Another day, another McDonald’s lunch for Mindy. As someone who also lives in New York City, I’m frequently shocked by Mindy’s love of McDonalds. I love junk food too, but I truly can’t remember the last time I went into one and even then it was the rare McDonald’s breakfast, not their burgers, that got me in the doors. On that topic, this was a good light episode for The Mindy Project with the exception of their lunch, Jeremy’s scone, Mindy and Anna’s vanilla ice cream (boring), and a plate of strawberries with clotted cream (which Mindy called snotted cream).
Personally the idea of strawberries and clotted cream made me gag a little because honestly, clotted cream is just sweet butter in my opinion, and strawberries dipped in butter wouldn’t be very good. As you perhaps guessed, this wasn’t a plot driven episode. In “Dibs” Anna’s divorce motivates Jody and Jeremy to pursue her (in a juvenile example of these two friends “calling dibs”), and Morgan gets annoyed with Karen (Collette’s new girlfriend) being at their house too often. This week, Mindy REALLY took a backseat (literally, she spent about 10 minutes of the episode unseen in the bathroom), and the show really felt like more of a hangout show than most.
That isn’t a dig at the show at all. In fact, it gives the show some breathing room to explore more character relationships, and the Anna and Jeremy relationship instantly had a good feeling. Jeremy is incredibly awkward but has a lovability which comes out even more when around steely Anna. And Anna is a little softer around him than anyone else in the office. Even her interactions with Mindy have a tendency to lead to slightly Ex Machina reactions from her. One of the best of the night was Anna’s response to Mindy suggesting she call in sick being “but I’m not sick, my temperature is a normal 92.1 degrees.” Who knew we needed to see Mindy as mentor on how to relax, but we did.
She was also playing mentor to Jeremy, who is delightfully clueless about how to act around Anna. Unfortunately so is Mindy (but Anna’s lack of visible emotions would be hard for anyone to read). After seeing her give Jeremy a scone, Mindy suggests she’s hitting on him and tells him to go after her. But Jeremy’s really only motivated to act when Jody shows interest. Jeremy and Jody are probably two of the weirdest characters on TV (Jody casually calls Jeremy sweetie in this episode, and I don’t think he meant it sarcastically). This Felix 1 and Felix 2 odd coupling leads to some delightful interplay…they’re both particular about their domestic lives but in very different ways. In this friendly threesome, Mindy’s the Oscar in both their lives.
To act against Jody’s emerging interest in Anna, Jeremy takes Mindy’s advice and goes to her house to spend time with Anna aka when Mindy fakes a stomachache and excuses herself for a night on the toilet. Jeremy takes out the champagne, but spills it when he yanks out a puzzles. Personally, I’d find that charming, but puzzles are probably a second date activity. But spilling the champagne does break the ice, and Anna starts discussing her pending divorce and husband’s infidelities. Until Jody interferes, paging her to the hospital for an emergency delivery so he can surprise her with a picnic in the scrub room (that’s vile, Jody). Not surprisingly, Anna isn’t won over by Jody’s misguided efforts.
Across town, Morgan has to deal with Karen, Colette’s oddball girlfriend that uses his closet for a recording studio. After trying to accommodate Colette’s desire to have Karen in the apartment, Morgan loses it after getting so scared when she emerges from the closet and he throws his date off the top of his bunkbed. His date walks out and bans him from the hospital cafeteria, and he loses his tempter with Karen. Colette loses her temper with Morgan and the two are wrestling on the floor in no time. While pretty funny, this particular story doesn’t go anywhere really, as Karen apologizes the next day and Morgan’s a pretty nice guy, so he probably would have forgiven even if Colette hadn’t put him in a headlock.
Two other guys who would probably call themselves “nice guys” are Jody and Jeremy. Both guys frequently are nice, especially to Mindy. And they have a real, honest friendship despite their romantic competition. But they haven’t gotten over the idea that “being nice” shouldn’t be used as a pick-up line. Just be a nice person without the hope of a date. Anna puts them in their place when Jeremy tries to kiss her at the office, and reminds everyone at the office they don’t have to date internally just because of proximity. Ironically, Mindy wasn’t even there for this moment of office interaction; she’s hopefully already learned that lesson.
Rating: 9
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