I have more complicated feelings about Nick and Jess's relationship than I do about Schmidt and Cece's. In fact, by the end of writing this, you will see that I actually have quite a few problems with their relationship dynamic. The show acknowledges those problems and has them work through them, but I'm just not sure if it's enough.
When they first meet, Jess (Zooey Deschanel) has just gotten out of a long-term relationship with a guy named Spencer (Ian Wolterstorff); their break-up and her need to quickly find a new place to live, in fact, is what prompts her move into the loft with the guys and sets up the whole series. Nick has just gotten out of a long-term relationship with a woman named Caroline (Mary Elizabeth Ellis), who he will get back together with briefly at the end of the first season. Neither Nick nor Jess is really looking to date, and dating your roommate isn't ideal, anyway, so they become friends. It's clear fairly early on that they care a lot about each other-- they both consistently go out of their way to help each other and do nice things for each other-- and that they have a lot of chemistry which, early on, channels itself into heated arguments. Eventually, however, they dip their toes into dating other people. Jess dates a music teacher named Paul (Justin Long) and an older, wealthy divorced man named Russell (Dermot Mulroney). Nick dates a lawyer named Julia (Lizzy Caplan) and a stripper named Angie (Olivia Munn). None of these relationships last.
The reason that Jess's relationship with Russell doesn't last hints that she would be better off with Nick, but also made me question what she values in a relationship. Jess becomes friendly with Russell's ex-wife, Ouli (Jeanne Tripplehorn), and the three of them have dinner together one night. Russell and Ouli get into a heated argument about nothing, really-- the point is just that the two of them really push each other's buttons. As the two of them argue, Jess looks jealous, almost, and she later laments that she and Russell don't have the same passion for each other. "Yeah. They got divorced, though," I think to myself. Passion and chemistry are important, of course, but being constantly at each other's throats isn't a great thing or sustainable in the long-term, and passion and chemistry all on their own aren't enough to sustain a relationship. She breaks up with Russell because she feels that there is something missing, and her feelings for Nick are eventually the main cause of her break-up with her next boyfriend, Sam (David Walton).
Even though it's obvious from pretty much the beginning that Nick and Jess are "end game," all of this is a little frustrating to watch as a viewer at least partly because, with a couple of noteworthy exceptions, Jess tends to date really great guys throughout the show, many of whom she could ostensibly be happy with. I guess that's fairly true to life; yeah, sometimes relationships end because one person cheats or does something really awful, but in my experience, it's more common for them to end (or just not get off the ground in the first place) because one person's heart isn't in it, or one person wants things to move more quickly than the other person is comfortable with, or lack of compatibility, or lack of chemistry, or unresolved feelings for someone else. That's why relationships are hard; it's not that everything has to be perfect, but a whole lot of things have to be right, and both people have to be okay with the things that aren't right.
That's also why Nick and Jess, when they do inevitably get together, are less fun to watch than Schmidt (Max Greenfield) and Cece (Hannah Simone). Schmidt is the type of guy who Goes Big, carrying out an elaborate plan to sabotage Cece's wedding to Shivrang (Satya Bhabha); nearly getting kicked out of a first-class airport lounge defending her honor when a wealthy older man suggests an Indecent Proposal scenario; and dropping to one knee and proposing on the spot when she finally admits she loves him at the end of Season Four. Nick is less comfortable with his emotions, and he never seems to know what he wants.
Further, through much of the series, he doesn't have his life together in ways that would probably have more severe consequences if he didn't have good people in his life looking out for him. Nick and Jess kiss for the first time in Season Two and date through most of Season Three. Their inevitable break-up is foreshadowed in a couple of key Season Three episodes, "The Box" and "Thanksgiving III." In "The Box," Nick, who never has any money, inherits eight thousand dollars from his late father and seems determined to blow through it as quickly as possible. Jess is concerned about this, and even moreso when she discovers that he has a box full of unpaid bills and traffic tickets in his closet. He won't hear of using the money to pay those bills, so Jess secretly starts using his money to pay them on his behalf. When he finds out, he is furious, and it turns into a "Stop trying to change me! You're not perfect, either!" thing where he literally starts throwing her purses out the window. The whole episode is infuriating; I mean, yeah, you can't really take someone's money secretly even if it's to pay that person's bills for them, but other than that, Nick is OBJECTIVELY in the wrong here. And even though Nick eventually lets Jess help him set up a checking account, she, sort of throwing him a bone or whatever, goes on a rant in the bank all, "Why do we have to keep our money in banks? Banks are a conspiracy to keep tabs on our money!," which I think we're supposed to think is sweet and a sign that she's willing to compromise in their relationship, but comes across as patronizing, and as enabling genuinely crazypants behavior.
In "Thanksgiving III," Nick decides that the whole gang should go camping for Thanksgiving. No one really likes the idea, but Jess talks them into it. Nick is supposed to take charge of the food, but when they get there, they discover that he has packed only beer and intends for them to "live off the land." Again: this is genuinely insane. Not only does Nick have no idea how to hunt or fish, but I can tell you right now that people who DO know how to hunt and fish take other food with them when they camp. Also, there is a Bob's Burgers episode with a similar plot, meaning that Nick officially enters cartoon dad territory in this episode, only on Bob's Burgers, Linda and the kids react like normal human beings, tell Bob he's being ridiculous, and hit up some fellow campers for some supplies. Jess, on the other hand, enables this genuinely insane behavior by insisting everyone else go along with it. When she discovers that Winston (Lamorne Morris) and Cece plan to go to town to buy food (as any rational people would in this scenario), she goes with them and insists that they only buy things that they ostensibly could have found in the forest. AND NICK BELIEVES THEM UNTIL HE SEES A STICKER ON AN APPLE, as if forests are just full of all types of fresh fruits and vegetables. And Jess actually FEELS BAD about lying to him, eats a fish that he reveals that he actually just found, didn't catch fresh or anything, and literally winds up in the hospital. At this point, we realize that their dynamic has become Jess going along with Nick's ridiculous bullshit in the name of seeming supportive, all the while going behind his back to try to mitigate the damage. It's not a good dynamic. At all.
(Side note: this is one of many times throughout the series that I worry that there is something genuinely wrong with Nick. This is a character who supposedly got into and attended law school, yet sometimes he says and does things that are so stupid or childish or crackpot that I'm convinced that the only reason that he is even still alive is that he's had Schmidt taking care of him for basically their entire adult lives. And this is who we're supposed to want the main character to end up with.)
Because this is, for the most part, a well-written and smart show, eventually Nick and Jess realize that they don't have a healthy dynamic. He constantly feels like she is trying to change him. She constantly feels like she is having to nag him just to get him to behave rationally and responsibly. So they break up, because when you're just friends, it's really not your problem if one of your friends doesn't want to pay his bills, and you can just say no if they invite you on an insane camping trip with no food (although, honestly, the whole gang puts up with more of Nick's dumb crap than they really should). Nick does some growing up over the next few seasons, eventually (with Schmidt's help) buying a share of the bar he works at and then, later, writing a book that winds up being unexpectedly popular with pre-teen girls, which leads to the creation of a successful young adult series. When he and Jess eventually do get back together, you at least aren't worried about her...though, to be honest, Nick still seems like a lot of work to be with, and I still found myself wondering if she wouldn't have been better off with basically any one of the perfectly nice guys that she dates over the course of the show. She gets back together with Sam for awhile. She has the chance to get back together with Russell. She always chooses Nick. I guess the heart wants what it wants. But, as they say on another very good show, You're the Worst, sometimes the heart is a dumb-dumb.
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