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The Mindy Project Recap: Giving Thanks

This episode was Thanksgiving-themed, which was nice since it provided each major character with a built-in storyline. Let’s break them down:

Mindy is having dinner entirely made on a panini press (it’s as weird and gross as it sounds) that her boyfriend Josh cooked for her, when talk turns to his upcoming time on the road. She is going to be hosting Thanksgiving dinner at Anna Camp’s house, bringing Morgan along as her caterer, while Josh is going to be traveling the country with a bunch of basketball players. When Mindy raises the idea of dating exclusively, Josh seems to want to table it until after he returns from his roadtrip (presumably so he can sleep with other girls). Furious, Mindy claims that she doesn’t want to be exclusive either and takes it as license to hit on Ed Helms at Anna Camp’s place.

The single best part about this episode was that they made Helms do the “slow motion walk down the staircase while locking eyes with your unrequited love before falling down all of the stairs” romantic comedy thing instead of Kaling. I will never get tired of seeing those tropes subverted. They end up making out in the den for a bit despite the presence of Helms’s gorgeous Indian girlfriend at dinner, but Anna Camp interrupts it and forces Mindy to call Josh, and he admits that he realized (while sitting in a strip club, naturally) that he does want to be exclusive after all. Aww. Mindy and Anna Camp also have a realistic best-friend fight about whether or not Mindy is “a mess,” and I hope we see more of their friendship as the season goes on.

Jeremy is going home for Thanksgiving with Betsy to Stereotype Small Town America, USA, for reasons unknown. While I did enjoy the gag of Jeremy donning Hawaiian shirts borrowed from Papa Betsy and the family eating Thanksgiving TV dinners, the rest of the humor was a little too broad. I could have done without the family spitting out the fancy chocolate Jeremy brings because “it’s gone bad,” and I feel like even the most rural, TV-obsessed clan would probably make an exception and have dinner at a real table once a year. This is all to set the stage for Betsy’s big conflict, however, which is that she hates that her family still treats her like a child (which she deals with very maturely by running up to her room and slamming the door). Eventually Jeremy reaches her and gets her to see how nice it can be to be treated like a kid every so often. It would be a nice moment if I cared about Betsy at all. What? She’s only had speaking lines that weren’t vomiting blue goo in, like, one other episode!

Finally we have Danny, who tells everyone he has plans on Thanksgiving…which turn out to be hanging out at the office by himself, luxuriating in the quietude. Oh, he is also, hilariously, teaching himself to play “Piano Man.” He seems really content with his day, actually, although he looks like he misses Mindy and the gang a bit when they start sending everyone pictures of their friends and family to one another. He does have one companion, though — A MOUSE THAT HE TRIES TO FEED, IN A MEDICAL PRACTICE. Aaaaaaaahhhhh. I will be thinking about that all through this weekend.

TAGS: Female Showrunners | mindy kaling | the mindy project

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