Jess Perfectly Stands Up For Herself On 'New Girl'

One of the reasons I love New Girl so much is because Jess Day is basically my soulmate. I, too, believe in using glitter at every available opportunity, and I tend to go a little too big at just about every holiday. And one of her biggest character flaws is also one of mine: wanting to please everybody, even at my own expense. But on the Nov. 29 episode of New Girl, "James Wonder," Jess finally stands up for herself when she's up against an angry group of parents, and it was awesome to see her get what she wants without having to compromise what she thinks is right... especially since she was totally willing to in the first place.

When the principal at Jess' school decides to leave her job, Jess is next in line for the gig, except for one problem: the parents at her school think her curriculum is too difficult and want her to dumb it down so her kids can get better grades and have more self esteem thanks to those artificially inflated grades. At first, Jess wants the job so bad that she almost agrees to add in ventriloquism (of all things) and ditch her math program, but then, at a meeting with all the parents, everything changes.

Anytime Jess goes on a rant, you know it's going to be good, and this time was no different. After she was referred to as a "principal for the parents," she lost it, because she's actually planning to be a principal for the students, which is exactly what she should do. But what was most important was the end of her rant — where she admitted she could live with it if she couldn't make the parents happy. And over the past six seasons, this is huge for her, because previously, she probably couldn't have.

And it also didn't hurt that Winston pretended to be a parent named James Wonder (after his two favorite singers, duh), which only makes me hope this show lives long enough that we actually get to see Winston as an actual father to a real child.

I'm proud of Jess, and I actually kind of wish I could go to her school and be on her math team... even though I totally suck. Mark of a good principal? I definitely think so.

Image: Ray Mickshaw/Fox, Giphy