Ah, the token Halloween episodes, full of goblins, ghouls, and scariest of all, relationships.
Job-drifter Jess is spending the week working in a haunted house at a carnival, dressed as “a zombie Woody Allen.” When Jess goes to return Sam’s wallet, she finds out that her no-strings-attached sex buddy is a doctor. For children. And does adorable goofy handshakes with them. Is your heart melting yet? With this new knowledge, Jess starts to develop feelings for Sam (honestly, who wouldn’t?), and asks him to come in costume to the haunted house. Jess figures if Sam dresses up, then he likes her—classic girl logic.
Schmidt continues to verbally abuse Robbie, Cece’s new boyfriend/nicest person on the planet and convinces Robbie to bring Cece to Jess’s haunted house.
Nick’s college love interest, Amelia, comes to visit, and it takes the two all of 15 seconds before they start sucking face. Quite literally sucking on Amelia’s end—she is a REALLY bad kisser.
At the carnival, Schmidt, who is dressed as a young Abraham Lincoln, continues to actively hit on Cece right in front of ninja turtle Robbie. Robbie, who unlike Schmidt knows how to behave like an actual mature adult, finally pulls Schmidt aside and calls him out in the most polite way possible, and asks him to cut it out.
Sam arrives at the carnival with a bright red clown nose, which by girl logic, totally means he likes Jess and wants to be in a relationship. Ah, if only it worked that way. Jess, instilled with hope, asks Sam out, only to learn that when he told her upfront that he didn’t want a relationship, he really did not want a relationship. That’s right, sex and love aren’t the same thing—hooking up with a guy doesn’t mean that he likes you, just that he likes sex. How easily we forget that.
Nick panics at his new relationship with Amelia and muses that “Haunted houses are like relationships. You walk in all confident. And then once you get in, it’s not what you thought it was going to be and it’s scary.” He tells Amelia he loved the idea of her as a person, which promptly gets him slapped across the face.
Cece comes across Robbie and Schmidt eating carnival food together—they’re friends now! As Robbie optimistically states how he wants the three of them to be friends and hang out together, Cece and Schmidt eye-fuck the crap out of each other, foreshadowing future fondling. Oh Robbie, you poor, sweet, oblivious ninja turtle.
Oh, and Winston and Shelby break up.