The Mindy Project 2.08: "You've Got Sext"

“You do not make pancakes for someone who is just a hookup. I’ve been told this by, like, ten guys.”
-Mindy

“You’ve got Sext,” as per usual, focused on Mindy’s love life. Presumably, the episode took its title inspiration from the 90’s Tom Hanks/Meg Ryan classic, “You’ve Got Mail.” Interestingly, both the A and B plots focused on it, but in different ways. Mindy loses her purse and cell phone, and she and Danny kind of dance around their unresolved sexual tension while Morgan and Peter, who find Mindy’s phone, try to help her flirt via text with Danny’s lawyer friend Cliff. The whole thing is a big romantic mess where nobody is really happy at the end. But the process to get to that rather frustrating ending definitely has its share of funny moments. I also appreciate that Danny at least has realized his feelings for Mindy, even if Mindy isn’t quite there yet. She’s got the whole texting mess to sort out, so realizing what Danny’s going through isn’t exactly on her radar just yet.

The episode opens with Mindy, Morgan, Cliff, and Cliff’s date for the evening. Cliff’s date is the runner-up for Miss Universe, so obviously Mindy’s feeling a little inadequate. Mindy and Danny end up walking out of the office together, and Mindy realizes she forgot her purse and cell phone. I don’t quite understand why she can’t just go to the hospital and pick it up (maybe she thinks it’s in the lost and found, which would be closed at night?), but she says she needs to spend the night at Danny’s apartment. Mindy makes a comment about having a crush on somebody at the office, and Danny becomes uncomfortable, thinking she’s talking about him. He’s nothing if not a gentleman, though, so he still lets her stay at his apartment.

Meanwhile, Morgan and Peter have found Mindy’s purse in the break room. They take a quick rifle through it before starting to feel guilty. Just as Morgan and Peter are about to leave the purse be, Mindy gets a text. It’s from Cliff, and he wants to know how the delivery Mindy told him about went. Morgan tells Peter about how he thinks Mindy and Cliff have chemistry, and the two of them cook up a plan to maybe get them together. They’re going all Cyrano, and they’re going to text with Cliff. The conversation starts out innocently enough, talking about work, but from the tone and the fact that the conversation is happening at all, Morgan and Peter deduce that Cliff is indeed into Mindy as much as she is into him. This means that it quickly devolves into borderline sexting, complete with the cliché “what are you wearing?” This was funny, but it also made me go into full embarrassment squick mode. If somebody did this with my phone, I would be mortified beyond belief. Which maybe says more about me than it does about this episode.

Anyway, in the lobby of Danny’s apartment building, Danny and Mindy run into Danny’s neighbor. Danny says he hooked up with the neighbor a couple times, but she’s kind of a crazy stalker. Mindy pretends to be Danny’s fiancée to try and get the neighbor to back off. Mindy of course takes this way too far and even tells the neighbor that she’s pregnant. It does get the neighbor to go away for a little while, although it doesn’t stick. Up in Danny’s apartment, Mindy and Danny squabble a little over who is going to sleep on the couch and who is going to sleep in the bed. Mindy wanders into Danny’s room while he’s watching the nature channel and innocently climbs into bed with him. When he turns to a creature feature and Mindy gets scared, Danny thinks it’s time for them to have a talk. He’s really concerned that she’s crushing on him. Unfortunately, the creepy stalker neighbor is sitting on the living room couch, and she kind of breaks up the party.

Speaking of parties, when Cliff texts “Mindy” that he’s coming over to his apartment, Morgan and Peter panic. They need to have a reason for Mindy to be hard to find, so they go into her apartment (presumably her keys were in her purse) and throw a “Veteran’s Day” party. They tell Cliff that Mindy is on a “salsa run,” then they tell him she’s in the bathroom. Cliff is just getting fed up, wondering where Mindy is and thinking that maybe she’s not really into him after all. Meanwhile, Mindy’s annoying neighbor Heather drops by the party, and she starts chatting Cliff up like there’s no tomorrow. When Cliff goes into the bathroom and sees that Mindy isn’t actually there, Peter and Morgan have to own up to being the texters. Cliff asks them to erase all the texts from Mindy’s phone, and he and Heather leave the party together.

Crazy neighbor lady starts telling Mindy about how she and Danny were having a lot of sex during much of the time that Mindy and Danny were “engaged.” She also mentions that Danny would make pancakes for her on a pretty regular basis. At that, Mindy starts having a bit more sympathy. As she later tells Danny, you don’t make pancakes for somebody who is just a random hookup. That implies that you want them to stick around for a while. Anyway, when Danny slips and calls Mindy by her real name instead of “Chloe” (her cover identity), they have to step up their game, and they get all snuggly in front of the neighbor. That’s when the neighbor backs off. She says she never saw Danny look at her the way he’s now looking at “Chloe.” That’s when Danny realizes he might just have feelings for Mindy after all.

Danny and Mindy go to sleep on the couch and bed respectively, and in the morning, Danny makes pancakes, which should be a big old sign to Mindy that’s something’s going on. But she’s oblivious. She’s so oblivious that she mentions to Danny that the person she has a crush on is Cliff. Danny tries to let this roll off his back, but it’s pretty obvious that he’s said Mindy doesn’t have the feelings for him that he thought she did. Mindy goes to the hospital and is happy to see her purse waiting there for her. Then things start to get weird. She gets a chipper voicemail from Heather thanking her for throwing the party that allowed her to meet Cliff. Then she sees all the texting between Cliff and “Mindy.” Obviously Morgan didn’t delete them like he was supposed to.