The Mindy Project season 2, episodes 15 and 16 return from its months-long hiatus with some kissing and a lot of laughs. Check out our recap!
Fans of The Mindy Project have known about Danny’s feelings for Mindy since the beginning of the show. It’s Mindy’s feelings that have needed time to fully develop and we don’t think they’re realized until after he kisses her.
Danny is worried about being humiliated with rejection, but something shifts in Mindy that makes her realize she wants this. After a sequence of hilarious-for-us, terrible-for-them incidents, they successfully make it off the airplane and into Mindy’s elevator. They’re discussing the rest of the evening when the elevator opens to Cliff, with Morgan, waiting for her with a mariachi band playing “In Your Eyes.”
Cliff changed his mind about breaking up with Mindy after reading her eloquently-written email – that Danny actually wrote. Despite her pleading eyes at Danny to stay, Cliff steers her into her apartment, alone. Leaving Dr. Castellano crestfallen in an elevator with Morgan and four men in lime-green costumes.
Mindy rips the band-aid off, saying they should break up and that she is in love with someone – of course, Cliff mistakes that ’someone’ to mean him. So, Cliff wouldn’t accept their breakup, and that’s a problem for Danny. When Mindy tries for some work-place kissing, Danny refuses. He won’t kiss her until she dumps – or gets dumped by – Cliff.
Things Mindy tries to do to get dumped:
This episode really was all about Mindy and Danny, but there was a B-plot involving Peter and midwife, Brendan Deslauier (Mark Duplass). When new business is up for grabs, Jeremy is ready to sweep the New York Metropolitan Ballet off their feet. But then he realizes he dated many of the gorgeous ballerinas, so Peter must step in as the face of the practice.
Of course, the midwives upstairs were also planning on pitching so they agree to team up. Unfortunately, this leads to disastrous results as Peter loses it while watching an agonizingly-long ballet performance.
Operation Break-Up is put on hold when Cliff receives a phone call that his grandmother passed away. He can’t be alone and after falling into her lap, sobbing, she allows him to stay the night.
Danny tries to brush off the plane incident, but Mindy refuses to accept that and Danny goes to console Cliff, hoping to cheer him up. When Cliff begins to insinuate he slept with Mindy the night before, Danny gets adorably jealous.
At the funeral, Danny and Mindy are forced to listen to Cliff deliver Mindy’s terribly written eulogy (she had written such a wonderful email, he asks her to step up to the plate on this one). Danny pulls Mindy away from Cliff’s disastrous speech, and asks God if they’re doing something wrong. They start making out and knock over a candle, setting the Church on fire.
Outside the Church, Cliff keeps trying to rationalize away all the mishaps that have occurred throughout the day. Mindy finally admits her kiss with Danny is not a one time thing and she really does have feelings for him.
Cliff then promptly snaps out of his sorrow and punches Danny in the lip. Bye, Cliff!
As ‘The Mindy Project’ season 2 episode 15 ends, episode 16, “Indian BBW,” opens with Mindy and Danny making out on Mindy’s bed.
When Mindy wants to take things slow and hold off on sex, Danny questions it. They’ve been making out for 20 minutes, and isn’t that, like, a week in “guy minutes”?
She states she usually has at least gone on a few dates before getting physical with a guy, but Danny points out the ‘hundreds’ of dates they’ve gone on. Subway ride dates, medical conference dates, all the little moments from their friendship have become romantic.
The next morning, Mindy walks into the office looking for Danny, when Peter says he came into work all sweaty, then passed out. Beverly (delivering her one line for the hour) declares he has viral meningitis and was rushed to the hospital.
Mindy, concerned for her ‘coworker’ rushes into the room and acts a lot more concerned for him than a platonic friend probably would. This wouldn’t be a problem if Danny’s little brother, Ritchie, was there as well.
Side note: Is there anything cuter than seeing Danny clutching his stuffed animal?
Aside from that, Danny’s brain fever makes him a horny pervert that Mindy refuses to oblige in the name of taking things slow.
Danny turns to little brother Ritchie for advice about why Mindy suddenly seems so gung-ho to take things slow. Richie points out how judgmental Danny can be. Turns out, his judgement ranges from leasing over buying cards, to turning the heat on in the winter.
She did, however, bring her favorite sick book, Bridget Jones’s Diary.
A string of panicked texts from Peter sends Mindy back to the office. He stumbled upon Mindy’s sex tape she made with ex-boyfriend Tom (Bill Hader) long ago and Mindy needs to take a second to lie on the floor.
Mindy about Danny: “He’s a really special guy that I’ve liked for a long time.”
Why is Mindy suddenly realizing all these feelings about Danny now? She says, repeatedly, that this guy is something special to her. And we know that, but we’re surprise she’s matured to reach that level so quickly.
Peter sees her anguish and becomes determined to help her get it removed. When they confront him, Tom agrees to bring the tape to her office so she can destroy it herself.
But the quest isn’t over yet: the reason Sploderzz.com refuses to take the video off their site is, disgustingly, “there’s a growing market for “Indian BBW” – ‘big, beautiful, woman’” After Peter finds common ground with the owners of Sploderzz – all are Dartmouth alums – they agree to take down the video.
Tom does deliver the DVD to Mindy, but it gets mixed up in the paperwork Morgan delivers to Danny. Danny, misinterpreting the message on the sleeve, thinks the sex tape video is for him. Naturally, he watches it and is subsequently trapped into the confines of his hospital bed while it continues to play against his will.
His outrage is questioned by Peter and it takes him a second to connect the dots – though he’s technically wrong when he accuses them of “porking.”
Mindy’s sweating isn’t guilt sweat, but the sudden onset of viral meningitis right there at Danny’s bedside. Moments later, she’s the one in the hospital bed, sorrowfully telling Peter that she didn’t even like Tom that much, and she likes this “new” guy so much more. Peter dutifully relays this message to Danny, who takes the hint: this is something special for Mindy.
In the end: Danny likes that she wants to take things slow. It’s then we wish gifs had audio because Danny begins reading Bridget Jones’s Diary to her in his British woman’s voice as they cuddle in the small hospital bed.
The two episodes were very Mandy-heavy. Did you like it or would you have preferred episodes that displayed less PDA?