As one of the funniest sitcoms during its run from 2011 to 2018, New Girl held its own among the competition by boasting many hilarious characters, situations, and interactions, as well as the friend group dynamic as a whole. Due to the sheer amount of funny character moments, it’s easy for one character to get lost in the shuffle. Despite consistently being the funniest characters on the show, Winston (Lamorne Morris) doesn’t get nearly as many storylines or screen time as he deserves.
As a character not introduced in the pilot, Winston arrives late to the game. However, seven episodes in particular highlight Winston’s character in hilarious and captivating ways, cementing him as New Girl’s secret best character.
“Bells” (Season 1, Episode 7)
When Jess (Zooey Deschanel) asks to use the loft space as a practice room for her bell band full of troubled teenagers, Winston shows some natural musical talent by showing off with the instruments. What begins as a friend helping a friend grows into a hilariously tense situation in which Winston’s competitive side comes out (an occurrence that happens from time to time). His intensity proves to be too much pressure for Jess and the kids until Winston eventually finds a good balance between “winning” at something and having fun.
This early episode takes the opportunity to show off both Winston’s strengths and weaknesses in a fun way, highlighting his musical affinity and his competitive nature at the same time, as he becomes a role model for the teenagers and gives them the motivation to turn their school punishment into something productive and fun. It doesn’t hurt that “Eye of the Tiger” sounds fantastic on bells.
"Injured" (Season 1, Episode 15)
It’s no secret that Nick (Jake Johnson) doesn’t take very good care of himself; in fact, it’s a running joke in the series. But this gag becomes far more serious when Nick injures himself during a game of football and Jess forces him to see a doctor – who tells him that he might have cancer. The night before Nick’s next appointment, the gang comes together to worry and to support their friend, eventually devolving into a sad and drunken celebration of life, during which Winston takes command of the bar’s piano and sings “the saddest song in the world” in Nick’s honor.
Everyone is seriously concerned about Nick’s upcoming appointment, especially Winston and Schmidt (Max Greenfield), who can’t bear the thought of losing their friend. Their worries, however, are expressed through humor and song, making for a heartwarming but ultimately funny night of camaraderie. Walking such a fun line between tones (tense/dramatic and funny) is made possible in large part to Winston’s contributions and musical skills.
“Re-Launch” (Season 2, Episode 1)
Thanks to Schmidt throwing what he calls a “rebranding” party, Winston gets the rare opportunity to pressure Nick into making fancy “girly” drinks for him. Winston isn't typically the most open about what he feels or wants and often feels embarrassed for admitting things that he thinks contradict his manly and competitive image, but because Nick’s fancy drinks are too good to pass up, Winston has no qualms about getting weird while he indulges in a drink that’s considered to be girly. And with just one sip, Winston’s weirdness steals not just the scene, but the whole episode.
"Neighbors" (Season 2, Episode 4)
When Schmidt takes his pretentious attitude too far, Nick decides to use his expert mischief skills to play a series of pranks on him. While Schmidt tries his best to fit in with the cool young neighbors across the hall, Nick continually crafts the perfect pranks to make his buddy feel old – and Winston wants in. Unfortunately for him, Winston tends to take pranks way too far by either thinking of nonsensical tricks or getting way too intense (with the strange habit of wanting to hit people with skis).
Through a series of strange but somehow inspiring events, Winston finds the motivation to shoot for the stars and lands a nice new job. He may not have any talent for pranking, but he does find a way to hold onto his passion with a death grip (like Nick does with pranks), somehow turning his failure to prank into a positive life change. And at the end of the episode, he even gets to hit Schmidt with a ski. Dreams do come true.
"Menzies" (Season 2, Episode 7)
Following Jess’s unfortunate and sudden loss of her job, she struggles to pay rent and find a new job, all while she has to deal with PMS at the worst possible time. She isn’t the only one to suffer, though. Despite Winston being relegated to the background of this episode, he steals the spotlight by developing a case of sympathy PMS (which he calls “the menzies”) and believes he is synched up with Jess’s time of the month.
The only thing funnier than Winston’s strange claim is how seriously he takes it, mimicking Jess’s worst mood swings and even borrowing her immature vocabulary. At one point, they sit together on the couch with blankets and Twizzlers and bond over their shared monthly problems. Though the focus of the episode is on Jess’s job search, Schmidt’s attempts to forget about Cece (Hannah Simone), and Nick’s search for inner peace, Winston’s fear and eventual acceptance of his condition create the perfect amount of silliness to top off a hilarious episode.
“Bathtub” (Season 2, Episode 10)
Following Jess’s tempting pitch to buy a bathtub for the loft, Winston is interested despite Nick and Schmidt’s votes against it. In secret, he hatches a plan with Jess to buy the tub and hide it on the roof for secret baths. Of course, the situation gets out of hand when the tub leaks water and damages the loft, so Winston suggests faking a robbery for the insurance money to cover their mistake, leading to situation after situation that escalate far beyond the typical ramifications of buying a secret bathtub.
Winston’s admission that he likes taking bubble baths despite his masculine image is embarrassing for him, but Jess is the most accepting person to confess to. When he begins to buckle under the pressure of their secrets and schemes, Jess helps him to realize that the fits of “willies” he’s been having since he was a kid are actually panic attacks, following a prevalent trend for Winston in the show: he often doesn’t realize that habits and traits that seem weird to him are actually quite normal. Despite how funny the situation becomes, this episode is one of the first to start Winston down the path of self-discovery.
"All In" (Season 3, Episode 1)
With Jess and Nick take a trip to Mexico in the hopes of reaffirming their feelings for each other, and Schmidt freaking out over having to choose between his girlfriend and Cece, Winston is having a journey of his own: he has decided to do a puzzle. Amidst all the craziness happening around him, Winston takes a laid-back approach to the episode and enjoys his quiet activity despite being very bad at it. Toward the end of the episode, he and the others realize that he is colorblind, which partly explains how he could possibly be so terrible at building puzzles.
While the emotional beats of the story lie elsewhere, Winston becomes a pillar of calmness for the gang, refusing to be taken aback by anything, even learning about his own color blindness. Just as he realized that the “willies” are actually panic attacks in an earlier episode, this time he learns that his inability to build puzzles stems from a normal condition that he never even knew he had. His quick and almost passive acceptance of this part of himself shows how much he’s grown from the self-conscious person he used to be in previous seasons. And who doesn’t love a good puzzle?