The Mindy Project 2.15: "French Me, You Idiot"

“I don’t care what you say to that giant elephant up there. According to my guy, this is wrong.” -Danny

And “The Mindy Project” is back (for a few weeks, at least)! The spring premiere picked up exactly where the last episode left off – Mindy and Danny are making out in the back of the plane. After the initial kiss, both of them are hesitant for a minute, and Danny basically gives Mindy a pass if she wants to reconsider. She doesn’t. They go into the bathroom and try to get more romantic, but some turbulence kills the mood. Things can be hot on an airplane (I guess?), but the real test for Mindy and Danny will be what happens when they get home and face real life. That is really what this episode is all about. There are some serious loose ends for Mindy and Danny back in New York, and they have to deal with those lose ends before they can try to be together. I’m glad the creative team decided to take this approach, really. Mindy and Danny kissing and everything being happily ever after just wouldn’t have been realistic.
Mindy and Danny hardly have any time back in New York before the biggest loose end they must face presents itself. Danny drops Mindy off at her apartment, and they are greeted by Cliff trying to perform a “grand romantic gesture” in the hallway. Egged on by Morgan, Cliff hired a mariachi band to create a romantic mood (I guess?) for asking Mindy to take him back. Danny is kind of heartbroken because he thinks Mindy is going to choose Cliff over him, and there’s a surprisingly beautifully shot (for a comedy) scene where we see the elevator doors close in front of him as the mariachi band plays.
In other news, the gynecologist to the New York City Ballet has had a heart attack, and Jeremy thinks it would be a great idea for Shulman and Associates to try and get the contract. Danny’s really not a ballet kind of guy and Mindy has been banned from Lincoln Center, so Jeremy must rely on Peter’s help to make this deal happen. Peter knows that his frat boy persona is going to be a disadvantage when he and Jeremy try to make their pitch, so he enlists some help. He approaches Brendan the midwife and proposes a partnership. Both Shulman and the Midwives want the contract, but neither alone have all the qualities the Ballet is looking for. Together, they can win the bid and then some.
Danny and Mindy have rather inappropriate conversations at work throughout the episode. Early in the episode, they fight about Cliff’s big romantic gesture. Mindy swears that she has feelings for Danny, not Cliff. Danny is equally adamant that while she’s still officially going out with Cliff, it would be cheating if anything more happened between them. Mindy thinks this is stupid, but one thing about Mindy and Danny is that they’re equally stubborn. Danny and Mindy even manage to bring religion into the argument, as you can see from the quote of the episode. Anyway, Mindy promises to break up with Cliff that night.
Mindy’s big break-up plan is to be as disgusting as possible so Cliff is the one who wants to break up with her. When Cliff arrives home, he finds Mindy sitting on the toilet. The grossness only escalates from there. Just as Mindy is about to pull the trigger and break up with Cliff (finally), Cliff gets a call that his grandmother died. He’s devastated, and Mindy spends the night because she feels bad for Cliff. They don’t have sex, but Danny is still pissed off when Cliff talks about it the next day. It probably doesn’t help that Cliff implies that there was sex. Even when Mindy clears things up about what exactly happened between herself and Cliff, Danny isn’t happy. Things only get worse when Cliff asks Mindy to write his grandmother’s eulogy. He thinks she would do a great job because the letter she wrote him was so eloquent. Mindy begs Danny for help, since Danny was the one who actually wrote said eloquent letter, but Danny refuses.
Meanwhile, Peter and Brendan go to the ballet to do their pitch for the gynecology contract. Jeremy isn’t there because he realized that he has dated most of the ballerinas, and that probably wouldn’t end well for the business. Brendan is a ballet fan, but Peter is decidedly not. He puts on a good front until someone from the ballet invites Peter and Brendan to watch a four hour rehearsal while management deliberates the contract. Peter is well behaved for a while, but by the act break, he has had it. Brendan says that the final scene of the act is two lovers moving towards each other. The two dancers, however, seem to be moving as slowly as possible. Peter throws a fit and yells at the dancers to move faster. Then he gets up on the floor and starts moving the dancers himself. When peter regains his composure, he realizes that there’s no way they’re getting the contract now, and he and Brendan leave while they still have some dignity.
Both Mindy and Danny end up going to Cliff’s grandmother’s funeral. Cliff starts trying to say the eulogy that Mindy wrote, and as you might expect, it’s pretty terrible. Mostly because Mindy didn’t even both to find out the poor woman’s name. Mindy and Danny can’t take much of it, so they go to the candle lighting area in the back of the church. They aren’t lighting a candle for Cliff’s grandmother though. They are in the back of the church to make out. And of course they kind of light the church on fire in the process. After everyone is evacuated, Cliff thanks Mindy and Danny for at least trying to light a candle for his grandmother. Mindy chooses that moment to admit that she was actually making out with Danny, and it’s not the first time she has done so. Cliff responds by punching Danny. Which he probably deserved.