Nick tried to prove he could take on the boyfriend duty of throwing a surprise birthday party on last night’s New Girl season 3, episode 13, “Birthday.” Read our recap to find out if he pulled it off and discuss with other fans!

Last night on New Girl season 3, episode 13, “Birthday”:

Jess goes out to celebrate the eve of her birthday with Cece and Rose (played by Angela Kinsey). Instead of spending the day alone at the movies she announces that Nick asked to spend the day with her. Cece is worried about Jess’ expectations for the day, re-counting the story of how Jess looked further into a sweater than imaginable.

Although Jess says she’s fine with keeping it low key she doesn’t have a good history with high expectations. Still, it’s clear she has no idea what Nick has in store for her and Cece is happy to report back to him that she doesn’t know about the surprise party he has planned. Everyone’s chipped in to help – so naturally Coach and Winston get into an argument about what’s more important: decorations or cake.

All of their plans seem to be coming into place until the gang asks Nick what he plans on doing with Jess during the day to distract her. By the look on his face it’s clear he hasn’t thought of anything. While he’s not worried about it – the rest of the friends clearly are.

Birthday morning doesn’t start out well when Nick arises to find that Jess’ cake was swapped with someone else’s at the bakery. And “See you in Hell Boomer” doesn’t exactly bring birthday cheer. He puts Winston and Coach on cake patrol to fix the problem while Schmidt volunteers to check on Cece at the bar. Coach can’t help but throw his birthday decorations in Winston’s face so they decide to have a bake off.

There’s trouble at the bar when Mike isn’t happy with Cece’s performance and threatens to call the manager. Luckily, Schmidt is there to walk her through how to fix the drink she messed up. But unfortunately, neither one of them can figure out how to tap the keg and Cece ends up spraying beer all over Mike who lashes out at her. Schmidt gives her a nice pep talk and seems to help cheer her up.

Nick isn’t doing the best job at coming up with activities to keep Jess busy. When napping, diabetes testing, and rock searching don’t work he promises that everything will make sense soon. That’s when they walk upon a picnic at the park decorated for a birthday which Jess automatically assumes is for her. Before he can stop her she eats a cupcake and a gaggle of kids come to find her crashing their party.

He feels awful when she starts crying about not having any real birthday plans. She runs back to the loft and doesn’t even notice the bake off going on in the kitchen. Coach distracts Jess by trying to calm her down while Winston rushes to hide all the birthday decorations. Winston calls Nick and tells him to pull it together. He then has a touching moment with Coach when they check on their cakes and find they’ve fused together in the oven.

A note on Jess’ bed reveals she went to the movies alone. She’s surprised when she sits down and the movie starts rolling but it’s actually of Nick. She’s even more surprised when he’s there to join her and when the lights turn on in the theater it’s full of their friends. The movie continues and it’s of everyone saying nice things about Jess and wishing her a happy birthday!

Major boyfriend win for Nick.

What did you think of ‘New Girl’ season 3, episode 13, ‘Birthday’?

Photo credit: Ray Mickshaw/FOX