What Happened to "New Girl"?

   Season 1 of Fox TV's series New Girl was a pretty big hit I'd say, and rightly so because it was really funny. I was among many who awaited the second season with much anticipation. Much to my most sincere chagrin, most of the recent episodes have been falling flat. The first few episodes in the season were decent, but I can think of at least three recent ones that were incredibly "meh".
   Maybe its the anticipation of many of the episodes being withheld over the US election campaign due to the debates, and voting night, I don't know. But New Girl is going nowhere fast. Actually, my friends and I have noticed a more conservative (see episode where Schmidt pretends to be Tag Romney, spends whole episode endorsing Romney family), slightly racist (why does the only black character never have any real plot of his own? He only ever serves to advance white characters' plots), politically incorrect (the magical, zen asian man) tendency in the recent episodes. I would not consider myself to be the most politically correct person all the time, but when you are writing for a popular TV show, some things are just no-brainers.
   What weirds me out the most is that season 1 was such a success by comparison. The characters were fresh and quirky, but you could buy into it. Now the characters just seem insane to me. I don't know if thats a product of the acting or the writing despite the fact that I used to be a big fan of both on the show. Nothing is really happening long-term in the show either. Its like everyone is just kind of floating without purpose, and that purpose is desperately needed to ground the almost too large for life characters.
   My theory is that a lot of this plot stagnancy comes from the potential/ expected romance between Jess and Nick. We've been brought to a point so far where we know its gonna happen, one way or another, we're all just waiting for it. This is an horrible corner to write yourself into, because it becomes so all-consuming: your audience stops caring about the other characters and plot-lines and you can't not have them get together because then you get a backlash from everyone feeling cheated because thats the only thing that kept them interested in the show. Thats what happened to Gossip Girl with the Chuck and Blair romance, and nobody wants to see New Girl go down that road. Nobody. It was painful.
   I don't think we're anywhere near the Nick/Jess romantic revelation, but I kind of wish we were. Everything just feels like filler right now. Or maybe all we need is for something to actually happen, something that has consequence. And for god's sake give Winston something to do other than be the black guy!