Indeed it doesn’t – not for Winston, anyway, who becomes inexorably drawn into Schmidt’s web of deception in a most humiliating way. That he was outed as a fictional pervert before Cece is bad enough, but by going along with Schmidt’s scheme and lying to her he is now complicit, a bone of contention that remains for the rest of the episode. Speaking of Winston: his love of pranks was rammed home to us throughout the last season. His defining feature throughout season two was his love of pranks – that he memorably goes either “way too small, or way too big,” culminating in him kidnapping and releasing a beaver into the vents of Cece’s wedding venue, during the ceremony – basically, Winston loves pranks. Not in this episode though, not at all. Pranks are not mentioned once. It seems like Winston’s feature this season, for he can apparently only have one dimension to his character, is his love of puzzles.
Now, this is the part of the episode that really, really didn’t work. Winston’s running gag is that he is attempting to complete a jigsaw puzzle, and having real trouble doing it. That is Winston’s story for this episode. Literally all of it. It’s a really long set up for a gag at the end that just isn’t worth it at all. Sure, it’s funny to put Schmidt into Winston’s jigsaw situation, to quickly vent a few audience frustrations, but that’s because Schmidt is such a rounded, living, breathing character of explosive comedic joy that, at this point, putting him in any situation guarantees that laughter will ensue. His shouting at Winston and subsequent confrontation scene is one of the episode’s funniest moments, even though the whole premise of the scene is pretty weak.
That the fight occurs after Winston covers for Schmidt in the confrontation with Cece shows not only that he is a total douchebag – nothing new there – but also that he remains resolutely ungrateful at Winston’s sacrifice, not even understanding the basics of what he did. Schmidt has no shame, which is also nothing new, exemplified perfectly by his comedic escalation of Winston’s fictional perversions in their scene with Cece. There was no reason for Schmidt to declare that Winston wanted him to smuggle some of Cece’s underwear out without her knowledge, just as there was no need for Winston to take it a step further and say that he wanted to sew them into his own underwear.
Presumably, Winston was trying to desexualise stealing someone’s underwear by turning it into less an act of gratification and more a psychological compulsion, but it quickly turned to disgust from both Cece and Schmidt – the latter being architect of the entire situation in the first place. The speed with which his mood switched from disgusted to thankful as Cece left was hilarious, as was Winston’s changing facial expressions as Cece looked from Schmidt to him and back again in utter disbelief. The whole scene was really funny, and demonstrates how Cece’s character has become integral to the dynamic of the show. She might fall into that staple female character of the “fun-killer” occasionally, but her earnest nature and occasional naivety works really well for her.