The New Girl gang is getting back together. Well, most of them. Jake Johnson revealed in a recent interview that talks for a reunion are underway, with one notable holdout: Lamorne Morris.
"We're all in besides Lamorne," Johnson told Deadline, suggesting that Morris - who played Winston Bishop across all seven seasons - is playing hardball on his return.
Can you blame him? Morris won an Emmy last year for Fargo, proving he's got serious dramatic chops beyond the lovable weirdo he played on New Girl. He's got leverage now. Why would he rush back to a sitcom role when he's finally being recognized as a legitimate actor?
This raises the larger question: do we actually need a New Girl reunion? The show ran from 2011 to 2018, ending with a perfectly serviceable finale that jumped forward in time to show us where everyone ended up. It wasn't The Sopranos' cut-to-black, but it worked. The story was told.
But this is the era of IP recycling, where every show that had a decent run gets a reunion special or a reboot. Friends did it. The Office is reportedly considering it. Parks and Recreation already did a pandemic special. The appetite is clearly there, even if the creative justification isn't always.
Here's the thing about New Girl: it was a very specific time capsule of early-2010s quirky comedy. The whole "adorkable" aesthetic that Zooey Deschanel's Jess embodied feels dated now - not in a bad way, just in a "that was a moment" way. Can you recapture that without it feeling like cosplay?
