The Mindy Project Recap: Moving In

The Mindy Project

What About Peter?

Season 3 Episode 10

Editor’s Rating 3 stars ***

Photo: Beth Dubber/FOX

We focus our attention upon Peter this week, the friend Mindy can take to the Rihanna book signing when Danny calls it “the reason China is winning.” Also perhaps because his days on The Mindy Project are numbered, which is really too bad. But plot-wise, it is ostensibly because his roommates are so bad that when Mindy encounters them, she says, “Oh my God. So this is how I die.” They are known by the names Pube, Pubeless, and Bush. Bush is a Kennedy. They can remove Mindy’s bra and/or underwear with a lacrosse stick (I think?) without her knowledge. They are not good company to keep.

Mindy and Danny, on the other hand, are so ensconced in couplehood that they are entranced by the ability to share their Weather Channel viewings. They are thrilled to share the day that Ray is coming over to put the cornucopia tile on the oven backsplash in the kitchen of Danny’s spare apartment. As someone who was very excited to go to pick up CSA produce today with her live-in partner, I relate strongly. Shared excitement over mundane domestic happenings is indeed a fine thing. Danny, in fact, is so caught up in this spirit that he tells Ray the backsplash guy that he’s thinking of knocking down the wall between the two (incredibly spacious and beautiful) apartments “down the road for a family.” I swear he says “a family,” instead of just “family,” which makes the later miscommunication a bit suspect, but whatever.

However, Mindy suggests that Peter move into the extra apartment because, as previously established, his roommates are “garbage from hell.” Peter offers to pay triple, so Danny agrees. Peter wants to transition into moving into a “more grown-up situation” because “right now,” he says, “I’m a grown-up who is living like the Situation.” Mindy helpfully tries to explain to Danny that this is a character from The Jersey Shore, but Danny is about as interested in talking about that as I am. Not very.

At first it seems Peter’s moving in next door to Danny is a good thing. Danny wonders if Mindy has lit one of her pot-roast-scented candles (where can I get one of those?) only to find that Peter has actually cooked them dinner. Peter is behaving himself so well that he said he “relaxed” instead of saying he masturbated.

Then again, Peter begins to encroach upon their lives a bit too much when he sleeps on Danny’s sofa instead of going back to his apartment to sleep on crumpled newspapers. Suddenly Mindy is watching TV with Peter instead of having sex with Danny. It’s all reasonably funny as enacted by these particular characters and written by this show’s writers, though not as surprising and interesting as most Mindy Project episodes.

Things get more boring when Jeremy is faced with taking care of his girlfriend’s baby. The baby is insanely cute, but I can’t possibly care. I’m not the least bit invested in their relationship. Morgan is unsurprisingly good with the baby because of course he is, and because he needs to be involved in a plot this week. My hope for Jeremy as a character, which was stoked earlier this season, is plummeting again. I’ve said it before, and I’ll repeat: I like the actor. But, alas, I wish we were losing him instead of Adam Pally. Jeremy does get one great throwaway line as he leaves Morgan with the baby, saying he was “catching a matinee of Wagner. Depressing, anti-Semitic? Sure. But more fun than here.” Then the baby seems to say the name “Peter” — Jeremy’s girlfriend’s ex as well as Danny and Mindy’s new tenant — thus inspiring Jeremy to try again with the kid. It turns out the baby likes when Jeremy performs various pratfalls, but by the end, Jeremy realizes he doesn’t want to spend his life with a baby. Perhaps providing an opening for Peter to run off with the baby-mama instead? Argh, whatever.

When we return to Danny’s apartment, things get more predictable, though not before we learn that that “Summer Breeze” song from 1972 is performed by a group called Seals and Crofts. I know a fair number of things about pop music in the 1970s, but I did not know this. Well done, Mindy Project. We also got to see cannolis that Mindy got for Danny, but without the filling. That was pretty good, too. But there was no way Danny was getting in the shower with anyone except Peter, right? Right. Though this did, at least, prompt my favorite line of the evening from Danny: “We don’t need a Kramer. And if we needed one, Morgan’s more that energy.”

Ray, surprising no one, lets it slip to Mindy when he stops by the next day that Danny wants to combine the two apartments “for a family.” Mindy immediately starts envisioning what she’ll do when she moves into the expanded space: “a Strawberry Shortcake–meets-Saddam’s-palace vibe.” (Yes, please.) She immediately kicks Peter out, even though he hasn’t made much progress toward being more mature; he bought groceries, but then he left them in a strip club. Mindy doesn’t care because she has finally snagged a guy with a “perfectly proportioned penis.” (Good to know.)

Soon Peter throws himself a raging going-away party in the apartment, upsetting Danny. (“What the hell is Peter thinking? There’s not a single coaster in here.”) This forces Peter to reveal that Mindy knows about the “family” idea, but Danny says he just meant he wanted a place to put Ma when she gets older. When Peter eventually urges Danny to smooth things over with Mindy, we get a nice Cheers reference, at least: “Go. Make things right with Diane. Sorry, Mindy.”

In any case, it seems pretty clear that our mid-season finale next week will hinge upon Danny and Mindy possibly moving in together. Hopefully the episode will have more of the Mindy twists we’re used to.