New Girl Characters, Ranked

The Twins are depressing right now. You read this site every day. You know this. The AL Central is actually more depressing, in that no one can do any better. I need a break from thinking about this entire enterprise. So do you.

With that in mind, I’m ranking the main six characters on the sitcom New Girl, which ran on Fox from 2011 to 2018, in ascending order. If you'd rather read about Emilio Pagan's struggles one more time, that's between you and your creator.

6. Coach. Played by Damon Wayans, Jr., Coach was in the pilot episode before Wayans left for a role on Happy Endings, which is one of the best sitcoms of the last 25 years. Stream that thing. Anyway, after it was canceled, Coach returned to New Girl in the third season and appeared off and on for the rest of the show’s run. He’s fine. He’s perfectly fine. But it felt like the show had already established a rhythm with the five main cast members and he was just getting thrown in because, well, he’s available. If he hadn’t been a pre-existing character, it would have felt like Poochie.

5. Jessica “Jess” Day. The titular New Girl. This might be controversial. But the truth, as is often said, can’t be controversial. Her choice in romantic partners was suspect! I don’t know if she was actually a good educator! The glasses were a bit much! I’m knocking her down an entire spot for marrying one of the Property Brothers in real life.

4. Schmidt. A wonderfully over-the-top performance by Max Greenfield. Sometimes they really overplayed the “I used to be heavy but I’m skinny now here’s a fat suit flashback” thing like they did with Monica on Friends, but other than that, no complaints. Any other show, he’s far and away the MVP. Great ensemble.

3. CeCe. Schmidt’s on-again, off-again model girlfriend. Beat Prince at table tennis. Most (only?) self-aware person on the show. Her Russian model friend stole every scene she was in.

2. Winston Bishop. Winnie the Bish. First ballot hall of fame, sitcom Agents of Chaos (Cosmo Kramer, the Rev. Jim Ignatowski, Charlie Kelly, Ava on Abbott Elementary, Jonah from Veep). Sabotaged CeCe’s wedding by putting a badger in the ductwork.

1. Nick Miller. The best of all of us. An absolutely beautiful idiot. I would take a bullet for Nick Miller. His pronunciation of “wi-fi” is a better joke than you’ll find in entire seasons of Saturday Night Live. I’d argue that Jess didn’t deserve him but frankly, none of us did. Jake Johnson shouldn’t have to work a real job the rest of his life.

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