Jake Johnson Didn't Really Mean It When He Said 'New Girl' Was Canceled, But It Probably Is. Does Anyone Care?

By Emily Cutler | TV | March 15, 2017 |

By Emily Cutler | TV | March 15, 2017 |

Listen, I don’t want to alarm anyone, but I’m most definitely a witch. And before the peanut gallery gets to it, yes, I understand I misspelled “bitch.” On the real, last May I wrote this quick post about New Girl’s inevitable demise. What even I couldn’t have predicted was exactly how the drama would play out. Specifically, that Jake Johnson would Nick Miller all over the place by saying they were canceled when they’re maybe not officially canceled. I know that Johnson is part of the show and therefore technically part of the break-up, but this is basically the Best Friend accidentally telling the Breakee things are over before Breaker could do it.

Which of course led to the inevitable walk back.

Let's be clear. I have no idea if NG is coming back. I was doing an interview for #WinItAll & was asked my guess. We've been told it's 50/50 https://t.co/fxhLi7gySU

— jake johnson (@MrJakeJohnson) March 12, 2017

Obligatory Winston gif.

I actually shouldn’t be giving that face to Johnson. He didn’t do anything wrong. Fox hasn’t said for sure yet if New Girl is coming back, in his opinion there’s only a slim chance it will, and so he said so. Oh, and also, HE WANTS OUT OF THIS SO BAD HE CAN TASTE IT.

Which is a sentiment I understand. Despite the fact that New Girl hasn’t been good since maybe season three (I think unfortunately the real downfall was the Prince episode. The post Superbowl spot was just too much pressure), I haven’t been able to give up on it. I’ve watched literally every episode, and at this point, it’s just getting painful. Whatever spark was there in season two has been long extinguished. And seriously, writers, having various couples have lots of sex in lots of different places isn’t, and never has been, funny. It’s the set up to the joke, not the joke itself. Also not funny or interesting? This plot last night where Jess doesn’t want to feel like Nick’s stand-in girlfriend. Mostly because we already saw this plot in season one with Jess and Nick’s roles reversed. Or in, I don’t know, all of Drinking Buddies. You can have either have bad jokes or recycled plots, but not both.

I wish it weren’t the case that subsequent bad seasons could retroactively ruin previous good seasons, but for some awful reason it does (Sherlock, I’m looking in your general direction). I also can’t help imagining what New Girl would have been like if they’d been canceled four seasons ago. It would have been painful to not know what happened to Nick and Jess after they drove off from Cece’s aborted wedding, but not as painful as watching the cast devolve into caricatures of themselves. It’s way past time to end it. And, for the love of god, we need to get out before they have guest star Billy Eichner on to have a scream off with Schmidt.