"The Right Thing" is the 19th episode of New Girl's fourth season.
Jess and Coach crash a funeral of a guy they barely knew so she can erase a sext she sent him, Schmidt tries to get his bar mitzvah money from his visiting mother so he and Nick can buy a stake of the bar, and Winston tries to befriend Aly.
Tropes in this episode:
- As Himself: Pro football player J.J. Watt shows up at the funeral, since he was a client of the deceased.
- Compromising Call: Variant. In an attempt to find Pete's phone, Jess calls it...only for it to go off in his girlfriend's hands, revealing his sext and blowing their whole ruse.
- Continuity Nod: The $10,000 they won in "Swuit" makes up half of the money Nick and Schmidt need to buy a stake in the bar.
- Dramatic Irony: Schmidt's mom Louise runs into Cece at the salon. Louise offers to introduce Cece to her son, but Cece refuses as she's already in love with someone else. The audience knows they are both talking about Schmidt.
- Dumped via Text Message: Variation, J.J. Watt fired Pete over text message. It's still treated as humiliating and J.J. tries to find the phone to get rid of the text.
- Good Cop/Bad Cop: Winston and Aly when using police equipment to get Schmidt to remember the attendees at his bar mitzvah. Winston (good) plays the video and encourages him to remember, then Aly (bad) slams her hands down and yells at him to remember. It works.
- Irrevocable Message: Two: Jess sent Pete a sext, and J.J. Watt fired him over text. Both scheme to find the phone and delete these incriminating messages, but fail.
- Overly Long Gag: When Winston asks her to hang out after work, Aly makes a series of contemplative facial expressions and noises for a really long time before settling on a flat "no."
- Shiksa Goddess: Louise jokes that she wouldn't let her son date Cece as she isn't Jewish. Not that this stops Schmidt himself.
- Somebody Doesn't Love Raymond: After Louise rebuffs the sprightly and amiable Jess's attempts at befriending her, Jess says she now won't be able to sleep until they are best friends.
- Stylistic Suck: The impromptu "sports food" songs Coach, Jess, and J.J. Watt come up with are hilariously bad. Hot dogs...
- Title Drop: Jess justifies her presence at the funeral as "the right thing to do".
