The second season of The Mindy Project opens on what we’re meant to believe is Haiti, but is probably just a lot somewhere in Hollywood or more than likely The Valley. We’re quickly caught up on what life has been like, sorta, for Mindy and Casey--they’re young, in love, and now engaged. There were a few jokes in this opening that I enjoyed, specifically the Real Houseflies of Port-au-Prince, but overall it felt rushed and the gallstones seemed like an easy way out of Haiti and lands Mindy and Casey back in New York.
The tension that was there in the final episode between Mindy and Danny was gone (at least for now) and that’s what I wanted again. We all know Mindy and Danny are going to get together; it’s just a question of when and will it work out. The other side story in this episode, not including the C storyline with James Franco (I’ll get to that) was what has been happening with the reunion of Danny and Christina, his ex-wife played by Chloe Sevigny. Things have not been so good for them. She wants to do it and he wants to do it with himself or more likely not with her. They decide to get some sex therapy, not conducted by Robin Thicke, but by James Franco. The sex therapy doesn’t really work because Danny doesn’t want it to work and that’s another thing we all know watching this so how does Christina not know? She finds his laptop (a moment that baffled me was how is Danny unaware that there’s such a thing a search history) and his search history is exposed in front of the entire office--he watches porn while he’s alone. Surprise! Doesn’t everyone? Anyway, she snaps his laptop in half, a gasp by Mindy and the audience follows, and she’s out. So now Danny is single again and now we have to wait for Mindy to catch up.
Mindy and Casey decide to have their wedding in her apartment, just to get it over with or something because they’re in love, but Casey stops it as Mindy is walking down her living room. “Let’s wait,” Casey says (I’m paraphrasing), but it’s another way to give Mindy and Danny more time to get back to where they were in the season one finale. It was more romantic than that and it was kind of sad to see him go back to Haiti. It reminded me of that scene in Louie where Pamela tells Louie to "Wave to me!" and Louie thinks she says, "Wait for me!" Will Mindy wait for Casey?
James Franco plays Dr. Paul Leotard, a perfectly named handsome doctor that can apparently do everything and is Mindy’s replacement in the practice. I like his part and it definitely plays into the handsome other guy trope that romcomsitcoms go for, but in a 30 Rock way. I don’t expect him to be long term, just another obstacle in the way for Mindy and Danny to get over.
I like The Mindy Project even though it’s often uneven and still feels like the cast is too big sometimes or maybe I just don’t care about everyone at the office as much as I should. I did like the exchange between Danny and Tamra where she called Mindy “Glob”, “I wanna say Glob?”. I want this show to be so good and it has the potential to be so good. I’m not sure what will fix it at this point. I don’t even know if I want Mindy and Danny together. Do I care why Jeremy is fat now or why that is even a thing they did? I want more Morgan. I love Beth Grant and she’s perfect, but feels like she’s there just for the occasional off color joke.
Maybe it all has to do with the title of the show--The Mindy Project just feels like that sometimes, a project. Something we’re all working on together. We’re all working on Mindy. I like Mindy Kaling, her love for romcoms (which is what this show basically is in a much longer form), I believe in her, and believe she deserves a network sitcom that we all watch and talk about. I guess I’m in it for the long run, because I not-so-secretly love romcoms and want to know how Mindy and Danny eventually get together.
