Season 5 of New Girl is here and there is more dysfunction than ever before as Jess declares this year, “The Year of Us,” in song, over and over again.
Last season Schmidt got down on one knee in the apartment bathroom - with a ring, mind you - to ask Nick to be his best man, while Cece half asleep drinking her coffee, asks Jess to be her maid of honor. Obviously Jess and Nick agree, to which Schmidt outlines his idea for the wedding, “our wedding will borrow equally from the holy trinity of Liz Taylir, Jackie O, and the power gays,” he says.
With the ceremony planning beginning for the wedding Winston is still being celebrated town wide as a “carport hero” for the time he saved a teen’s life by lifting his car off of him in his driveway.
The day of the engagement party has finally arrived and Nick had but one task, to pickup Cece’s mom, Mrs. Parekh, from the airport. Being the lazy, easy going guy he is, he agrees to it but complains how he wanted an easy job and this is not an easy job. Nick makes his start to becoming the worst best man ever by picking up the wrong woman at the airport who he believed was Cece’s mom. He has a random Indian woman who doesn’t speak a word of English, who at one point is convinced he is going to kill her in his passenger seat on the way to the venue.
To make matters even worse for the gang Jess takes a plunging fall down a very long staircase because of her singing about “The Year of Us” landing herself in two leg casts, and on bed rest.
The real Mrs. Parekh shows up to the engagement party, unaware of her daughter’s engagement. Cece never told her mom because she knew she wouldn’t approve of Schmidt because he was white, and all Cece wanted was her mother’s approval. So, she was waiting for the right time. To no one’s surprise, Mrs. Parekh instantly denies Schmidt her approval to marry her daughter because he is not the right man for Cece.
Jess hears of all the trouble going down at the engagement party and borrows their neighbor who hates everyone’s motorized scooter to attempt to save the day (typical Jess). Her genius idea is for Schmidt to join the Bollywood dance group that she hired to perform to impress Cece’s mom who used to be a Bollywood dancer, who Jess believes is secretly a romantic at heart. Typical Schmidt is all about being in the performance to win over Mama P, and even drags Nick into the dance with him. Although the guys gave it their all it wasn’t enough for her approval as she left at the end of their dance.
Regardless of how her mom feels, Cece adds: “I never though I’d fall for this slim-hipped ghost of Tom Cruise,” and that he is in fact the one that she wants to marry. Nick, Jess, and Winston all chime in that the couple has their blessing as Mrs. Parekh exits the building along with her approval that she will not give them.
Schmidt refuses to give up and in his heart knows that before the wedding he will get her on board.