THE MINDY PROJECT: “Will They or Won’t They” recap

After a four month hiatus, Hulu’s  The Mindy Project is finally back, and so are we with our weekly recap. So grab your bear claws, sit back and read on!

The opening montage covered a lot of ground in the show’s opening four minutes and also established a time jump on the show. We open with Mindy explaining that the past year has been pretty amazing – her boyfriend proposed, she gave birth to the world’s cutest baby and started her own fertility practice which is now taking off. “In many ways it was the best year of my life that also contained some of the worst moments of my life,” narrates Mindy before the happy memories give way to the more unhappy ones of them arguing during the more recent episodes. She then describes this year as an interesting year. Cue Stevie Wonder’s “We Can Work It Out” and we see:

• Mindy, Danny and Leo playing happy families with birthday cake
• Mindy and Danny arguing in bed
• a wedding postponed e-vite announcement
• the pair fighting in therapy
• the Lahiri Fertility Clinic’s Wall of Fame flourishing
• another postponed virtual announcement
• Mindy all alone at a counselling session
• the clinic continuing to grow
• an email from Mindy and Danny announcing that the wedding is off
• Mindy placing her engagement ring on Danny’s office desk (ouch, there goes my heart)
• Annette and Dot cutting up photos of the once happy couple
• Mindy moving out of her’s and Danny’s apartment and back into her old one before breaking the news to Leo (who is pretty chilled out and not really paying attention to them) and Morgan (who is hysterical and has to be reassured that it’s not his fault)
• Peter coming to stay with Mindy and help her turn her closet into an AMAZING nursery for Leo (although was it really necessary for her to give her clothes away for FREE at work? I’d be crying too Mindy! Surely you could have sold them. Also, can you please come and style my place?)
• Mindy laughing in reception with the Schulman and Associates gang while a glum Danny sits in his office all alone
• Danny packing up his office (where I actually cried out at that moment because it gave me a major case of the feels and took me back to their break up scene in 2×17. Except who thought that Danny would be the one to leave the practice? “I need to have you in my life. I have to have you. And this, I’m afraid that this is gonna… we’re gonna fight more and we’re going to break up and then you’re going to work somewhere else and I’m not gonna see you. Is that what you want?” Remember that? Sorry, I’m going to go cry now…)
• Mindy looking across at Danny’s now empty office and her mood becoming sad
• Mindy becoming a changed woman and looking at recipes on the subway before cooking them at home.

All caught up now? Alright, here we go…

I am Beyoncé Pad Thai: With the time jump and everything that happened during it all now established, we kick off with Mindy cheerfully arriving at work and Beverly, Tamra, Morgan and Jody surprised. As Morgan points out “Normally when you come in, you burst into tears when you walk past Dr. C’s old office” but she claims all is well between her and Danny now and she is even seeing him that night to drop off Leo. However the tough thing about break ups is that sometimes you are blind and can’t see the truth at first. More on that later though. Danny dramas aside, Mindy also has Later Baby’s Spring Break to focus on, where a group of college girls are coming on an eight day trip to NYC to experience the city (including seeing Hamilton) and freeze their eggs. She definitely has her hands full with these girls, especially when they decide to go rogue – more on that later. I blame Chloe, who Mindy thinks is pronounced as “Sh lo”, which is weird because back in season two she had an alter ego named Chloe Silverado. Just sayin’… Despite all the mishaps, in the end the freezing co-eds’ eggs mission is a success and Jody calls Mindy a strong role model.

Mischief with Morgan: Morgan is proud that things are at a good place for Mindy and Danny and tells Mindy that when she is ready to start dating again, Cousin Lou met some great guys on jury duty. Hmm. He’s also pretty excited to be a part of Later Baby’s Spring Break but isn’t impressed when Jody tells him that he can’t be a part of it due to his felon history and Mindy backs Jody up on it. Morgan sees being left out of the event as worse than being in jail. Eventually he decides that finding Seth Meyers’ dog (more on that later) is his best bet in getting back in on Later Baby Spring Back, and surprisingly he’s right. He finds Frisbee and rushes over to the practice, only to find Chloe throwing herself at Jody. Morgan is outraged and calls Mindy to let her know. After some bickering, Morgan is back helping Later Baby Spring Break. Also, as a reward for finding Frisbee, the well-intentioned nurse practitioner finds himself on Late Night With Seth Meyers, where he tries to give Lahiri Fertility Clinic a plug but just ends up falling backwards with his chair on TV. Oops.

The Gang’s All Here: It has been months since Danny has left the practice and it is apparent that the Schulman and Associates gang is Team Mindy in the Mindy/Danny split. Or at the very least, scared to take sides.  Just like Voldemort, Danny’s name had become one that’s not to be spoken out loud in the office. The team (well sans Morgan) are also helping Mindy with Later Baby’s Spring Break, which is a good thing because Mindy needs all the help she can get with these girls. Let’s just say if even Tamra is not impressed with the “wild out” behavior, you know that there’s an issue. While under Tamra’s watch and out to see Hamilton, the girls get kicked out of the theatre for being drunk and end up “leashing” dogs, which is a new teenage girls bad behaviour trend that involves freeing dogs from their leashes. One of the dogs that they leash is Seth Meyers’ dog Frisbee, so of course the news makes headlines. Fun fact, this is not the first time Seth has appeared on the show – he played a suitor for Mindy way back in season one and this time around he is playing himself. Also happening this episode, Jody is concerned about the amount of time Mindy is spending with Danny even though the pair are broken up and calls her out on it after she skips the Hamilton outing to spend time with Danny.

The Ballad of Mindy and Danny: So Mindy and Danny are having a “modern uncoupling” (her words, not mine) where all seems civil and Leo goes back and forth between them. Now that he’s no longer working at the practice, Danny is all scruffy (have mercy! Chris Messina pulls off the scruffy look so well.) and has time to cook mouth-watering meals, which he uses to his advantage and tempts Mindy with. Next thing you know, she’s staying for a meal and story time, which then leads to making out. Let’s be clear, Danny knows what he is doing, even if Mindy does not. The second time that Mindy comes over in this episode is because she’s feeling stressed about work and needs someone to listen to her. She tries to talk to Danny and much like the past year in their relationship, he is not listening to her and is more intent in taking his pants off. After Mindy and Danny have slept together, she is in his bathroom brushing her teeth with his toothbrush and notices a lipstick in his bathroom cabinet… that isn’t hers. She asks him if he has been sleeping with other people and he says that he doesn’t know what she wants him to say to that. Mindy can’t believe him and frankly neither can we. That there was the sound of my poor heart breaking for Mindy. “How could you do that?” she cries. “I’ll tell you how. You left.” Please excuse me while I get on my soapbox for a moment. I’m not mad over the fact that Danny has already moved on. I get it, they’ve broken up and people will do whatever they can to ease the pain of a break up. It’s the fact that he is sleeping with other women while he’s still sleeping/making out with Mindy. That is what makes it terrible in my eyes. It would hurt less and be less of an issue if he wasn’t still doing whatever he’s doing with Mindy. Am I right? I’m also mad that he’s pinning it all on her. And then to use the “It’s different for women… I’m a guy, so we have needs” line of reasoning? That just frustrates me like no other. THAT’S NOT AN EXCUSE, GUYS! Mindy Kaling co-wrote this episode and she totally nailed the balance between outrage and vulnerability (oh god, the whole “Meanwhile I could never picture being with someone else. The idea of it makes me sick.” slayed my feelings!) in this scene.

Funnily enough, it’s during her talk with “Sh lo” and then realising what a strong role model she was for the Later Baby Spring Break girls, that Mindy realises what she has to do about the Danny situation. In a very mature move, she goes to see him and puts a stop to what they are doing, telling him that in order for them to move on they need to stop seeing each other more than they need to. Mindy has realised that all the time that they’ve been spending together has made it too easy to think that things are the way that they used to be but they’re not. There was a reason why she left him and now she has to stick by the decision that she made. Sure things aren’t bad for them at the moment, but they aren’t good either. As sad as that scene was to watch, I do agree that it’s what they need right now. I think that this time apart will be good for them and I trust where Mindy Kaling and her team are going with this.

Say It Again!:

• “Cos a month ago I liked a pic on Dr. C’s Instagram and you poisoned my plant.” – Tamra learnt the hard way about showing alliances after Mindy and Danny broke up. Side note, I find it very hard to believe that Danny is on Instagram. Unless I heard that quote wrong…
• “It’s not like we’re gonna get into a big fight where I call him a greaseball and throw his protein powder out the window; I already did that.” – Mindy has now accepted hers and Danny’s breakup.
• “I can’t believe that you actually convinced a bunch of college girls to give up their spring break so you can just poke at their private parts.” – Colette is quite impressed by Mindy’s Later Baby Spring Break.
• “The last woman I slept with was a paralegal in her 40s. Afterwards I played Xbox with her son.” – Jody claims to have moved on from co-eds.
• “What? You’re not interested in the early history of the U.S. Treasury Department?” – Tamra is horrified that one of the college girls would rather sell her ticket to Hamilton.
• “Chill man. I’ve been to a play before. I’ve seen Thunder From Down Under like nine times!” – Someone should tell Mindy that Hamilton and Thunder From Down Under aren’t quite the same thing…
• “The other day he knocked a Dorito out of my hand and said ‘Mama, no!’ It was chilling.” – Mindy is worried that if Leo spends too much time with Danny, he will eventually turn on her.
• “Whoa, is that a lasagne I smell or one of your weight loss candles?” – Mindy can’t resist Danny’s cooking. (Also, are weight loss candles, let alone lasagne scented candles a thing?)
• “He’s still got his hook in your mouth. He just gave you a little extra line so he could reel you back in,” – Jody’s fishing analogy about Mindy and Danny couldn’t be more true.
• “I saw dozens of those grey ribbons on the subway. I thought it was to prevent old people from driving,” – Mindy is horrified that she has inadvertently caused Seth Meyers to start a campaign in honor of his missing dog.
• “It’s not Jody. It’s Dr. Kimball-Kinney, which I know yeah is hard to say. But if we have to say it, so do you.” – Mindy is not taking any of this first name business with “Sh lo”.
• “You know what, Jody I believe you. Because if I was a 19-year-old idiot, I’d probably try to hook up with you too.” – Mindy putting herself in Chloe’s shoes after Jody claims the co-ed has a major crush on him.

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