Fans of New Girl know that Nick and Jess were always one of the show’s endgame couples. Whether they love them or hate them together, there was no going back. An even bigger part of the show than their romance, however, is their friendship. No matter how many times Nick references cutting exes out of his life, he and Jess never do that to each other, choosing to find a way to maintain their friendship even after they break up.
Of course, long before they even get together, Nick and Jess continually help each other out of scrapes and awkward situations. Despite them both having other best friends, Nick and Jess are the friends they each need when Jess moves into the loft. They are absolutely friendship goals.
Nick Helps Jess Confront Spencer
In the second episode of the series, after Nick and Jess have only known one another for a few weeks, Nick proves he already knows Jess better than he thinks. He’s the only one able to get through to her when it comes to getting her belongings back from her ex-boyfriend.
After Spencer cheats on Jess, she can’t bring herself to go back to their shared house and clean out the rest of her stuff. Nick is able to help her find anger to overrule her sadness in order to fuel a trip to the house. To be completely fair, Nick really just wants a working television, but he’s the one who is able to help Jess move on when even Cece hasn’t been able to.
Jess Helps Nick Bind His Books
Nick proves to his friends that writing isn’t just a pipe dream, and that he’s smarter than they think, when he completes work on The Pepperwood Chronicles – and Schmidt has no notes. To get Nick’s book onto a publishers’ radar, Jess helps Nick “self-publish.”
That doesn’t mean paying a printer to make a few copies. Instead, she uses her industrial strength craft clue to help him bind copies of books by hand. It’s a ridiculous amount of work, but the two manage to get a handful of books together, and Nick even ends up with several teenage fans who read it.
Nick Encourages Jess To Date Russell
Nick is not a fan of wealthy people. Even his friendship with Schmidt is tested as a result of the latter’s financial security. When Nick goes with Jess to talk to the father of one of her students, he’s completely prepared to hate the other guy. What happens is that Nick realizes just how much Russell has his life together, and he falls for him a little himself.
Nick encourages Jess to get out of her comfort zone and try a relationship with Russell. Sure, that relationship doesn’t work out, but it’s the relationship Jess needs at the time. She needs to figure out what she wants in a partnership, and Nick pushing her to date Russell helps her do that.
Jess Flies Reagan In For Christmas
While Nick and Reagan date, Jess is not the happiest person in the loft. It takes her a while to figure out why, but she essentially shoves her own feelings to the back of her mind to focus on other things.
During an exchange of Christmas gifts, Jess even tries her best to help Nick’s relationship stay solid. She knows how bummed he is that Reagan isn’t there for the holidays, so she flies Reagan out herself, trying to make it a surprise for him.
They Both Admit To Taking Advantage Of Their Friendship
It’s important in a friendship for people to be honest with one another instead of letting resentment grow as a result of things being left unsaid. Nick and Jess find that out firsthand. Before dating, Nick realizes (thanks to Winston) that Jess frequently comes to him for “boyfriend” activities despite them not being together, and asks her to stop.
Jess doesn’t realize she’s doing it until it’s pointed out to her and tries to make an effort to not take advantage of him. Likewise, Jess finds herself treated as the girlfriend when Reagan isn’t in town in season six. She asks Nick and Reagan to stop making her a part of their relationship because it isn’t fair. Nick agrees, not realizing they were doing that to her either.
Nick Helps Jess After She’s Fired
When Jess is fired from her teaching job, she still needs to pay her bills. One of the first jobs she takes is as a shot girl at the bar, though Nick is initially hesitant to give her the job. Nick knows better than the rest of the roommates that it won’t work out well for Jess, and he’s right.
In the middle of giving out shots and dancing on the bar, Jess walked out on the job. Nick doesn’t hesitate to go after her. He finds her in the parking lot of the school, and she’s surprised that he tracked her down so quick, but Nick understands that she needs to say goodbye to the old job. He sits and jokes with her until she’s ready to go back to the loft, completely bailing on bartending for the night.
Jess Sings At Walt’s Funeral
A handful of episodes after Nick kisses Jess for the first time, their friendship is in a confusing place. They both know that they want something else out of their friendship, but aren’t sure how to pursue it. All of that is put on hold when Nick’s father dies and everyone goes to Chicago for his funeral.
Nick’s mother tasks him with actually planning the funeral, and he takes the weight of it all on his shoulders, which worries Jess. When Nick finally cracks under the pressure – getting drunk while finding an Elvis impersonator to appear – Jess takes charge for him. She even suits up as Elvis to sing because she knows that Nick and his mother are adamant about Walt’s love for Elvis.
Nick Sings For Jess When She’s Stood Up
When Jess first shows up at the loft answering Schmidt’s ad for a roommate, Nick isn’t sure he wants her to move in. By the end of the pilot episode, however, he’s ready to admit that he cares about her.
When Nick and the guys discover that Jess has been stood up by her first date since Spencer, Nick is the one who gets them to come to her aid. It’s also Nick who leads the trio in the one song he knows Jess loves thanks to her watching Dirty Dancing on a loop since moving in. He even tries to spare Jess a little embarrassment by telling the waitress that all three of them are her date.
Jess Forces Nick To See A Doctor
Nick Miller doesn’t have health insurance or extra money lying around to pay for things like a visit to a doctor. When he hurts his back during a game of football with Jess and the guys, however, she doesn’t take that as an excuse. Instead, she employs the use of her teacher’s voice to demand that he get in her car so she can drive him to see her friend Sadie, who happens to be an obstetrician and gynecologist.
What follows is Nick discovering that he might have something seriously wrong with him that’s completely unrelated to the bruising on his back. Without Jess (and Sadie giving him free medical advice) he never would have gotten it checked out.
They Save Each Other From Jess’ Student
The first appearance of Nick’s character Julius Pepperwood coincides with Jess teaching a creative writing class. While she’s really proud of the fact that she manages to get one of her (adult) students to use descriptive imagery properly, when Nick reads his story, he worries the student is actually stalking Jess with the intention of killing her.
As the duo investigates that idea, Nick thinks he’s saving Jess, but she ends up showing up at her student’s house thinking she’s saving Nick. While neither of them actually saves the other from a murderer because her student is really just interested in writing a graphic novel, they both make the effort to do so.
