- As the gang prepares to depart for the holidays, they quickly find they may be home alone when they are all trapped at the airport.
- The "New Girl" Christmas episode is all about the closeness of the group, which is a description that fits a lot of "New Girl" episodes, but not necessarily in a bad way.
Jess and Ryan decide to take their relationship to the next level while Cece and Schmidt stay warmly rooted in the friend zone. With levity provided by Billy ("on the street") Eichner, the episode is heavy with sitcom tropes (Canceled flights! Airport shenanigans! Guy who looks like Santa!), while providing appropriate holiday cheer.
****
Jess and Ryan steal away during the school pageant to make out in the prop closet. "All this sneaking around, I feel like gay guys in the '50s," Jess says.
Ryan spontaneously invites Jess to come to London for Christmas with him, which she notes is skipping seven relationship steps.
At the loft, they're all waiting to share a ride to the airport. Schmidt is going home to Long Island, Cece is going to New York so her mom can hand deliver a Christmas card to Matt Lauer. Winston and Nick are both going to Chicago. Coach is going on vacation to Hawaii by himself instead of going home to see his family in Detroit. "I made a decision I'm really happy with, but it has been giving me stomach pains," Coach says.
After their ride, they arrive at the airport to absolute chaos. There's a storm in the Midwest.
Jess arranges new flights for everyone. Coach is fine. Cece and Schmidt are on the red eye. Winston and Nick are tenth and eleventh on the standby list until Jess sweetly tries to ask if they can get moved up and Barry (Billy Eichner) bumps her down for being nice.
Schmidt tries to talk his way into the first class lounge, to no avail. Cece buys passes.
Coach tries to find a charging station so he can call his young niece.
Ryan sends Jess a picture of his house, which turns out to be a stately British mansion. The next picture has his family and a falcon wearing a necklace.
At the bar, Jess orders whatever their strongest drink is, and a white wine spritzer, in case she doesn't like it. She notices a man with a bushy white beard and white hair and starts unloading on him like he's Santa. He invites her to the family bathroom to sit on his lap for the sleigh ride of her life.
Barry the airline clerk runs off pervert Santa. He announces that they're going to drink.
In the lounge, Schmidt fawns over the pillows. He spies a silver fox (Barry Bostwick) and imagines he's the kind of rich guy who takes one bite of lobster and throws the rest in the trash. Robert (Bostwick), calls out Schmidt as a lounge first-timer, based on all the pillow fondling. Schmidt lies about living in Manhattan and Robert joins them.
Nick and Winston resolve to convince a bunch of people not to fly so they can have their seats. Nick waves hello to the pilots, announcing they were just drinking together at the bar. Winston pretends to be breastfeeding a baby. Nick then goes behind the counter and starts ripping up people's tickets.
At the bar with Barry, Jess worries that Ryan is totally out of her league. He suggests she just head home and order pizza. Jess notices that Santa stole her presents. Barry says that means she can't go. She texts Ryan that her flight was cancelled.
Coach calls home to talk to his young niece, but his sister won't let him, as punishment for not coming home.
In the lounge, with Cece off getting another drink, Robert interrupts the rich guy talk with Schmidt and volunteers that he'd love to "take a run" at Cece. He offers to trade Schmidt his first class lounge card. When Cece returns, Schmidt says they don't have a deal and calls Robert a "dirty old bitch," announcing he's from Long Island.
Schmidt starts announcing he doesn't want to be part of any lounge Robert is part of and storms out, taking the booze with him and shouting Long Island props to Billy Joel.
Back at the bar, Barry asks Jess what he can do to help. He gets Nick and Winston first class tickets and tells Jess to call if she wants to hang out this week. "I was planning on going to the mountains and crying, but that's flexible," he says.
At the counter, dirty old bitch Robert learns that he was bumped.
In the food court over stolen champagne, Cece tries to get Schmidt to tell her what Robert said. "Without getting into specifics, he disrespected something more important to me than any stupid old lounge," Schmidt says.
"Daniel Craig's tailoring?" Cece guesses.
When he says it was something priceless, she gives him the lounge pillow she stole. She tells him she likes being his friend.
Coach joins them, considering going to Detroit instead of Hawaii.
Nick calls Jess from first class to thank her. She lies and says she's on the plane but he hears the airport announcements in the background. The stewardess makes Nick hang up his phone.
Cut to Jess waiting for a taxi, when the entire gang confronts her with Nick urging her to just go to London. They run with her to her gate. Nick and Winston get on their new flight, sitting next to a giant right next to the bathroom. Schmidt and Cece entertain each other on their flight. Coach arrives in Detroit and gives his niece a hug.
A cute guy smiles at Barry in the airport bar, but he scowls and digs into his pizza.
Jess arrives in London and calls Ryan. He's outside the loft, he came back to surprise her. "Stay where you are, I'll be back in 17 hours," he says.
Contribute to this page
Suggest an edit or add missing content