"You're not your father. You're me."

And because I’m not a big bad Fox subscriber, it looks like I’m crashing Winston’s birthday instead of Elaine’s wedding. Though we do get a decent preview of her lovely…ah…adornments.

Morning-after-Nick (see, getting better with the name thing) tries his hardest to impress Jess right off the bat—until her father shows up on their doorstep. Today of all days, no less. For Elaine’s wedding, no less.
On Winston’s birthday, no less.

While Jess spends the morning scrambling for her friends and co-workers, Nick and her father find themselves bonding into the afternoon; and panicking when he finally reveals he slept with Jess. While the father’s reaction wasn’t what I’d assumed it’d be (I thought he’d be the cricket and/or baseball bat wielder), his actual opinion bruised worse than a club to the head: that Nick was just like him, and that he wasn’t good enough for his own daughter.
Sobs.

But a family crisis calms down a middle school class of rowdy, law-abusing adolescents wonderfully. I wonder what Miguel’s car looks like.

Elaine, driven up the wall by her family’s enthusiasm, barely makes it through the first get-together before finding the end of her fuse. Taking Jess’ advice and napping post-Henna tattoo, she wakes to find the tattoo beautifully adorning her fingers, palms, and wrists…and face.
Winston notices first, running errands on his hitherto-forgotten birthday, and we leave the episode with little more reassurance than a doting fiancé can offer. At least we know in the finale preview she gets the ink off somehow. It isn’t with olive oil.

And Schmidt and Elizabeth repair their college relationship in the nick of time (zing) to share with roof with his roommate, Jess, and, ultimately, Winston. I’m glad they pretended to remember Winston’s birthday in the end, poor guy.
Then again, he got to buy a whole sheet cake to eat himself. I’ve never had the guts.