100 Favorite Shows: #29 — New Girl
“I like getting older. I feel like I’m finally aging into my personality.”
The 2011–12 slate of fall television premieres was initially dire. The direction of network television, comedy or otherwise, had been trending down for years, but only one show in the aforementioned season managed to capture the attention of critics and viewers alike: New Girl. Created by Elizabeth Meriwether and based as a vehicle for the cross-genre talents of Zooey Deschanel (who played the “adorkable” Jessica Day, per the Fox’s marketing team), New Girl evolved over the course of its seven seasons to cement itself as the future of the hangout comedy. Stranger than Friends, more unpredictable than How I Met Your Mother, and as offbeat as Happy Endings, New Girl aired from 2011 to 2018 and is the heir apparent to binge-worthy comedies airing in their entirety on streaming services. New Girl was set in a Los Angeles loft that Jess moved to after breaking up with her boyfriend. There, she met Nick Miller (Jake Johnson), Schmidt (Max Greenfield), and Coach (Damon Wayans, Jr.), who was later replaced by Winston Bishop (Lamorne Morris). Joining their friend group with one of her own, Cece Parikh (Hannah Simone), one of the most delightful ensemble shows of the 2010s was formed.
(Hey girl, whatcha doing reading this essay if you’re against spoilers for New Girl and Parks and Recreation?)
At the outset, New Girl built the foundation of its legacy on the “adorkable” Zooey Deschanel. Initially posited as a series about a grown woman with intimacy issues, a cutesy sense of style, and a quirky relationship with social cues, New Girl was romantically oriented and Jess-obsessed. (Even the original theme song of New Girl featured Jess singing, starring, and dancing, while her three roommates supported her creative wish and unconventional sense of fun by holding up the props for her musical number.) Eventually, though, New Girl became an all-time great television series when it evolved into a hangout ensemble with the supporting characters becoming the best characters on the series by a vast margin.
Don’t get me wrong, I still love Jess more than most seem to. She was a fun, precocious, sheltered character, who always acted like she was the most well-loved child at summer camp. but on New Girl, my favorite character is impossible to decide upon. Every character is so wickedly funny that the title of favorite seemed to vacillate on an episode by episode basis.
Initially the practical best friend of Jess, Cece eventually grew to be a character who loved to celebrate inside jokes and mess-arounds with Winston; she lived her life by a very specific code. Winston grew wackier with each passing season, expressing a love for puzzles, his cat, Ferguson, and the aliases that colored his generally practical joke-laden life. (My favorite alias of his was Retired Rear Admiral Jay Garage-A-Roo.)
As for Nick, he was an absolute mess/old soul with a plummeting credit score, over ten thousand unused minutes on his phone plan, and a short temper. Nick Miller never had any aspect of his adult life together, but he still found time to believe in conspiracies (he hates doors, he thinks it’s crazy that fish breathe water, he’s not entirely sure he knows how to read) and act as Julius Pepperwood, an English student from Chicago.
And, of course, there’s Schmidt, the initial breakout character of New Girl who was perfect from the first frame of New Girl he was on. The metrosexual, cleanliness-oriented breadwinner of the loft, Schmidt possessed immense confidence and myriad firm opinions in equal measure. (When he says, “Schmidt happens,” he’s referring to the misplacement of his “driving moccasins,” the protective nature surrounding his chutney (in classic Schmidt fashion, he pronounces it, “chut-a-ney”), and the bemoaning of the fact that the “economy sucks, bees are dying, and movies are pretty much all sequels now.”) In spite of an initially off-putting personality, Schmidt was revealed to be the kind of friend who would celebrate a tin anniversary with Nick to mark the beginning of their friendship; he just loved him so much.
But between Winston’s goofiness, Schmidt’s particularities (check out one of his best pronunciations below), Cece’s unpredictability, and Nick’s slovenly, disastrous persona, you can see how it’d be impossible to pin down just who was the best character on New Girl.
Granted, New Girl does lean into its cutesy rom-com side on more than one occasion. Nick and Jess’ long-awaited (long-term) hook-up at the end of season six to the tune of Lorde’s “Green Light,” Schmidt and Cece flashing back to one of their earliest moments together before they got engaged and reflected on the turbulent road to arrive there. There was time on New Girl for romance, but for the most part, it was always undercut (to a positive effect) for uproarious laughter.
Yes, Nick and Jess could use their hot chemistry for some pretty shocking kisses and flirtations over the course of the series, but their love was too volatile to last long without a joke. Like when Nick attempts to kiss her with a toothy smile or when their sexual attraction explodes to the point of Nick accidentally shattering Schmidt’s aquarium, to which Nick responds, “I’ll get some paper towels.” Jess counters, “An aquarium the size of a sixth grader just broke and you’re going to get paper towels?”
The hysterics took top priority over the romance and, considering how sparkless it was when Nick and Jess did unite for the majority of season three, it was the right call. New Girl was at its best when it was an incomprehensible screwball comedy of maniacs who constantly screamed at each other. (As the loft’s neighbor (Andree Vermeulen) observed in “Cooler,” “So much weird crap happens in this apartment.”) This side of New Girl’s singular sense of humor Trojan horsed by an accessible premise was first introduced courtesy of their nonsensical drinking game, True American, another subject of “Cooler.”
True American is some combination of Floor Is Lava, Trivial Pursuit (Washington, D.C. Edition), and King of the Hill, but is generally devoid of rules and utterly sequestered for any outsiders. Yet, between the yelling and random, one-off jokes (from the evoking of the Hawley-Smoot Tariff to a game of Hot Potato tossed to the rhythm of “Congress has her healthcare bill!”), it encapsulates all of New Girl’s brilliance, as it drifted closer towards being a show defined by its bizarre ensemble of characters with such wildly disparate personalities that it’s a miracle they all rallied around True American as their friend group’s “thing.” They had to have something in common, I suppose.
The weirdness of New Girl (often betrayed by its later seasons’ opening theme, which looked like an ad for The Gap) was such a treat when the series could’ve been a generic hangout comedy with hot people. “Wedding Eve” alone contains a number of moments that are considered throwaway lines but help contribute to the labyrinth of personality that exists at all times in the loft. It’s an installment that centers around the aftermath of Schmidt and Cece’s rehearsal dinner.
In attendance was Tran (Ralph Ahn), Nick’s “mute friend who cooked dinner for twenty,” as Winston’s girlfriend and police partner, Aly (Nasim Pedrad) refers to him. (He was introduced in season two’s “Menzies,” where Nick guessed that his name was Tran after four attempts at tossing names out into the air. “What a crazy guess!” he laughs, following his acknowledgment that he enjoys Tran’s plain blue hat because it has no logos or words; “it’s just blue.”) Aly, of course, receives food poisoning from Tran’s cooking and wonders why the group even allows him to attend their soirées.
Elsewhere, Winston’s wedding rehearsal toast was said to have contained lines that were in French and entire paragraphs that alluded to the gig economy. (When he leaves the loft to help Aly, he refers to both her body and her “skinbag” as “banging.”) And Schmidt brings his own eccentricities to the party after becoming flustered by the loss of his wedding vows (which took him nine months to write). Then, he tries to spell his name and begins, “S. Jeans.” Quickly, though, he regroups and delightfully squeals, “Jeans is pants!” In that loft, Gore Vidal and Linda Lavin may have spent some time together, but nothing they could have done has a chance to top the antics of the New Girl cast.
One of New Girl’s finest half-hours, “Background Check,” doubles down on this newfound identity. Situated at the outset of season four, “Background Check” pulls off the Herculean effort of returning New Girl to its season two prime by focusing solely on the comedy and committing to the departure (for the time being) away from romance amidst the group. “Background Check” (directed by Lorene Scafaria) manages to accomplish this with a classic “elevator pitch” sitcom premise (Winston’s last obstacle to becoming a cop is a background check by “The Fish” (Cleo King) of his apartment and the roommates in it) that is really about whether or not Winston’s friends believe in his abilities to actually become a police officer or whether they think he shouldn’t be taken seriously.
Not to mention, “Background Check” is just a straight up weird, funny episode that allows every character to be hilarious and completely themselves. Nothing so ordinary would be allowed to transpire on New Girl and the background check quickly devolves into the group trying to dispose of Jess’ bag of “meth” (it’s actually aquarium rocks, but she wouldn’t know the difference) that she obtained from the inside of a flea market ottoman.
They also try to keep the “meth” a secret from both Winston and The Fish, leading to a number of moments that are completely baffling to Winston. For example, when he shows off a potential outfit for the background check, they’re desperate to get him out of the room, so they demand that he change into literally any other clothes. Slightly pained, Winston compares them to rubbing alcohol (“You sting me in the now, but you save me in the later”) and rushes back to his room to change.
Of course, “Background Check” is made even more delightful by the fact that no one in the group is a good liar, nor are they good in a crisis. When first trying to dispose of the meth before Winston returns with The Fish, Jess throws the bag of meth at Coach, causing it to spill all over the living room. Later, Jess attempts to shove the meth down a shower drain, but when Cece shows up, she convinces Jess to try to flush it instead. Coach, completely unprompted, suggests that Winston takes care of an at-risk child named Duquan on Saturdays and then ventures out into the city to find a child who can play Duquan. (This goes about how you’d expect, as Coach tries to lure neighborhood, basketball-playing kids into his car and eventually settles on a day laborer (Marques Ray) to take on the role of Duquan.) The only one who acts fast is Schmidt, who rushes to kiss Cece when she enters the apartment and nearly reveals the entire covert operation.
The worst liar, of course, is Nick, who ends up providing the biggest laughs of the entire episode. Promising he’s a terrible liar, Nick decides to close his eyes, plug his ears, and sing Fleetwood Mac’s “Landslide” to himself while the group hides the meth, so he won’t even be tempted to reveal its location to the head police officer. Later, when Nick begins sweating in abundance because of the lies, he wraps himself in one of Schmidt’s kimonos to hide the sweat stains on his back. However, this also gives The Fish the opportunity to interrogate him alone, prompting Nick to reveal every innocuous secret from his entire life, rather than just the massive one that is the subject of this episode.
- “When I was nine years old, I fed cereal flakes to a frog and it died. Then, I went into a period of time where I fed cereal flakes to all little animals. Squirrels can live through it, chipmunks can live through it. Anything that lives half in and out of water dies and I don’t understand why.”
- “When I was ten, I once walked by my mother sleeping and I snuck in the room and I put a lemon in her mouth.”
- “When I was eleven I once tried on my girl cousin’s wool tights and I didn’t hate the way it felt.”
- “My sixteenth year, I never got an erection. I thought they were done. I thought my penis was dead.”
All ends up well by the end of “Background Check.” Schmidt and Cece have a successful flirtation, Nick keeps the meth secret, and Winston gets to be a cop. Yet, “Background Check” stands out so well in the memory of New Girl because it was primarily concerned with being funny.
It’s hard to even parse which moments of New Girl are the funniest. Nick’s anachronistic vernacular, including the idea that he’s “hot to trot” or “all turned around,” is always amusing, as is his pained, “Gave me cookie, got you cookie” when he professes that Schmidt loves him too much and apologetically weeps for being undeserving it. The ideas of Nick having full-to-the-brim glasses of milk in his bedroom or the group having a separate text chain that excludes Schmidt from their plan to build a treehouse are immaculately conceived of and never returned to. There’s even fun lore-building for the New Girl friend group where they all agree upon the merit of a scheme or some recurring favorite item within their friendship without ever feeling the need to explain it to the audience, like Nick’s delicious “sauce” that he stirs in the background of “Spiderhunt” or the rapid obliteration of Schmidt’s room and belongings when Jess accidentally reveals how many people are living in the loft (Schmidt quickly races by Jess and demands her to, “Call [him] Ginny” when the landlord arrives).
Of course, there’s also a cavalcade of hysterical misunderstandings that result in frustration and confusion on the part of those privy to them.
While Winston is doing a puzzle:
Winston: “What do you think it’s gonna look like?”
Schmidt: “What do I think it’s gonna look like? Winston, the picture’s on the box! It’s a Japanese garden!”
When Schmidt is furious that his towel is always damp because Nick believes it’s his towel:
Schmidt: “How do you think this is your towel? Do you even wash it?”
Nick: “No, I don’t wash the towel. The towel washes me. Who washes a towel? You wash your towel?”
Schmidt: “You never wash your towel?”
Nick: “What am I gonna do? Wash the shower next? Wash a bar of soap? You gotta think here, pal!”
When Cece’s friend, Nadia (Rebecca Reid), laughs at Schmidt for eating a piece of cheese:
Schmidt: “What are you laughing at?”
Nadia: “Cheese. Is for mouse. Are you Mick Mouse?”
Schmidt: “Am I what?”
Nadia: “Why don’t you get in your spaceship like Mick Mouse?”
Schmidt: “What are you talking about?”
Nadia: “Mick Mouse.”
Schmidt: “What is a Mick Mouse?”
Nadia: “Mick Mouse!”
Schmidt: “I don’t understand what a Mick Mouse is!”
Nadia: “Mick Mouse!”
Schmidt: “I don’t. What does that mean? What’s a Mick Mouse?”
Nadia: “Mick Mouse!”
Schmidt: “Are you saying Mickey Mouse?”
Nadia: “Yes.”
Schmidt: “Honey, okay, Mickey Mouse? He’s earthbound.”
When Nick and Schmidt argue over a sweatsuit suit, beard bread, and Hewlett Packard:
Schmidt: “You can’t come up with a good idea being all loosey-goosey.”
Nick: “Why don’t you tell that to Howard Hughes, inventor of the Loose Goose?”
Schmidt: “That was the Spruce Goose and it didn’t work!”
Nick: “It did work! It flew over a mile at an altitude of seventy-two feet!”
Schmidt: “How on Earth do you know that information and not know the name of it?”
When Nick bemoans the Christmas season in “Christmas Eve Eve”:
Nick: “Christmas is just so stressful with the lists and the lines and the dancing girls at TV Town Song Room.”
Schmidt: “TV Town Song Room? Do you mean Radio City Music Hall?”
Nick: “Yeah.”
Schmidt: “How could you get so many things wrong in a row?”
The best misunderstanding, however, is one that cannot be distilled to simple text. It must be experienced. It’s a classic example of the television trope, One Dialogue, Two Conversations, and it’s centered around Jess and Nick in the aforementioned “Spiderhunt.” On the one hand, Jess believes Nick is talking about whether or not he wants to have sex with Cece. On the other, Nick believes Jess is talking about how Cece wants him to buy a popcorn machine for the bar.
As you can see, New Girl often felt like the funniest show, not just on Fox, but on all of television. It’s why I was baffled when, for Entertainment Weekly’s 2013 in Review issue, they gave New Girl’s third season a jeer. Over time, I realized that it was because Nick and Jess’ coupling sucked the life out of the series (even with Nick’s early efforts to make Jess happy going above and beyond what anyone could have expected of him), not because the show didn’t have the capacity to be so hilarious. Many of the exchanges shared above come from later seasons. I’m not sure if EW ever reneged, but when Nick and Jess broke up and Coach’s rare arc (he dipped in and out, due to the similarly funny Happy Endings, which consisted of a different group of “white people,” as New Girl referenced, that he liked to hang out with) was resolved, New Girl returned to its peak. Not many comedies, stories, or people manage to pull off two separate primes. I think solely of Community, the Jurassic Park franchise, sea shanties, and Tom Brady.
By splitting up Nick and Jess, New Girl was able to return to its original conceit, which devoted most of its time to letting the group grow together as friends and roommates, rather than as potential romantic partners. After all, when the show begins, most of them are already friends. But the more time we spent with their antics, the better we understood what their friendships actually entailed, beyond the occasional flashback. Seasons four through six of New Girl were closer to resembling episodes like season two’s “Cooler” than anything from the rockier middle portions of the third arc. In “Cooler,” for example, Jess not only had to learn how to become a better “wingwoman” and fit in with the rest of the group, but the rest of the group also had to learn to fit in better with Jess if they really wanted her as their roommate.
“Cooler” begins with Nick, clad in a woman’s trench coat that was mistakenly delivered to their loft, dancing along with Schmidt, who have both made the decision to have sex that night, as if something for them would be so easily achieved. Eventually, they end up competing for the affections of a woman (Brooklyn Decker), who is initially attracted to how pathetically sad Nick is. (When they first approach her, their competitive nature supersedes their flirtations as they flinch on a dime and tackle one another to the ground.) Ultimately, Schmidt ends up with this woman, Winston (after stammering his way through a confession that he wants more than sex because he’s an over-the-top romantic, but in a sweet way) meets a charming woman named Daisy (Brenda Song), Jess sleeps with her boyfriend, Sam (David Walton), Cece enjoys a date with Shivrang (Satya Bhabha), and Nick ends up alone. None of these people are the eventual endgame romances for the characters of New Girl, but “Cooler” thrived by showing the different dynamics they could have as free-spirited single people getting into mischief. It didn’t have to be building towards that endgame; it didn’t have to be Friends or How I Met Your Mother.
And, frequently, it wasn’t. Liz Meriwether deftly realized when and how to right the New Girl ship and how much allotment to provide to the series’ supporting characters. As funny as they all were, attention still had to be paid to Jess (who could be funny in her own right, of course. Deschanel’s recurring, pseudo-insincere laugh over Jess’ niche humor always tickled me, like when she forced out a chuckle when seeing a photograph of a cat riding a dog like a horse), who is underrated as an anchor for some of New Girl’s loftier comedy goals.
Yet, Jess could be just as hysterical. When she and Cece (as friends, the two had insane chemistry and I still wish they had more to do as a pair in some of the later New Girl installments) get high together during “A Chill Day In,” which focuses on Cece’s bachelorette party, it’s just a ripe canvas for New Girl to paint yet another comedic masterpiece upon.
Their shenanigans begin when a package is delivered to the loft. While it contains a wedding gift for Cece and Schmidt (a bread maker, their first official present), Jess wonders if it the box might contain older versions of herself and Cece. This sort of absurd thinking is compounded by the two enabling one another and eventually destroying the machine.
Of course, Cece feels instantly regretful of this decision, but they don’t make any better ones when they eventually try to return the bread maker to the store for a full refund. There, they run into Aly (and have the same conversation with her twice, having completely forgotten that they ran into her in the parking lot), set off a traumatizing bread making display censor (that sings, “Feel like baking love!” with as grandly hilarious timing as Parks and Recreation’s cast slipping on ice to Gloria Estefan’s “Get on your feet!” lyric), and are apprehended by the cashier (Kat Palardy), who realizes they’re trying to steal a new, display bread maker in place of one they clobbered. The entire episode rests upon the talents of Deschanel, Simone, and Pedrad, essentially, but it’s just as funny as any that centered around Johnson, Morris, and Greenfield.
While New Girl did have its fair share of a greater universe of fun recurring characters (from new roommate Reagan (Megan Fox) to delivery man Bearclaw (Josh Gad) to Jess’ parents (Jamie Lee Curtis and Rob Reiner) to a boyfriend of both Jess’ and Cece’s and a friend of the guys’, Robby (Nelson Franklin), who even writes fanfiction based on Nick’s bestselling “The Pepperwood Chronicles”), the focus was always on the core roommates. We spend the most time with them, of course, but we’re delighted by their particular tics of humor along the way.
Through the flashbacks and cutaways to the characters’ youths, though, we get to understand that, even though the loftmates are developing all the time, they were always the people they became in adulthood. As a child, Nick would scold the neighborhood kids for throwing things onto his lawn. In college, Schmidt would dance with an endearing goofiness. While walking down the street, Jess would eagerly go along with any candy van that pulled up alongside her. The late-twenties, early-thirties versions of the New Girl characters were always who they were meant to become. But as the series wound to its eventual conclusion, it couldn’t deny that it was getting well past time to grow up a little bit. It’s funny to act like total messes, yes, but at a certain point the behavior passes into diminishing returns on charm and becomes slightly depressing.
New Girl never allowed this to happen. (For example, even in “Background Check,” there is a moment when Coach suggests that his perfect weekend outlet strategy is to start with a smoothie, shop for pants, shorts, socks, and shoes, and then wrap up with a pretzel. The entire group agrees that it sounds legitimately fun and, as I’ve gotten older, I can also see that it really does seem enjoyable.) As it grew closer to the eventual conclusion of the series, New Girl made a number of strides to positioning its characters well for the future we wouldn’t get to see, considering they wouldn’t all be together in the loft anymore.
We finally get the reveal of Schmidt’s first name, for example. (I was never sure if it was his first or last name that we didn’t know throughout the series, just as I was never entirely sure if Schmidt was supposed to be a heartthrob character or not.) After six seasons of innocuous mystery, it seemed impossible that any name could live up to the anticipation. Yet, when he slides his name plate across his desk and demands to be called Winston Schmidt, it was somehow gloriously satisfying. (It’s a seriously perfect name to choose.)
And, of course, by the final season, the life-altering decisions are put in motion for the characters in an arc that consisted of just eight episodes. With a three year time skip, Schmidt and Cece have moved out of the loft to raise their daughter, Ruth (Danielle and Rhiannon Rockoff). Winston and Aly have also departed. Nick and Jess are on a globetrotting book tour and making preparations of their own to leave the nest. And yes, Schmidt has a mustache. It’s an abbreviated final season that’s mostly concerned with character development and resolution over insanely funny moments, but it still provides the palpable sense of a new phase of life that the characters are entering into. They’ll still have their fun (the series finale concludes with a flashforward of the group playing True American with their kids, some of whom sport Chicago Bears jerseys), but the eras in their lives where they hung out together and became each other’s families are over. Yes, it’s bittersweet, but it’s also the right trajectory for any group of friends exiting that act of their lives.
As early as “Wedding Eve,” though, New Girl was headed in this direction. With Schmidt and Cece on the precipice of becoming the first to marry, it was clear that their lives were changing positively, but also irrevocably. Having lost his vows (“No, different vows,” Schmidt quips to both Nick and Winston when they ask if he lost his wedding vows, but neither understand his sarcasm), Schmidt decides that the best gift he can give Cece is the presence of her mother at their ceremony. Elsewhere, Jess decides that, even though Sam is “objectively marriable,” she doesn’t want to commit to him; Sam believes that’s because she still has feelings for Nick.
Both of these sobering, sentimental, grandiose moments play out to Langhorne Slim & The Law’s song, “Changes,” which contains lyrics that seem to explicitly point to the growth the characters of New Girl are undergoing.
“Things could be stranger, but I don’t know how
I’m going through changes now.
I’ve spent a lifetime trying to figure it out.
I’m going through changes now.
And I’ve just begun
Under a purple sun.
There’s so many reasons we are what we become.
I’m going through changes, ripping out pages,
I’m going through changes now.”
It is daunting to begin making the necessary decisions and changes that equip you for the rest of your life. It’s so much more comfortable to hang out with your friends in a comfortable environment where you can play drinking games, crawl across window ledges, and live out the actions you can only do when you’re young and living in a loft with your friends. But eventually, when you navigate the desperate love lives and career goals (or lack thereof) of your thirties, there has to be an eventual destination. It can be scary, but New Girl showed us that there’s a way to find time for your past and your present and your future, your family and your friends, if they’re even distinguishable by that point.
Season two’s farcical “Quick Hardening Caulk” features quotes aplenty that show that group was always at least a little prepared for the day the loft would eventually stop being home base for them all. When Nick begins to take more responsibility for his life, it, in turn, arouses Jess, who demands that Nick leave any room they’re in together for the sake of her fidgeting affections. “Why are you being so mean to me?!” he calls out, leaving the bathroom when Jess scoffed over his interest in using an iron.
Later, Nick celebrates the idea of more household chores that illustrate his growing adulthood when he remarks to Jess, “I’m still figuring it out, but I’m really excited about laundry.” And when Nick begins dating his boss, Shane (Odette Annable), who is attracted to the fact that when she kisses Nick, she gets dirt on her face, he leans over the bar and admits, “I know this isn’t gonna end well, but the whole middle part’s gonna be awesome.”
It’s a tri-pronged episode of self-awareness for Nick. He has no idea how to do a simple chore, but he’s trying. He’s acting responsible, but can still have fun and still be Nick. He’s dating someone who’s bad news for him, but he’s ready to just enjoy the ride. In a way, that’s exactly what the cast of New Girl seemed to do. Johnson is a member of the Mumblecore scene and boasts incredible vocal talents; Deschanel was a star even before New Girl; Greenfield has effortlessly moved between genres; Morris and Simone are too funny to not be A-list comedic actors by now. But even though each of them could’ve prioritized their bankable talents over the fact that they were locked into a sitcom for seven years, they never flinched.
New Girl was fun for all of them and the friendships continue to endure now, even though the series has been off the air for two years by now. Those two years went by fast, but so did the show and so will the time in our lives when we can emulate the hangout dreams of our favorite ensemble, friendship-based sitcoms. We’re all going through changes all the time, but that’s just what makes the times when we can call out, “FDR!” in response to another’s “JFK!” and then slam down a solo cup worth it. It’s just a game, sure, but it’s also played among friends, who are one of the reasons we are what we become.
