Summary
- Coach's departure from New Girl after the first episode was due to scheduling conflicts with actor Damon Wayans Jr.'s other show, Happy Endings.
- The decision to not recast Coach and instead introduce Winston as a new character was a strategic move to maintain the dynamics of Jess' roommates while also allowing Wayans to return to the show later on.
- New Girl's inclusion of two Black male leads, Winston and Coach, in a predominantly white cast was a groundbreaking move in sitcom casting that sparked important discussions about diversity and representation in popular culture.
Coach leaving New Girl only to be swiftly replaced with the character of Winston is still a move that puzzles many viewers. Winston and Coach's New Girl swap was the first big mystery in the show, which premiered on Fox in 2011 and came to an end in 2018 after seven seasons. The series, created by Elizabeth Meriwether, followed Jess (Zooey Deschanel), a bubbly teacher who, after a bad breakup, moved into an apartment with three less-than-mature men to begin a new life. Jess’ new roommates were Nick (Jake Johnson), Schmidt (Max Greenfield), and Coach (Damon Wayans Jr.). Winston (Lamorne Morris) joined the group in the second episode of New Girl.
Coach made quite an impression in the first episode of New Girl as a cocky yet awkward former athlete who worked as a personal trainer but was a bit too intense with clients. Despite Damon Wayans Jr's great performance and his chemistry with the rest of the New Girl cast, the character was quickly written out of the show. Coach left the loft between episodes 1 and 2, and Winston moved in. While Coach would later return to share the screen with Winston, many still wonder why Coach left New Girl.
Why Coach Left New Girl After Episode 1
Coach's Role In New Girl Was On And Off Throughout The Series
The reason Coach leaves New Girl is that Damon Wayans Jr. had scheduling issues due to also being in the cast of the comedy series Happy Endings. As he was expecting Happy Endings to be canceled after its first season, Wayans joined the cast of New Girl. However, Happy Endings was renewed for season 2, and he had to leave New Girl after just one episode. After the first Winston and Coach New Girl swap, Coach returned to New Girl at the beginning of season 3 in 2013, which began airing a few months after ABC officially canceled Happy Endings after three seasons.
It was explained that Coach originally moved out of the loft following the pilot episode to move in with his then-girlfriend. It was quickly established by the other characters in New Girl that it was something Coach did frequently — jumping into a relationship, and then moving back into the loft if the relationship didn't work out, which is the reason given for his season 3 return. Wayans continued to play Coach for two seasons before leaving at the end of New Girl season 4 after the character decided to move in with his new girlfriend, May (Meaghan Rath).
While Coach was gone once again, he didn't disappear completely as he had before, with Wayans returning to New Girl as a special guest star in the comedy's final two seasons. Winston, on the other hand, stayed for the rest of the series. Winston went through a lot of ups and downs in his personal life but eventually settled down with Aly (Nasim Pedrad). While Coach was not as present as Winston was in New Girl, he was always present in the hearts and minds of his friends.
Why Megan Fox Left New Girl After Season 6
Elizabeth Meriwether's sitcom New Girl introduced Megan Fox's Reagan in season 5, who became a regular in season 6 but did not return for the finale.Why New Girl Didn't Recast Coach
Winston Cemented Himself In The Ensemble
New Girl creator Elizabeth Meriwether realized that to remove Coach from New Girl's pilot episode, about 80% of it would have had to be reshot. To save extensive production work, it was decided his character wouldn’t be erased at all. Instead, a new one would be brought in: Winston. Though the character swap was confusing at first, Winston's addition to New Girl maintained the dynamics between Jess' new roommates without trying to copy Coach's personality and erasing what he brought to the table.
Rather than ignoring the fact that Coach was in the pilot episode of New Girl, the explanation was provided that Coach left the New Girl loft because he moved in with his girlfriend. This reflected the changes in the lives of young adults, which is something the producers wanted to show throughout New Girl. Not recasting Coach also allowed Wayans to return to the show later on, so it was a win-win situation all around.
Why Not Recasting Coach Was Good For New Girl
Coach's Departure Provided Character Growth For His Return
Ultimately, the Winston and Coach swap was a better resolution than simply recasting Coach after he left New Girl. While another show might have bitten the bullet and recast Coach (meaning huge reshoots for the pilot episode), New Girl's decision was a great call for the series. Not only was the explanation for Coach leaving New Girl after the pilot authentic to the story about the lives of people in their late 20s, but it helped give the character himself a strong arc.
Because New Girl's Coach wasn't recast, he could return to New Girl later on, and his penchant for moving around and struggling to find himself while also looking for a serious relationship ended up being an interesting core component of his character's journey.
New Girl: Why Zooey Deschanel's Jess Left In Season 5
Jess left New Girl in season 5 for jury duty. Behind the scenes, Zooey Deschanel was starting her own family. Here's Jess's New Girl break explained.Winston And Coach Are Used To Study Black Masculinity In Sitcoms
Having Winston And Coach Together Was A Subtly Groundbreaking Sitcom Milestone
In fleshing out the respective story arcs of Winston and Coach, New Girl featured two Black male leads coexisting in a sitcom with a predominantly white cast — a slyly groundbreaking move that has led to the show becoming a case study for Black masculinity in popular culture. In Black Masculinity and White-cast Sitcoms: Unraveling Stereotypes in New Girl — the Master's thesis of Linköping University student Marie Zafimehy — it's noted how Winston and Coach's New Girl scenes actually broke down a boundary in sitcom casting, even though both characters would fall back into Black stereotypes several times throughout the series.
Zafimehy also points out how New Girl season 1 passed the Racial Bechdel Test but calibrated towards studying diversity and racial representation instead. Winston and Coach — New Girl's Black male leads — may not be perfect, but they did push sitcoms in a better direction when it came to representation. More importantly, these characters opened important discussions about Black masculinity and representation in pop culture — a crucial eye-opener for audiences facing increasingly complex shows and movies in the streaming age. Zafimehy also had this to say in her analysis of New Girl:
"As media platforms reflecting society and participating in the identity building of young people, sitcoms and popular culture in general need a representation of a positive and progressive Black masculinity, breaking from stereotypical traditional patterns of racial and gendered representations."
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New Girl
- Summary:
- After a bad break-up, Jess Day (Zooey Deschanel) needs a new place to live. An online search leads her to a great loft... and three single guys she's never met before. But Jess moves in, and through her unique sense of self and the support of her new roommates, she learns to move on. Of her three new male roommates, Nick (Jake Johnson) is the most grounded... and also the most jaded. A law school dropout, he spends most of his time hiding under his hoodie and tending bar. Schmidt (Max Greenfield) is a hustling young professional who's pretty proud of his own abs. Winston (Lamorne Morris), is an intensely competitive former athlete who doesn't know what to do next-but whatever he does, he wants to win it. In the pilot episode, Jess also meets Coach (guest star Damon Wayans Jr.), a personal trainer with a bit of an anger problem, who's subletting a room. Rounding out the group is Jess' childhood best friend, Cece (Hannah Simone), a model with a killer deadpan. As their relationships progress, these five realize they need each other more than they thought they would and end up forming a charmingly dysfunctional - or strangely functional - family.
- Release Date:
- 2011-09-20
- Cast:
- Zooey Deschanel, Max Greenfield, Hannah Simone, Damon Wayans Jr., Lamorne Morris, Jake Johnson
- Cinematographer:
- Russ T. Alsobrook
- Creator:
- Elizabeth Meriwether
- Distributor:
- 20th Television
- Genres:
- Comedy
- Main Characters:
- Jessica Day, Winston Bishop, Schmidt, Coach, Nick Miller, Cece
- Number of Episodes:
- 146
- Seasons:
- 7
- Website:
- https://www.fox.com/new-girl/
- Production Company:
- Meriwether Productions, Chernin Entertainment, American Nitwits, Elizabeth Meriwether Pictures, 20th Century Fox Television
- Rating:
- TV-14
- Writers:
- Elizabeth Meriwether
- Network:
- FOX
- Showrunner:
- Elizabeth Meriwether
- Season List:
- New Girl - Season 1, New Girl - Season 2, New Girl - Season 3, New Girl - Season 4, New Girl - Season 5, New Girl - Season 6, New Girl - Season 7
