New Girl:
After what has been a pretty slow start, and a very half-hearted attempt at a cross-over with Brooklyn Nine-Nine, last night's episode of New Girl was easily the best outing the show has had this season. Jess securing votes for Nick had a lot of decent comedic material, but more importantly it allowed the show to explore both the Jess/Nick relationship and the Jess/Cece friendship in ways that were affecting without being overbearing. Schmidt and Cece's interior design disagreements gave that couple a chance to work out some of their most obvious differences. That couple has been through so much, that at this point it's nice to see them have breakthroughs, without the threat of breaking up. The idea that Schmidt and Cece's home might have been the setting of an adult film, never really paid off, but Nick and Winston's secret vault was easily the funniest thing the show has done this season. That the rituals involved with the vault became more complex over the course of the episode made it all the more fun to watch. New Girl is best when it commits to the absurd.
No Tomorrow:
The first two episodes of No Tomorrow showed how the idea behind the show had a lot of promise, but that the show wasn't quite where it needed to be yet. There is still some fleshing out to do, but "No Doubt" was the first episode that felt more like a good episode than just a good idea for an episode. Evie isn't perfect, and it was nice to see the Xavier call her out on trying to take advantage of his fun lifestyle, while trying to hide the parts of him away that she doesn't like. If Evie and Xavier's relationship is going to be compelling beyond just a few episodes, it has to eventually move beyond these two people liking each other because they have fun together. "No Doubt" was a big step in the right direction. It was also nice to see how Xavier's lifestyle started to have an effect on the people in Evie's life. Kareema in particular started to move from "sarcastic best friend" status to being her own individual in this episode, which was nice to see for a character with really strong comedic potential.
Brooklyn Nine-Nine:
Like New Girl, Brooklyn Nine-Nine has had a pretty slow early run of episodes this season. Elements of the Florida based episodes worked, but as a whole the show felt disjointed without having the entire cast together. Leave it to the annual Halloween heist episode to get the show back on track. There's an argument to be made that the show should probably retire this tradition, but if the show can keep making episodes as strong as "Halloween IV," then more power to them. The "surprise" of Gina winning the bet wasn't all that effective because the show did something similar last season with Amy's out of nowhere win. It's something that the show will need to do differently if it does future installments. All of that being said, this episode was a lot of fun. Jake's original plan to steal the plaque by locking everyone out of the lobby and making them watch, was surprisingly ingenious for him. It also led to Holt hilariously smashing through his own office window, to keep Jake from winning. Realistically, Jake should have gotten to keep the plaque after all of that, but Gina still would have pulled one over on him anyway. Diaz's commitment to Amy's detailed plan (down to reading the suggested Babysitter's Club chapters) led to some of the episode's best moments, and took full advantage of a relationship that the show doesn't explore enough. Gina's win wasn't a surprise, but her at least her motivation for winning was different from past years, and her explanation (especially wearing Amy's clothes to hide in plain sight) was a lot of fun.
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