New Girl Season 7 Episode 7 and 8: The Curse of the Pirate Bride & Engram Pattersky Reviews

If you would like to read my review of last episode, click here.

Synopsis: Jess and Nick make two life-changing decisions and Winston and Aly’s big day arrives (1). Then, the gang takes a tour down memory lane, which includes a final round of “True American.” (2) (TVGuide)

Writers: Ann Kim and Dave Finkel (1) & Brett Baer and Elizabeth Meriwether (2)

Directors: Josh Greenbaum & Erin O’Malley

Rating: TV-PG

Running Time: 44mins (2x22mins)

Airs: Tuesdays at 9:30 pm on Citytv (Canada)/FOX (United States)

“The Curse of the Pirate Bride”starts off with Nick and Jess’ engagement party where his two best men, Schmidt and Winston, decide to roast him. Nick and Jess discuss their plans for the evening and Nick’s disinterest in staying over at Schmidt’s. The next morning, Jess’ mom (Jamie Lee Curtis) walks in on Nick and Jess sleeping together and says it’s a curse on the wedding, but Jess doesn’t care. She doesn’t believe in curses and decides to test fate every way she can. As Nick leaves to walk Mario, Jess falls onto the floor and injures her eye.

Cece, Aly, Ruth and Jess’ mom try to convince her that the eye-patch accessory isn’t too bad while Aly starts to have some mild contractions. On the roof where the ceremony is set to happen, Nick has a heartfelt moment with Chang while Jess’ dad (Rob Reiner) chastises the best men for their terrible toast. Nick finds his publicist and talks shop, but a bird poops on his shoulder continuing the wedding curse. Cece confronts Aly about her contractions, but she doesn’t want to ruin Jess’ day. Jess’ mom continues on about the wedding curse bringing her a bunch of eviction letters and suggests they get high to clear their minds. Cece walks in on Jess, with a googly-eyed eye-patch as she shoves fistfuls of cake into her mouth.

Cece tries to manage Jess the situation, but Russell arrives followed by Aly who is in labour. Cece follows Aly to make sure she’s okay leaving Russell in charge of Jess. Winston and Schmidt apologize to Nick for their terrible toast when he opens up about believing his wedding is cursed and they try to talk him off the ledge. They tell him to convince his publicist to publish The Chicago Hobo, but instead he fires Nick leaving him jobless. Aly is in denial that she is in labour, but Cece convinces her that she needs to go to the hospital while Russell tries to persuade Jess to leave Nick for him because he is still in love with her.

The guys try to find Jess in the loft where they run into Ruth, who is supposed to keep everyone out. She reveals that Jess is out on the stairs with someone. Russell talks about how they are so unsure of this relationship and that he is the right one for her until Nick, Schmidt and Winston tackle him on the steps and start a fight on the floor below. As things are about to get ugly, Cece and Aly arrive to announce she’s in labour stopping everyone from ruining their suits. They all rush downstairs, steal the honeymoon limo and head to the hospital.

Everyone rushes out of the limo into the hospital as Jess makes amends with Russell. He looks in the rearview and sees Chang still sitting in the back when he mutters one word: Drive. Jess and Nick sit in the waiting room and reminiscence about everything that went wrong that day. She pulls out the valet tickets that Russell gave her and tears them up because they want a crazy, weird life together. Winston comes out to reveal that Aly is in labour that should take around 13 hours putting the wedding plans on hold. Except they aren’t a regular couple and decide to have the ceremony in the hospital. Nick pulls her eye-patch up revealing a very nasty bruise before pushing it back down to kiss her. The episode ends with Winston and Aly’s baby being born as he reveals the name to be Dan Bill Bishop.

“Engram Pattersky”starts off with a one-month time jump as Nick and Jess contemplate how they are going to share some bad news. They make a three-way call with the other couples to share something important, but Jess can’t bring herself to say it over the phone. They bring Cece, Schmidt and Winston over to bring up the eviction notice and that they need to leave the loft in 24 hours. Jess tells them to make peace with the loft leaving their lives, but after no one seems terribly upset she locks them in and forces them to celebrate the life of the loft. Nick pulls them aside to tell the group to just follow what Jess does to please her while they pack. Schmidt notices a box labelled Gross Stuff that Nick seems very secretive about. They are interrupted by Jess who has rearranged the loft to put on display many objects from their past in an attempt to elicit some emotions.

The group thanks Jess for saving all of these memories and hope that by playing along they can leave, but she wants to do everything they haven’t done before. She makes them all go out onto the balcony, Cece’s cleans the oven, they look at the mysterious empty hallway on the end of the apartment and Cece and Jess need to use the urinals. Nick returns to his room to find Schmidt going through the box of Gross Stuff. It’s years and years of lotions that Schmidt gifted Nick that started the foundation of their friendship prompting Schmidt to question everything about their bromance. Schmidt lets slip that they were just playing along with Jess’ game and she confronts them about their lack of attachment to the place they all met.

She goes to pack on her own when they all barge in and say they are going to celebrate this loft all day. Ecstatic, Jess breaks out into the show’s title song with a twist. They move around the loft as they remember various hilarious moments they had together until they notice Nick has left. He’s sitting on the floor of his office with all the lotions discussing his memories with Schmidt and ends up using the lotion to prove his friendship. In the end, he finally says what Schmidt has been waiting to hear: I love you man. As Jess thinks they have finally done everything to celebrate the life of the loft, the group stands and shout out JFK prompting the last game of True American.

They start the game with a twist: it’s packing edition. They jump, run and do all sorts of shenanigans around the loft when a time jump occurs showing the group playing the game in the future with all of their kids. It returns to present day where the group has finished packing. They load up the truck when on the back of it appears an image of Winston with the caption Gotcha! He reveals the eviction notice was a long-game, elaborate prank. The episode ends as the gang get into the moving truck and drive off down the road, away from this chapter of their lives.

Overall, this was a decent hour-long finale to not only this season, but the series as a whole. These final two episodes tie up many of the storylines set up throughout the series as the group close this chapter of their lives with the help of some familiar faces. The first half brought us not only the conclusion of the series-long Jess and Nick relationship, but the season-long pregnancy of Aly and Winston allowing the final episode to focus on a resolution for these characters. The second half in turn showed the original group reminiscing about their lives together and how important their familial bond is. The hour-long finale may not be one complete narrative, but the comedic moments are bountiful with tons of laugh out loud jokes showcasing some of the show’s best running gags helping this show to finish on a satisfying conclusion to this group’s story.

Score:
The Curse of the Pirate Bride: 7.5/10
Engram Pattersky: 7/10

What did you think of the two-part series finale? Did it end the way you expected? Was it a satisfying ending to this seven season show? Let me know in the comments below!

If you liked this, check out my other reviews here and my website! Don’t forget to follow me on Twitter and like me on Facebook.

Dylan Phillips