Trama

Jess continues to have great sex with Sam but does not date. Jess feels uncomfortable with a sex only relationship. Nick unwittingly becomes her surrogate boyfriend. Schmidt pretends to be one of Mitt Romney's sons to impress women.

Jess knocks on Nick's door, pausing from a booty call with Sam. She's having trouble separating her feelings from sex. She told Sam she had to check her fantasy football, even though she has no idea what that means. Sam peeks out and Nick tries to cover for her but bails.

In the morning, Winston wants to know why Schmidt is wearing a cloth belt with whales on it. "You look like the bad guy in an 80s high school movie," Nick says. Kanye wore it, so Schmidt is wearing it in his quest to be his BFF.

"Yo, Tag Romney, you know if your dad is going to win the election?" Winston asks.

Jess comes out in the morning, interrupting with tales of her non-sexual night. Schmidt suggests they all take her out on a friend date, to help her with Sam. "Friends help friends have meaningless sex," Schmidt says.

Later, Nick ends up at the restaurant alone. He calls Schmidt. "This place is fancy and I don't know which fork to kill myself with," he says.

Schmidt bails, he heard Kanye was at a club and took Winston with him to prove he can be friends with black people.

Jess shows up looking stunning in a tight red dress, and Nick is surprised because he forgot what she looks like when she's not dressed up like the "loft troll." They take turns being weird and awkward.

Standing in line at the club, Winston drools over girls in line. He confesses he and Shelby haven't had sex in three weeks and he's cheating in his mind constantly. Schmidt encourages it.

At the restaurant, Nick and Jess realize it's really expensive. Nick can afford the valet and "add onions." Jess brought white wine in a thermos.

Outside the club, the bouncer won't let Schmidt in. Winston introduces him as Tag Romney. Schmidt sells it by suggesting we get America back to work.

At the restaurant, Nick and Jess are drunk on smuggled wine and having a great time. Sam texts Jess and Nick encourages her to go, leaving him alone with his thermos and his soup.

In the club, Schmidt fails to be surprised when he runs into Cece. A girl interrupts, saying her friend heard Schmidt's a Romney. After he checks that the friend is hot, Schmidt calls for "security, remove the threat" and Winston drags Cece away.

Schmidt says he's "Tug" Romney.

In the morning, Jess thanks Nick for making her fantastic meaningless sex possible. She mentions she broke her dresser during it and invites him to Ikea. Winston oogles Jess as she talks, then, when she leaves, tells Nick he's become Jess's "emotional fluffer."

Jess comes back in, Ikea is an hour and a half away.

Schmidt practices his Romneyisms for Cece, who is disgusted. "You know they have Romney Olympics every summer at the lake house? I'll bet that's a real hoot, I'm sure it's like the real Olympics, except the white people win sprints," he says.

Nick brings the dresser in for Jess, then blurts out that he's not her emotional fluffer. He's like her boyfriend without the rewards. She asks if he wants the rewards. He denies it too much, making icky faces and even saying bleah. Jess says she's thought about it and suddenly he's interested.

She flashes back to last year at the bar, when he had a conversation between two nuts.

She thought about it then realized it wouldn't work because he's always sighing about everything. He thinks it wouldn't work because she's always singing about everything.

Jess calls him cheap and they start yelling at each other. It ends when she says she's going to call Sam and they're going to go on a date and talk their faces off.

"Are you happy now? I'm going to have to get to know the guy I'm sleeping with!" she shouts.

On his Romney date, Schmidt's about to make a move when they're interrupted by two sorority sisters who want to meet a Romney. He starts spinning a yarn about going fishing with dad, when he mentions them grabbing beers. One girl busts him because Romney is a Mormon who doesn't drink, but he says they just buy them to support American brewers, then dump them in the lake.

Jess has burgers with Sam, saying she needs a little conversation with her meaningless sex. She doesn't want too much, though, or she'll fall in love with him. She asks him hypothetically under what circumstances he would build a dresser for a friend.

"Am I being blackmailed? It's like a Make A Wish Foundation type thing? Anything besides marriage is an abuse. You can't do that to a friend, unless your friend is a chump. Or a certified carpenter, that would work," he says.

At home, Nick lies face down on the couch and bangs his face on the cushion. Winston says his problem is not setting boundaries. He sets some, including no Adele. "But Adele's amazing," Nick protests.

Winston sums up, most importantly, Nick cannot build her that dresser because it implies that one day he will share it with her.

Later, Nick eyes the un-built dresser in her room.

Schmidt gets busted by the sorority sisters, who can't find him in any Romney pictures. He recites all 16 grandkid's names and says he's proud of his dad for taking him camping and throwing the football around. They don't buy it. "Nitpicking turns me off, you're all horribly unattractive to me. Tug Romney, out!" he says.

Back at the loft, Cece comes to talk to Schmidt. "Hey, I got your text. When you're going through a 'Taylor Swift-like range of emotions' I should come over, right?" she asks.

Winston zones out, fantasizing about Cece. Schmidt busts him and tells him to call his girlfriend.

Schmidt tells Cece how his dad left he and his mom when he was eight, then he had three more kids and they belonged to no one, "until she started spending all this time from this woman from work, who she still lives with today." She suggests he find a way to forgive his dad. Then she snuggles him to her bosom. "It's like memory foam," he says.

Winston confesses his mind-cheating to Shelby, who says it's fine. Then she suggests TV after their "fight." He wishes they would actually fight, or do something. "Well maybe we can fight in your mind," she says.

Back home, Nick puts the dresser together. Jess tells him to stop. He says he loves it. "It's like high stakes Legos," he says. Jess tells him she didn't know what she was doing to him and it's messy.

"It's difficult with us, we're just two people who want to be friends but are sometimes attracted to each other," he says. "Aha! You have thought about the reward!"

Nick doesn't want people telling them what they can and can't do as friends.

"Maybe I should just stop trying with Sam. I'm old fashioned below the belt. I've got a Civil War era piece of equipment, and that's all she wrote," Jess says.

Nick closes by giving her a mix CD: "Nick's Sexy Mix aka 'The Original Fluffer'." It includes the Humpty Dance.

Jess listens to it in bed later with Sam, who makes her promise to turn it off when they're done. Nick jams to "Call me Al" outside the door when it comes on.