Taye Diggs Will Make Eyes at Zooey Deschanel on New Girl

Season three of New Girl just began in a blaze of glory and trips to Mexico but there’s lots to look forward to: Taye Diggs will be joining the cast for just one episode as “a potential romantic distraction” for Zooey Deschanel’s character Jess.

The Hollywood Reporter reports that Diggs will play Artie, a “smooth, confident ladies’ man,” who will show up in episode seven of this season. Perhaps even more exciting: in that same episode, Damon Wayans Jr. aka Coach is coming back now that his show Happy Endings got cancelled. Wayans left the show after the pilot and was replaced by another other black dude Winston (played by Lamorne Morris).

Of Wayans’ return, show creator Elizabeth Meriwether told THR in a different interview that it was “really challenging” to work him back into the mix, but he’s so talented that she felt like she wanted to make it happen:

I really had to figure out who Coach is, who we need him to be, what can be funny and what’s a new energy for the loft. He has this alpha male aggression that felt interesting and new. Our three guys aren’t beta males, but they are on the weirder side of things. Coach is that macho, tough-talking guy that they all think is so cool… and they’re all also a little nervous and intimidated by.