Can they realistically successfully be a couple again, and last for the long haul? The two as an OTP are not without haters. This author felt that the writers artificially forced the chemistry between the two (????) and that them being together would ruin the dynamic of the show and this article claimed that Jess “neutered” Nick’s existance. Also, I could be way wrong here, but it’s really possible these authors and others like them wrote a controversial opinion about a popular thing for the sake of clickbait.

One other negative nelly worth noting: Jake Johnson himself is not the biggest Ness fan: “What I personally think, is that I really like the Nick and Jess dynamic together, [but] I think Season 3 it was just too much. I don't think the show was ready for them to be together for an entire season. I think that was hard and that the show suffered from it a little bit. There will always be something between Nick and Jess. But I think that they're [the writers] just a little bit worried that it gets a little bit too heavy when they get together because they are both such big characters on the show." Sure, maybe Jake has a point - the writers chose to create Nick and Jess’s relationship something focused and all consuming that changed some storylines, but it absolutely doesn’t have to be that way. Look at Schmidt and Cece’s relationship in season 5! Most of the season has been about their wedding, yet it’s served up many opportunities for the gang to get up to the usual New Girl shenanigans and grow deeper friendships. Also worth mentioning is that Winston of season 3 is very different than the fabulous, fully fleshed character of Winston we are gifted with today.

Ultimately, I totally believe that Nick and Jess are endgame. Liz Meriweather has said again and again that they are the central characters of the show and always will be her favorite.Though, if that is the end goal, I doubt that would actually happen (like a wedding or a kid) until the series end someday (hopefully not anytime soon!!). As for going into season 6, I think they will get together, though probably not until the end of the season - they can and should take their sweet time. It's certainly a shift in dynamic - in previous seasons, Jess was oblivious and Nick was pining after her, so it's switched now. And as to the question of not breaking up this time around, Liz said this: “She’s realizing that she still loves Nick, which I think is a big moment of self-awareness for her, that is also growth in a lot of ways. She says to Reagan that she realized that a lot of the things that she thought were wrong with Nick the first time they dated [don’t] really matter.” SEE! SEE?? Problems before are not problems anymore because of how they've grown and changed and learned about love. ALL THE HEART EYES. I can't wait, and I fully trust it'll be worth the wait till fall.