‘The Mindy Project’ Recap: Season 2, Episode 3 ‘Music Festival’

It’s happened. Pastor Casey, the chillest dude to ever step up to the pulpit, he’s history. I never liked him all that much, to be honest — his shtick was kind of annoying, pretending to be a black preacher was just obnoxious — but I feel bad for Mindy.

The breakup occurred for perfectly legit reasons, I may add. Dumping your fiance because he is completely unable to decide on a life path — that’s one of those grown-up reasons to dump someone. (Dumping someone because you don’t like how they grow nose hair, that’s a sillier reason to break up with someone — and it’s something I’m guilty of.) I understand that they needed to get rid of Anders Holm, I get that Mindy can’t marry a guest star, but I’m still sad for her.

Chin up, girl. Remember:

Thankfully, Anders’ departure was balanced with the arrival of a new series regular, Adam Pally, previously of Happy Endings, the hilarious ABC comedy that should never have been cancelled. Adam plays Peter Prentiss, a frat boy OBGYN who has to impress Jeremy enough to get hired at the practice, because god knows there haven’t been enough white men on The Mindy Project. Peter, author of something called the Hippocratic Broath (which he carries around on a broster to remind himself to live life to the bro-est), makes a lousy first impression with Mindy, after he assumes that she’s a nurse, not a doctor.

According to the Access Hollywood interview with Pally, we can expect some romantic tension between Mindy and Peter, because obviously, Mindy is going to date another white man next, because having one person of color on a show is clearly enough which should be fun to watch, don’t you think? At the least, it will be fun to watch Danny steam over yet another man stealing Mindy away from him.

Speaking of which, I found the Mindy-and-Danny moment of this episode to be particularly adorable. Most of the office leaves for a music festival upstate where Casey is performing his inaugural DJ set, and the two doctors run into a mess of a situation at the medical tent, where the only medic appears to be on ‘shrooms. The tent looks like a Civil War re-enactment scene, only with more stoned people and beards — so Mindy and Danny get to work.

Mindy and Danny, of course, are in perfect harmony, and you can’t help but compare the situation to Mindy’s increasingly dysfunctional relationship with her fiance.

Back at the practice, we have Jeremy and Tamara, two boring characters who should never have been given the responsibility to lead a B-plot together, who are struggling to run the practice without the help of the rest of the practice. Jeremy is still fat and disgruntled, as the show attempts to stretch out a joke that should have ended two episodes ago. Tamara, as always, is sassy, spicy, and completely useless. Seriously, she gets to have one joke this episode. Every time she speaks, it’s so she can say something “black.” Cue laughter. I guess.

Back at the festival, Morgan develops an ingenious plan to get The National, Danny’s favorite band, to give him a private concert, as Danny is stuck in the medical tent all day and can’t make the show.

That’s right, Morgan proposes to “Daniel Mussolini Castellano,” in order to get The National to stay. It’s fun watching Danny reluctantly accept kisses from his new “fiancé.”

Overall, I felt that this episode was stronger than last week’s, which suffered from creepy rape jokes, a lack of chemistry between the guest star and the regulars, and a dearth of awesome one-liners. Their way of taking Casey out of the equation was a little disappointing — they did so by totally changing his characterization, turning him from a fleshed out character to a caricature, but the subsequent break-up was moving enough that the lack of thought put into his character almost didn’t matter. Hopefully Mindy will continue in a similar vein for future episodes; if this episode is any indication, I’m looking forward to the rest of season two.

Other moments I enjoyed from this episode:

1. I liked the digs that were made at the overwhelming whiteness of the indie music scene today. When Tamara wants to know if there’s going to be a single black person at the festival they’re all going to, Mindy reads out the listings. Black Flag and The Black Keys are going to be there — but they’re all white guys. The band called “Black People” turns out to be four Japanese girls. Tamara decides not to go. Probably a wise decision.

2. Morgan on drugs was fun to watch, even though high Morgan is not that much different from regular Morgan. He greedily grabs two marijuana-laced cupcakes from a hippie at the festival, and scarfs them down — and promptly hammer-throws a cooler.

He then decides to go “swimming,” and cannonballs onto an open field, breaking his butt. Poor Morgan.

Until next week, guys!

Jaya Sundaresh lives in Hartford, Connecticut. She grew up in various parts of the Northeast before deciding to study political science at McGill University. Follow her on Twitter at @anedumacation and read her thoughts on her personal blog.