Jess struggles to deal with a student bullying a classmate. Meanwhile, Schmidt and Cece wrestle with keeping their new Friends with Benefits relationship private, and Nick grows worried that Julia wants to break up with him after she gifts him a cactus.
Tropes:
- Ass Shove: A milder version with the "Coin Slot" game Jess' students play, in which they insert coins between Nathaniel's buttocks.
- The Ditz: Nathaniel gets bullied because he has low intelligence.
- Friends with Benefits: Schmidt and Cece are now this after their hookup in the previous episode. Cece intended for the sex to be a one-time thing, but ended up becoming addicted.
- Heroic BSoD: Nick doesn't take Julia breaking up with him well and starts acting like a Cloudcuckoolander the remainder of the episode.
- Insufferable Genius: Brianna is well aware of how smart she is and talks condescendingly to everyone, including her teacher.
- Kids Are Cruel: Brianna is the chief example, but multiple students videotape Jess' song with Nathaniel, and it's implied everyone in the class is taking part bullying him at lunch.
- Look Behind You: Schmidt gets his roommates to look out the window at the crescent moon so Cece can sneak in without being seen.
- Meaningful Gift: Due to his insecurity, Nick interprets Julia's gift of a cactus as indicative that she doesn't think highly of him and is close to breaking up with him. Upon learning of this, Julia says that it wasn't her intent, but Nick's reaction causes her to see she may have done this subconsciously.
- Moment of Weakness: Jess' anger at her inability to handle Brianna leads her to give in and break Brianna's robotic arm project out of revenge. An Oh, Crap! moment follows immediately after.
- Nerdy Bully: Brianna is the smartest student in Jess' class but is also the chief bully.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: It turns out Julia didn't mean anything by giving Nick the cactus (at least not consciously), but Nick's insecurity over it and resulting seven voicemails causes her to break up with him.
- Not So Above It All: While she puts on appearances for Brianna's parents, Jess' principal has no intentions of punishing her as she hates kids and thinks Brianna deserved what Jess gave her.
- Not Staying for Breakfast: Cece goes to great lengths to enter and leave the loft in secret, to avoid revealing her and Schmidt's arrangement.
- Obnoxious Entitled Housewife: In this case, housewives, since Brianna has two mothers who both like to cause a fuss (although their attitude is not entirely unjustified, given Jess' behavior was objectively unprofessional).
- Reformed Bully: Downplayed with Winston, whose time as a bully in his childhood is Played for Laughs with his self-prescribed nickname "Brown Lightning".
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Winston uses his own experience as a bully to tell Brianna's mothers quite frankly that their daughter is a terrible person.
- A Threesome Is Hot: Schmidt has no issue with the idea of having sex in Cece's apartment, where a dozen other models are living.
- Villainous Lineage: It's clear why Brianna is a bully once Jess meets her mothers.
