From: The Scene Blog
“The Mindy Project” Recap: Baes and boot-cut jeans
NOHODAMON, FLICKR
Note: This post contains spoilers for season three, episode 13 of “The Mindy Project,” entitled “San Francisco Bae.”
I, for one, am all about bae-related puns. I have a weird relationship with the word bae, in the sense that I both overuse it and supremely hate it. So, I was excited to see bae featured so prominently in my first Mindy Project recap of the semester.
Where Mindy left off: Mindy Lahiri (Mindy Kaling, “The Office”) is in Stanford for a research fellowship, so she and boyfriend Danny Castellano (Chris Messina, “Made of Honor”) try dating long distance. They are in annoyingly constant contact, so Danny encourages Mindy to go out and make a friend. Mindy and her fellowship supervisor, Rob Gurgler (Tate Ellington, “Don’t Trust the B---- in Apartment 23”), take a trip to San Francisco together.
Meanwhile, Morgan Tookers (Ike Barinholtz, “MadTV”) and Danny decide to hang out for a night. Danny and Morgan spy Lauren (Tracy Wigfield, “30 Rock”) sneaking in to her ex, Peter Prentice’s (Adam Pally, “Iron Man 3”) apartment. Morgan calls Jeremy Reed (Ed Weeks, “The IT Crowd)” who is currently dating Lauren, and Danny and Morgan learn that Peter was babysitting Lauren’s child.
While at a bar in San Francisco, Mindy runs into Alex “Xander” Eakin (Lee Pace, “Pushing Daisies”), her ex to whom she lost her virginity. Mindy describes their sexual encounter, which is depicted via flashback. Rob notices that Mindy doesn’t mention her relationship with Danny to Xander, and forwards an email from Xander to Danny.
Mindy calls Peter and asks him to delete the email from Xander. When Jeremy arrives, Morgan, Danny and Peter invent a story about Mindy sleeping with Morgan instead of Danny to cover for Peter. Mindy tells Xander about her relationship with Danny, and Xander reveals that he has a girlfriend.
Jeremy believes the bogus story and leaves Danny’s apartment. Peter kisses Lauren and demands to be more than her babysitter. Mindy and Danny confront each other about trust and junk food, the cornerstones of their relationship.
This week’s “Mindy Project” offered several laugh-out-loud moments, a delightful flashback, a wonderful guest star, and more of Barinholtz’s charming enthusiasm as Morgan. I’m looking forward to this season’s second half of episodes because I think the distance between Danny and Mindy will continue to present new and interesting challenges to their relationship. In the hands of other showrunners, their relationship could be stale by this point, so thumbs up, “Mindy” writers, for continuing to reinvent Danny and Mindy!
Stray observations...
*Tamra (Xosha Roquemore, Rescue Me) is drafting her memoir at all times. As am I.
*Danny: “Did I hear Beverly’s (Beth Grant, The Office) voice come out of an Elmo in Times Square? It’s none of our business.”
*Mindy calls 2004 “a time when America could enjoy R. Kelly’s music without feeling guilty.”
*Spare ribs are the love of Mindy’s life. Jeremy’s opera cape is the love of MY life.
*Xander’s girlfriend “won the secret Hunger games we billionaires have.”
Tune in to “The Mindy Project” Tuesday nights at 8:30 p.m. on FOX.
