Prince (New Girl)
In the episode, best friends Jess Day (Zooey Deschanel) and Cece Parikh (Hannah Simone) are invited to a party held at Prince's house.
After learning that New Girl had secured the post-Super Bowl XLVIII timeslot, writers and producers began preparing an episode that would attract newcomers to the show, as well as creating something special for regular viewers.
It also features guest appearances from baseball player Clayton Kershaw and models Alessandra Ambrosio, Ana Beatriz Barros and Lais Ribeiro.
Jess Day (Zooey Deschanel) and her best friend Cece (Hannah Simone) are invited to a party held at Prince's house.
Outside the house, Nick and Schmidt watch on as their roommates Winston Bishop (Lamorne Morris) and Coach (Damon Wayans, Jr.) use an improv story to gain entry to the party.
[5] Meriwether told O'Connell that near to the time Fox gave New Girl the post-Super Bowl spot, Prince's team also enquired about him making a guest appearance during the third season, and they decided to write the episode around him.
[7] Eventually the writers, Rob Rosell and Dave Feeney, scripted an episode that would see the characters attending a party at Prince's house, where he would help Jess and Nick say "I love you" for the first time.
[6] In a piece for Vulture, Meriwether recalled that Prince was pleased that he would be the person who helps get Jess and Nick to admit how they truly felt about each other.
[6] Meriwether explained that Fox had asked that the episode ended with a scene at the apartment, so she had Nick and Jess declare their love for one another in the bathroom.
[6] Meriwether said the episode was "a big milestone" for Nick and Jess romantically, and that the storyline would continue to play out during the rest of the season.
[8] Filming took place in December 2013, and "Prince" became one of the most expensive episodes of New Girl to be shot, as a house needed to be rented out and new sets built.
[6] The episode featured cameo appearances from baseball player Clayton Kershaw,[10] and models Alessandra Ambrosio, Ana Beatriz Barros and Lais Ribeiro.
[16] In its original American broadcast on February 2, 2014, "Prince" was viewed by 26.3 million viewers, according to Nielsen Media Research, making it the most watched-episode of New Girl.
New Girl became the highest rated scripted entertainment telecast on television in three years, since Fox's post-Super Bowl episode of Glee, "The Sue Sylvester Shuffle".
Marc Hogan of Spin found the humour around "characters inexplicably fainting" to be "a bit too FOX sitcom-y", but he called Prince's appearance "pure gold".
[16] Lanford Beard from Entertainment Weekly also praised Prince's appearance, in particular describing the makeover scenes "deliciously understated" and "a nice counterpart to New Girl's frequently over-the-top comedy".
[21] Chris Morgan of Paste felt that while the episode "certainly wasn't the greatest", it was "a strange, fabulous moment in the history of the series, and also a testament to the kind of life Prince chose to live.
[23] Similarly, IGN UK's Max Nicholson thought some elements of the episode were "a stretch" and found the plot to be "a little tedious".
[26] He felt Prince improved the plot and added that his involvement in Nick and Jess's romance was "a new spin on a storyline that countless other TV shows and movies have tried out.
