A Really 'New Girl': Megan Fox

Ken Tucker
image

As the grizzled veteran anchoring Fox’s Tuesday-night sitcom line-up, New Girl is having a creatively energetic season; on any given week, it yields as many, of not more, laughs than the shows that follow it: Grandfathered, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, and The Grinder. Even swapping out the show’s star for a little while doesn’t disturb its amusement quotient.

On Tuesday night, New Girl introduces Megan Fox as a potential roommate for the three guys while Zooey Deschanel’s Jess is sequestered on jury duty (aka, takes time off for a real-life six-month maternity leave). Fox enters the show for a five-episode run as Reagan, a pharmaceutical sales rep who’s seen it all when it comes to dealing with men treating her like a sex object. The role both suits Fox and gives her the opportunity to demonstrate skills as a comic actor that have been frequently ignored.

Related: The Best and Worst TV Subs

As a character, Reagan is what you want in a Jess-replacement: Her complete opposite. Where Jess is eccentric, optimistic, and emotionally open, Reagan is skeptical, confident, and sarcastic. The show does a fine job of finding funny gags in a very familiar sitcom trope — guys who are slack-jawed in the presence of a beautiful woman. New Girl even manages to make another, exceptionally tired sitcom set-up — that guys can imagine few things hotter than imagining two women having sex — a clever bit of back-story between Reagan and Cece (Hannah Simone).

To be sure, most of the laughs continue to come from New Girl characters being their neurotic selves, especially Max Greenfield’s Schmidt. Co-owning a bar with Jake Johnson’s Nick has proven to be a good way to showcase anew this character’s brassy fussiness. (My favorite line tonight emanates from an exasperated Schmidt asking, “What in Megyn Kelly’s America are you doing, Nick?!”)

Fox has proven in films such as This Is 40 and Jennifer’s Body that she’s comfortable at delivering poker-faced punchlines and giving good deadpan reaction shots. Tonight she proves she can join an ensemble TV cast with well-established, tight comic rhythms and hold her own with ease.

New Girl airs Tuesday nights at 8 p.m. on Fox.