THE MINDY PROJECT: 9 things we need to talk about in “May Divorce Be With You”

How is it that we have never seen a karaoke scene on THE MINDY PROJECT up until now? Following on from last week’s announcement that Mindy and Ben are getting divorced, a newly returned Peter Prentice takes it upon himself to throw Mindy a karaoke-themed divorce party to cheer her up. This week’s episode is probably my favorite episode this season so far, so let’s get down to business because there are a few things that we need to discuss about this episode…

THE MINDY PROJECT — “May Divorce Be with You” Episode 603 — Pictured: Beth Grant as Beverly Janoszewski — (Photo by: Jordin Althaus/Universal Television/Hulu)

No, seriously, why has it taken us six seasons to see Mindy and co at karaoke?
From Beverly’s rendition of P!nk’s “Get This Party Started” (I’ll say it again, Beth Grant is a national treasure) to Colette belting out Elvis Presley’s “In the Ghetto”, I could have easily watched a whole episode revolving around the Schulman and Associates team at karaoke. I am also little sad that we were robbed of Mindy and Morgan’s rendition of “Lady Marmalade” (the Christina Aguilera and co version from the Moulin Rouge soundtrack of course) – why oh why did Tamra have to pick of all times to text Morgan for a booty call? Why! At least we got a bit of Cher’s “Turn Back Time” from Anna out of this karaoke session though. Speaking of which…

THE MINDY PROJECT — “May Divorce Be with You” Episode 603 — Pictured: (l-r) Rebecca Rittenhouse as Anna, Ed Weeks as Jeremy Reed — (Photo by: Jordin Althaus/Universal Television/Hulu)

Is there anyone out there not rooting for Anna and Jeremy? 
It was nice to see the usually composed and emotionally detached Dr Ziev pull out the grandest of grand rom com gestures and get up on stage and dedicate a song to Jeremy in the hopes of winning him back. (It worked by the way, in case you were wondering.) Heartbroken over seeing Jeremy move on (or rather go back to his Season 1 ways of sleeping around), Anna was set to leave the practice but a little pep talk from Mindy had Dr Z embracing her emotions and channeling her inner Cher. Speaking of pep talk, how great was Peter’s speech to Jeremy about how he was an idiot to let Anna go when he finally found someone who accepts him and all his neurosis. It’s a strange world we live in when Peter Prentice of all people is the voice of reason!

The intriguing dynamic that is Peter and Anna 
He’s basically like Peter Pan and an easily excitable frat boy who hasn’t grown up and she’s a very put together and often at times detached and emotionless robot, yet the scene where Anna and Peter are having lunch together was quite enjoyable. I loved that he seemed pretty unphased by her deadpan deliveries and was quite amused by her distaste towards him. Now that Peter has moved back to Manhattan, can we please have more scenes with Peter and Anna?

THE MINDY PROJECT — “May Divorce Be with You” Episode 603 — Pictured: (l-r) Rebecca Rittenhouse as Anna, Mindy Kaling as Mindy Lahiri — (Photo by: Jordin Althaus/Universal Television/Hulu)

Let’s hear it for the girls
Did anyone else aww when Mindy referred to Anna as her friend? They’ve come a long way since Anna first started at Schulman’s and Mindy was accused of being a sexist. As Mindy pointed out, they have a lot more in common than they think and I like how this episode highlighted how they’ve both inspired each other in different ways – Mindy seeing how Anna dealt with her divorce and Anna inspired by Mindy’s words and fighting for Jeremy. I know we have seen a lot of female characters come and go from the show over the years so it’s always nice to Mindy have female friends.

THE MINDY PROJECT — “May Divorce Be with You” Episode 603 — Pictured: (l-r) Brianna Reed as Lindsay, Mindy Kaling as Mindy Lahiri — (Photo by: Jordin Althaus/Universal Television/Hulu)

No more Ben?
Coming into this season we knew that Mindy and Ben’s relationship was not going to last but a part of me last week was surprised by how fast it moved. Now having finished watching this week’s episode, I am also left wondering if last week was the last time we were ever going to see Ben? This week there was plenty of references to him and we even saw his daughter when Mindy went to the hospital to go and talk to Ben but we didn’t actually see him. I’m a big fan of Ben – he may not have been the right guy for Mindy, but he was adorkable and totally my kind of guy. Plus, I enjoy watching Bryan Greenberg on screen so I’m a little sad that we could have potentially said goodbye to him on the show and not realised. Will next week prove me wrong?

Photo by: Jordin Althaus/Universal Television/Hulu

Fabulous fashion
One of the many things that I am going to miss about the show is its amazing fashion. Salvador Perez, the show’s costume designer is such a genius and I love seeing all his posts on Instagram about how he puts Mindy’s outfits together. This week, I particularly loved the floral ensemble, but also we have to talk about the matching glitter tracksuits that Morgan organised for him and Mindy to wear at the karaoke party. So good!

Photo by: Jordin Althaus/Universal Television/Hulu

The throwbacks
We’re now three episodes in of a 10-episode final season, so not only are we seeing the return of familiar faces (more on that in a sec) but we’re getting pretty nostalgic when we see something that reminds us of the good old days. Case and point? As mentioned earlier, Jeremy’s playboy behavior and Mindy lying on the ground when she’s feeling blue:

Photo by: Jordin Althaus/Universal Television/Hulu

We just needed some sour straws in her hand and the moment would have been complete.

THE MINDY PROJECT — “May Divorce Be with You” Episode 603 — Pictured: Glenn Howerton as Cliff Gilbert — (Photo by: Jordin Althaus/Universal Television/Hulu)

The return of some familiar faces
Being the final season and all, expect to see plenty of old friends. Not only did we see the return of Peter Prentice this week, we also saw his wife Lauren and more of Cliff, Mindy’s ex from Season 2, after last week’s end-credits appearance. It was also great hearing Cliff reference their history – like how Mindy accidentally caused a fire in a church at Cliff’s grandmother’s funeral. Of course none of these returns are going to top the much anticipated greatest return of them all…

That final revelation
You didn’t think that I had forgotten about it had you? Nope! In the closing moments of this week’s episode, Cliff revealed to Mindy that Danny was getting a divorce. Now, fans of the show already knew that Danny would be returning and while like the show’s leading lady, we do love a good rom-com reunion, we also didn’t want to set ourselves up for disappointment and get our hopes up on seeing Mindy and Danny together at the end of the show. Let’s face it, Danny has a lot of redeeming to do before that can happen considering the state these two were in the last time we saw them together (it still breaks my heart just thinking about it), but the romantic in me can’t help but go back to rooting for these two again after this week’s episode dammit!

New episodes of THE MINDY PROJECT are released on Hulu every Tuesday.

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