It’s back.
The Mindy Project is back, after months of hiatus. My Tuesday evenings have been kind of lame, without Mindy and Danny to keep me company. I’ve started hanging out with friends and doing tasks that need to be done around the house. Ugh. Boring, amirite? Give me television any day.
I nearly lost my mind yesterday, waiting for The Mindy Project to return.
TWO DAYS LEFT UNTIL @MindyProjectFOX (AND MY @theaerogram RECAPS) RETURNS!!!!
— Jaya Sundaresh (@anedumacation) April 1, 2014
DID I SAY TWO? I MEANT ONE. HAHA. IGNORE ME.
— Jaya Sundaresh (@anedumacation) April 1, 2014
ACCORDING TO @ikebarinholtz, TMP RETURNS TONIGHT. INDIA HAS FUCKED UP MY ABILITY TO TALK ABOUT TIME, APPARENTLY.
— Jaya Sundaresh (@anedumacation) April 1, 2014
I NO LONGER KNOW WHAT DAY IT IS. WHERE AM I
— Jaya Sundaresh (@anedumacation) April 1, 2014
There’s a happy ending, though. I finally figured out what time it was and when The Mindy Project was airing, and I managed to watch both episodes that aired yesterday. And boy, were they worth watching.
If you remember, The Mindy Project left us with one hell of a cliffhanger, last episode.
That’s right, that’s Danny and Mindy sucking face. It was almost cruel, dangling Danny/Mindy in front of us, and then presenting us with a two month waiting period for new episodes. We didn’t know if this was the start of a beautiful relationship, or if this was a just a cheap ploy to get viewers to tune in Tuesday night.
However, after watching the double feature, I think we can safely conclude that Mindy and Danny are here to stay.
Episode 2×15: “French Me You Idiot”
We find Danny and Mindy where we left them; making out in the back of an airplane. Mindy, after some initial hesitation, is totally into it, and they decide to take their love-making to a more private destination. They decide to join the mile high club, so to speak.
What I love about this show is that even when the main characters get together, things aren’t as smooth and sexy as Hollywood would make you believe. Attempting sex in the airport bathroom is much like attempting sex in the shower — a much hyped, but ultimately disappointing experience. Eventually, Danny manages to flush Mindy’s hair (just… what?), and they decide to give up.
Just as Mindy and Danny are about to move their amorous activities to a more pleasant location (Mindy’s apartment), they are interrupted by a mariachi band, sent by Cliff, who has decided to win back Mindy’s heart. It would of course be super mean to not take Cliff back, after making such a gesture, so Mindy tells Cliff she wants to get back together with him.
The look on Danny’s face as he walks away from Mindy made my heart ache.
Mindy is now faced with a challenge. She has to find a way to end her relationship with Cliff, because as it turns out, she’s actually butt-crazy in love with Danny. And Danny, no surprise, has strong views about cheating — he can’t help it, he’s just super Catholic. (“I’m so Catholic, I don’t even trust this new Pope!”). Mindy needs to end her relationship with Cliff before she can even think about sucking on Danny’s face. She has to dump him. Or wait, no, that’s too hard. She’s not good at dumping people! What she is good at, actually, is getting dumped.
She just needs to be so crazy, that Cliff has no choice but to dump her.
Good plan, Mindy.
She dresses like a prairie girl, tells Cliff about her psychic, and begins hoarding rescue cats. Under normal circumstances, this would totally work, but Cliff gets a call and finds out that his beloved Gram has died. (He’s wild with grief. “No one should ever have to bury a grandparent,” he declares, blinking back tears.) Mindy has to now be a supportive, loving girlfriend, not a psychotic Laura Ingalls Wilder with a cat fetish.
Things go from bad to worse when she realizes that “because of the stupid beautiful letter Danny wrote,” Cliff now thinks she’s a wizard with words. He wants her to write the eulogy for his beloved Gram, and man, does Mindy NOT deliver. “When an old person dies,” she wrote, “it isn’t as tragic as someone taken from us too soon, like Anna Nichole Smith.” Mindy’s idea of a proper source for an inspirational quote is the Kendrick Lamar song, “Bitch Don’t Kill My Vibe.”
Danny was angry at Mindy for not moving fast enough with this Cliff situation but listening to Cliff reading out Mindy’s ridiculous eulogy, he’s moved. He remembers why he loves Mindy so much; even though she’s ridiculous and silly, she’s a good person, with a good heart.
They sneak off to make out. In a church. Mindy tries to remind Danny of his overwhelming Catholicism, not wanting him to do something that he might later regret. (“What about Bloody Mary?” she asks. “You mean Virgin Mary,” corrects Danny.) “God, if we’re doing something wrong, please give us a sign,” declares Danny, addressing the Big Honcho upstairs.
So maybe the Big Guy doesn’t approve. Doesn’t mean they’re going to stop. Mindy finally wrestles up enough courage to tell Cliff she wants to end their relationship, and Danny and Mindy end the episode by making out in her apartment.
Episode 2×16: “Indian BBW”
Mindy wants to take it slow.
What?
Mindy is not known for being a prude. She really isn’t. Even if she says she likes to wait until she’s been out with a guy at least five times before she has sex (or until he spends a thousand dollars on her, whichever comes first), we’ve seen her jump right in the sack with many people before. So has Danny. He can’t help feeling a little confused and rejected.
Danny lands in the hosptial with meningitis, and Mindy rushes to the hospital, concerned for his health. (“I was so worried about you. You can’t die, you have so much to live for! My birthday is coming up and we haven’t even talked about what you’re going to get me!”) But even in the hospital, Mindy isn’t willing to give it up for Danny just yet. Danny doesn’t even get a pants massage. Yeah, it’s rough out there.
Unfortunately for Mindy, her plan to woo Danny by being a giant prude just hit a massive roadblock. Turns out, a sex tape she made with Tom, her ex (Remember him? Played by Bill Hader? Another white guy Mindy dated?) has gone viral on the internet, thanks to a porn site called “Sploders.com”.
This isn’t good. If anyone finds out about this, it could seriously hurt the practice. If Danny finds out about this, it could torpedo Mindy’s relationship before it even has a chance to begin. Peter and Mindy go on a mission to eradicate the sex tape.
It’s harder than it looks. The guys behind Sploders.com don’t want to take it down. (“If we took down a video every time someone didn’t like it, we wouldn’t be rich behind our wildest dreams.”) According to them, there’s a huge market for Indian BBWs. Not “brainy, birdlike, wife-material”, as Mindy hopes it means — it actually means “big, beautiful women”. (“Are you kidding me? Look at these wrists! Look at how dainty they are! They can barely manage to hold up the enormous calzones that I eat!”) Mindy is one of very few Indian women who have the kind of “loose morals” needed in order to star in a pornographic film. They need the sex tape.
Mindy is screwed.
Thankfully, Peter comes through by relating to the pornographers on a level of supreme douchiness, a level that you probably can’t attain unless you’re a white male that went to Dartmouth and was in a frat. But it’s too late; Danny’s watching the tape when they get back to the hospital, and he is horrified.
Eventually, Danny comes around. He realizes — after Peter drags a shame-faced Tom in for a bedside chat — that the only reason Mindy took it so far with Tom was because there wasn’t much to that relationship other than sex. Mindy is trying to take it slow not because she doesn’t like Danny and doesn’t want to be with him, but because she does want to be with him, and wants to build a solid basis for their relationship first.
They end the episode by snuggling in bed together.
My heart exploded, the end.
Things I liked about the episodes:
1. It’s super predictable of me, but I just have to point out Danny’s adorable grandma reading glasses again.
I know, I know, they show up so often now that it isn’t really noteworthy, but jeez, they’re still noteworthy to me, okay? Leave me alone.
What made it even better was the fact that Danny was reading Bridget Jones’s Diary out loud to Mindy, in a British accent. While wearing nanny glasses. Could Danny Castellano be any cuter?
2. I just…. Morgan, man. Morgan Tookers.
Where in the hell did Morgan find black scrubs? Did they have to… make those specially for the episode? Questions, so many questions.
3. I loved Peter this episode. He’s still a total bro (or BROBGYN, if you will), but he’s a good bro. He’s a bro who fights on the side of justice, not evil. He was single-handedly responsible for getting his fellow D-bags to take down Mindy’s sex tape. He managed to get Mindy and Danny back together, by convincing Danny that Mindy wouldn’t want to “take it so slow” if it weren’t for the fact that she really really liked him. Maybe even loves him, a little bit.
Peter didn’t gel with me at first. I didn’t really get his character. Now I do. I’m glad Adam Pally joined the show, and I can’t wait to see what they have planned next for him.
Also, Peter was really, really funny with the ballerinas in “French Me, You Idiot.”
4. Danny’s sick, so Richie (remember Richie? His hot younger brother?) brings Mr. Neck to the hospital!
5. This whole exchange:
Richie: “Danny. If Mindy wants to take things slow, you have to accept that. Just like you’re gonna want her to accept one day that you don’t like turning on the heat in the winter.”
Danny: “Why, to heat up a drawer full of unused sweaters? You wanna get warm, get on the floor and do some push-ups, okay?!”
Danny just really reminds me of my father here.
6. Kissing. So. Much. Kissing.
Things I didn’t like about the episodes:
1. This is weird, for someone who loves Mindy and Danny together so much: I thought the writers were pushing Danny and Mindy on us too fast. I thought it was weird and out of character that Danny acted so affronted when Mindy said she didn’t want to have sex right away. Danny is in love with Mindy — that much has been firmly established by the show. Danny is also a sweet, sensitive man — that much has also been established by the show. Why wouldn’t he want to wait for the woman he loves to feel comfortable?
I ended up not minding it so much, because it led to a hilarious scene where Danny tries to prove to Mindy how many women are willing to have sex with him right away, if she doesn’t want to oblige him, while a skeptical Mindy drinks wine and looks on. But was that joke worth the weird departure from Danny’s characterization? I’m not sure it was.
Jaya Sundaresh lives in Chandigarh, India. She grew up in various parts of the Northeast in the U.S. before deciding to study political science at McGill University. Follow her on Twitter at @anedumacation and read her thoughts on her personal blog.
