Big Guy Busts A Move
As is the case with many technological advancements, the rule regarding fat suits and related fat prosthetics on TV should, almost always, be "Just because you can doesn't mean you should." Because it is so rare for people to appear on TV -- or anywhere in pop culture, really -- who are legitimately of a size others must use fat suits to achieve, producers are seldom very good at writing material for fake-fat characters to perform that isn't offensive or at least condescending. You know, "[Currently Thin Character] used to be a fat load who couldn't stop eating/couldn't buy flattering clothes/couldn't attract any sexual interest, har har!" So when New Girl went down the fat-suit road with Schmidt, I had concerns.
Fat (Suit) Schmidt (Max Greenfield) has appeared at various points over the show's nearly two seasons, mostly to show the viewer how the formerly shy, awkward character of yore chiselled himself down into the overconfident peacock we know today. Even as Schmidt is directly confronting his own personal history by reconnecting with Elizabeth (Merritt Wever), his college girlfriend for a matter of several years, a lot of the humour of those scenes has derived from how inherently ridiculous it is that Schmidt, in his "Big Guy" days, would have sexual desires -- and, by extension, how ridiculous Elizabeth is for being interested in fulfilling them. I mean, the over-lubrication scene in last week's episode, "Virgins," would have been funny even if it had featured a person of average weight, but add in Nick (Jake Johnson) being crushed under Schmidt's girth and the whole thing gets into cringey territory.
The latest episode, however, turns a promising corner. The point of Schmidt's reunion with Elizabeth has been for him to try to recapture some of what made him a good boyfriend when he was with her; she has already expressed to him that his weight loss made him mean, and he's trying to atone for mistakes he's made as Little Guy, including with Cece (Hannah Simone). But while previous episodes kind of made it seem like Schmidt and Elizabeth may have gotten together because they were one another's best or only options, the latest episode features a nice moment that shows what was really between them.
Schmidt had the capacity for fun, but had locked it away due to self-consciousness about how he might look having it. What he needed was someone like Elizabeth -- who never cared what strangers think of her, and still doesn't -- to give himself permission to be happy. It seems unlikely that this storyline is leading to Elizabeth and Schmidt ultimately ending up together (no one REALLY believes Cece is going to marry this other dude, do they?), but if producers are learning how to write the person inside the fat suit, and that there could be ways to write about Big Guy that don't all hinge on how hilarious his extra weight is, I hope they're also planning a sendoff for Elizabeth that's worthy of the pretty awesome character they've created.