THE MINDY PROJECT: “The Parent Trap” recap

It’s been a few days since this week’s episode of The Mindy Project aired and I still don’t know if I’ve completely recovered from it. We’ve seen the signs for a while now and this week words were exchanged and feelings were finally properly expressed. Sure it hurt to watch, but boy did the players involved totally nail it this week…

I am Beyoncé Pad Thai: There’s excitement in the air with the first patient from Mindy’s fertility practice prepares to give birth this week. Mindy even has a hashtag ready to go when her patient Diana is ready to go, #LahiriBabyMiracles. While Diana is awaiting the birth of her first child, Morgan has set up the Wall O’Fame at the clinic, to which Mindy chastises him for choosing to use the biggest wall for it, but Morgan believes in Mindy and her work and knows that she will fill that wall with many photos of success stories. When Diana finally goes into labour (during Mindy and Danny’s big fight, but more on that later), M.I.A’s “Bad Girls” is playing during the montage, which is a nice throwback – longtime fans of The Mindy Project will recall that the same song was used during the pilot to show as a soundtrack demonstrating that as messy as Mindy’s personal life is, she kicks butt in her professional life, and here she is in the same position four-and-a-half years later.

Mischief With Morgan: After tossing Mindy’s breakfast at her and she fails to catch it, Morgan notices that something is wrong and she confides in him that she thinks Danny is trying to get her pregnant again. Morgan is horrified because a) the business comes first and b) he is not Leo’s number one fan already so can you imagine throwing another baby into the mix? It’s Morgan that advises Mindy to go on birth control. It’s also Morgan who stands up for Mindy and goes to have a chat with Danny and try and talk some sense into him. He has no qualms in telling Danny that he finds his lack of support for Mindy appalling and also advises him that “if she’s important enough to you, maybe it’s time for you to want something else”, to which Danny replies that is the most insightful thing he’s ever heard Morgan say. Come to think of it, Morgan really stepped up to the plate this week! Also in this episode, Morgan  reveals that he has finally saved enough money to move out of his grandmother’s basement. We wonder where he’ll go to next! And in case anyone is wondering, his username on social media is ‘librarycomputer14’.

The Gang’s All Here: We briefly see Jeremy in the doctor’s lounge with Danny and Mindy at the hospital. After her romantic date with Danny (again, more on that later), Mindy is gushing about it to Morgan and Danny. As she’s talking to them, they go into Danny’s office so Mindy can add their wedding cake tasting date to his calendar and while there, she notice OML marked on his calendar  for that day, the previous and the following. With the help of Morgan and Tamra, she is clued in that Danny is tracking her period so he can trick her into getting pregnant. Outraged, she goes to Jody to get him to prescribe her some birth control. He tries to give her the teenage abstinence talk and she threatens to share his Star Search episode with the office if he doesn’t help her. It’s quite enjoyable to see the friendship between these two blossom, and when Jody points out that he knows more about Mindy than her own fiance at the moment, it’s nice to know she has that extra support right now.

The Ballad of Mindy and Danny: When the episode opens, Mindy is taking us through the different types of sex she has experienced in their relationship, the most current being procreation sex, despite Danny’s protests. But let’s face it, when you start praying while you’re still inside your partner, we can see right through you. With her fertility clinic starting to take off, Mindy is not ready to have another baby just yet. Danny reluctantly agrees not trying, but also not not trying, which according to Mindy is the same thing since she’s extremely fertile. The next day, Mindy tells Morgan that she doesn’t want to get into another argument with Danny about her being a working mom and would rather wait until they’re married to bring it up. She is then really happy when Danny decides that the two of them need to go out on a date just the two of them. A fancy dinner with lots of drinking and a horse carriage ride at night seems pretty romantic, but unbeknownst to Mindy, it is all a ploy but Danny to get her pregnant because he’s keeping track of her ovulation cycle. Shame on you, Danny Castellano. Luckily, Tamra and Morgan help her realise the truth and she goes to Jody for birth control. When Danny interrupts her appointment with Dianna (which was pretty rude) and convinces her to go on a date with him to see When Harry Met Sally that night, she is on to him. Danny pulls out the whole shebang in the lead up to this date, dropping by the clinic with flowers, where he’s greeted by Jody and ends up not-so-subtlely trying to suss whether Jody could run the practice on his own, which of course sends Jody off to confront Mindy. It seems like everyone is getting involved with Mindy and Danny’s relationship, as Morgan also has words with Danny and Danny admits that while he thinks what she is ding with the practice is pretty incredible, he doesn’t know or understand when they started wanting different things.

In this episode Mindy and Danny keep getting their lab coats mixed up because Mindy wears a Women’s Wide and Danny a Men’s Medium, are is basically the same. It’s after the chat with Mogan that Danny finds out about Mindy’s birth control because they’ve swapped lab coats yet again. He then shows up late to their When Harry Met Sally date and causes a scene, leading them to leave the cinemas. Back at the apartment they argue – he wants to know how long shes been on birth control and she turns the tables on him, saying that it’s been going on for as long as he’s been tracking her periods on his calendar. Mindy tells him that she thought he was being really romantic and it was wonderful, and is clearly hurt now that she realises he has been trying to trick her into getting pregnant. Danny argues that he never wanted kids before Mindy and now that he does, he doesn’t understand why that’s a bad thing. Mindy says that it’s not a bad thing, it’s fine for him to want kids if that’s what she also wants. He makes digs about her career and Leo growing up alone and Mindy points out that he’s doing it again – every time he disagrees with something she does it’s a blow against her character and she’s a bad mother. He’s making all the decisions for her because they’re the “right” decisions. She’s a good mother, but she’s also a good doctor and she doesn’t want to have to give up any more things to have more kids. Danny calls her selfish and she calls him out on it, that when she does something it’s selfish, but when Danny does something it’s selfless, to which Danny gets even more fired up and tells her that he makes the decisions because she makes bad ones and then he starts listing all her flaws. Ouch. The fact that he can whip them out so quickly and easily has Mindy pointing out that yes Danny may be a good person, but if he was the best person, he wouldn’t be so quick to rub that in her face all the time. At this point, viewers’ hearts are hurting and there is a major case of the feels.

Their argument is then halted by Mindy’s paitient going into labour, and even after all that has been said, Danny still can’t see how important this is to her and that no she can’t just get someone to fill in for her and so she leaves. When she returns back to the apartment later, Danny is waiting for her and suggests that they put the wedding on hold so they can think things through. Stunned she says okay and Danny goes to bed, leaving Mindy pondering what has just happened. Before she can wallow, she receives a message from Diana and it’s a picture of Diana’s new family and the baby is wearing a #LahiriBabyMiracles playsuit. We’re glad some good is coming out of this situation. With the mid-season finale being next week, who knows what is going to happen to Mindy and Danny…

Say It Again!:

• “Look each other in the eyes? Okay Jeffrey Dahmer, I don’t think so.” – Mindy is on to you, Danny.
• “I’m going to say one thing though, the Dr L I used to know would have caught that muffin in her teeth, blindfolded.” – Morgan after he tosses Mindy a muffin and she fails to catch it.
• “He can’t even talk!…when I saw seven, I was speaking full sentences.” – Morgan really doesn’t like Leo and also doesn’t get that he’s just a baby.
• “Well by we, I mean me and Cousin Lou, you would text me, say he’s asleep, we would come in, snip snip, bandage up. He’s like in intense pain for three weeks, he’ll never know,” Morgan talks Mindy through a DIY vasectomy the Tookers way
• “Oh great, Mindy comes in wearing a man’s coat and no one cares. I come in wearing a smart fuchsia trench from Anthropologie and my chaphood is questioned.” – Jeremy resents that no one appreciates his sense of style.
• “Is it a saying? Oink My Life? Oh my god, is there a saying that I don’t know? Am I old? Oh my god, oink my life!” – Mindy wondering what OML means on Danny’s calendar
• “That’s like me.  I pranked my parents when I came out cold and grey…but healthy” – Morgan shares a personal (and horrific) story with Mindy and Diana after Diana has a false alarm.
• “Isn’t that the movie that you called quote a fantasy that undermines the dignity of men?” – Mindy to Danny after he suggests that go on another date night and see When Harry Met Sally.
• “Flowers for me? Were you about to ask me to the friendship ball? I didn’t know you had those up here.” – Jody to Danny when he arrives at the clinic with flowers for Mindy.
• “You’re dumb about a great of many things – the news, ettitquette, where the moon goes during the day…but you know exactly what you’re doing here and it’s not right.” – Jody calling Mindy out on going on birth control.
• “You didn’t like me when I first started working here and now we’re best friends. I’m getting plastic surgery so I can look more like you.” Trust Morgan to make things awkward between him and Danny.
• “I keep track of a lot of things on my calendar – Tom Petty’s tour dates, your ovulation cycle, seasonal fruits.” – Danny trying to worm his way out of trouble when Mindy confronts him about tracking her period.
• “Oh right, your career. You’re too busy getting half of Manhattan knocked up and Leo, he’s out there by himself, alone, playing patty cake against the wall while his mum is working.” – Low blow, Danny. Mindy is a great mother!
• “Whenever you decide to do something it’s selfless and whenever I decide to do something it’s selfish. You get to choose all the definition, you’re the judge, the jury, which just leaves me the sexecutioner…sorry not the right time but I had to.” – Even during emotional times, Mindy still infuses some humour.

New episodes of The Mindy Project are released on Hulu every Tuesday.