The Mindy Project: The Mindy Project's Remaining Episodes for Season 4!   First Watch 
November 25, 2015 7:45 AM - Season 4 (Full Season) - Subscribe

As Season Four draws toward a close, Mindy is confronted with choosing the life she wants versus the life Danny expects.

Due to the low participation rate of the previous episodes, I figured we could just wrap up the season this way, rather than litter the front page with unnecessary posts.
posted by Atreides (22 comments total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
 
I've made it as far as The Departed so far, and it felt really affirming to have Peter point out that Mindy and Danny's relationship has been increasingly uncomfortable to watch.

You know what I've really missed the last couple of seasons? Mindy having female friends. That she talks to. The series started really strong on that point, and it gradually turned into this thing where she just spends all of her waking moments talking with or about men, particularly Danny.
posted by Parasite Unseen at 9:23 AM on November 25, 2015 [3 favorites]


At this point I hate Danny so much I think I'm going to stop watching the show. This last episode especially was just the worst. My ideal season finale would be them splitting up.
posted by dysh at 9:24 AM on November 25, 2015 [1 favorite]


Incidentally, Parasite Unseen, they actually riff on Mindy's lack of female friends in the most recent episode.

Arguably, the best episodes this season have been the ones where Danny hasn't been involved outside of being a background presence, simply because the whole orthodox approach to family and the female place within it has simply been killing Danny's character.

Danny's evolution isn't without a foundation, but it's a regressive understanding of Danny which makes it so infuriating. Danny's role in the courtship between the two has almost always been played against him overcoming his own hang ups - but in this instance, they've taken a hang up and cast it as the season's arc.

I appreciate that Mindy is tackling this problem, which undoubtedly arises for a lot of women, but it probably would have been better played as a one or two episode issue, not a season long one.
posted by Atreides at 11:44 AM on November 25, 2015 [1 favorite]


I really like parts of this show, but I'm with you Dysh, the Danny/Mindy dynamic is just awful.

I guess I liked how they acknowledged that Mindy has no female friends? I miss women on this show.

I do find Jody inexplicably hilarious despite the over the top accent.
posted by betsybetsy at 7:44 PM on November 26, 2015 [1 favorite]


Oh thank you, I am so veering between hate and love for this arc, depending on how they stick it. I get that Danny has major head spin from becoming a dad and having his own dad dying, and is retreating into traditional roles, but watching Mindy crumble is breaking my heart. She's so unhappy and in love with him, cutting her self down to fit his decisions. It's not a sitcom, it's a small painful show with funny moments now.

I would love to see her work on an hour long show with someone who does drama or mystery, something structured she could build around, because Mindy Kaling has managed to write and create a complicated loving difficult character well. Not to everyone's taste, but this is my favorite season as flawed as it is.
posted by dorothyisunderwood at 8:35 PM on November 30, 2015 [1 favorite]


#LahiriBabyMiracles. There was a great line in this episode about Danny - every choice you make is selfless, every choice I make is selfish. And Mindy pointing out that he could have hired a nurse, got his brother to step up, a whole bunch of choices. And his deliberate sabotage waiting on the couch for her to come home from her first birth in her new practice, glowing with confidence and joy, to say the wedding is postponed.

I hope they explain why beyond Danny just being Danny.
posted by dorothyisunderwood at 7:34 AM on December 1, 2015 [1 favorite]


I am so looking forward to Mindy running a successful famous fertility practice and looking back on her almost-marriage as a huge mistake she narrowly avoided. Sheesh, this has been a hard season to watch.
posted by Pardon Our Dust at 6:04 PM on December 1, 2015 [3 favorites]


Whelp, with the reproductive coercion added to the mix Danny's firmly in abuse territory now. I really hope this ends with Mindy breaking things off and living a wonderful life as a successful doctor and mom.
posted by dysh at 5:46 AM on December 2, 2015 [2 favorites]


I would hope Mindy Kaling gets some kind of emmy nomination. There was one moment in yesterday's episode where you could just sense all the turmoil and pain her character was suffering. I concur with others, I really like that the show is addressing these issues, staying at home/being a work mom, the question of children, etc....but gosh, in order to do so, they are turning Danny into a monster.

As things ended, I'm struggling with the idea that the marriage will continue. It doesn't seem as if there's a lot of room for compromise between the two positions, or rather, that Danny is unwilling to consider it (such as waiting to decide on a second child). It feels as if the show will have to end without a wedding, perhaps with Mindy going the way as a 21st Century Murphy Brown.
posted by Atreides at 7:58 AM on December 2, 2015 [2 favorites]


I have this idea that the writers have been building the narrative arc of this relationship the whole time, introducing Mindy to the kind of quiet opressive nonsense that many american heterosexual women find themselves dealing with in relationships. And then, over time, Danny's casual dismissiveness and misogynistic bullshit got louder and louder until FINALLY her friends got involved. I'm thinking about times in which I've witnessed this myself and how sneaky and invasive and slow roast it was, and now I am thinking that Mindy Kaling is pretty remarkable.
posted by Pardon Our Dust at 4:34 PM on December 2, 2015 [7 favorites]


Today's episode may have been the best of the season for a variety of reasons. First, we actually have a much more classic version of Danny - starts off a jerk, but ends up doing the right and considerate thing. Second, the ending, it was a gut punch right to the feelers. Mindy Kaling deserves at least an emmy nomination. The show was supposed to be picked up for a full season by Hulu, but gosh, halfway through and it's really starting to tear me apart.
posted by Atreides at 7:06 AM on December 8, 2015


I find Danny's character arc frustrating, but completely believable because I've seen something similar play out in real life. The in guy in question came from a conservative culture, too. He was all gender equality and progressiveness when the couple was dating, but after the woman became his wife he wanted to know why dinner wasn't made every night--despite the fact that she was working full time while he was in grad school. Also, I think it's fairly realistic to show a character getting more stubbornly conservative after he has a baby.

Since we're finally talking about Mindy having no female friends, I hope this season ends with Mindy valuing herself and women more, maybe even getting a bestie out of the bargain.
posted by CatastropheWaitress at 7:48 AM on December 8, 2015 [2 favorites]


OH that last scene!! This show has me all over the place.
posted by Pardon Our Dust at 5:15 PM on December 8, 2015 [1 favorite]


I have watched the last scene about three times now. The quiet way she measures Leo's crib, her brief heartbroken crying, her face walking around the apartment where she just looks instantly so much lighter and happier, and then back in bed with Danny, looking it at the snow, smiling because- I don't know. That last shot I still don't get, why she went back to the apartment and Danny, except that maybe is Mindy going yes, I can do this.

Danny can manage one job and sort of being a part time dad and fiance. That's it. He's doing the minimum.

Mindy is managing two jobs, one her own business, organising the wedding, raising Leo and I think basically being amazing.

I want so badly for her to be able to go hey, no, I am enough. And maybe he grows up and changes but I don't really care anymore. This is the Mindy Project.

So glad this got pushed onto hulu!
posted by dorothyisunderwood at 3:18 PM on December 9, 2015 [2 favorites]


This article is pretty great and sums up a lot of my feelings about this season.
posted by dysh at 5:47 PM on December 9, 2015


Ahhhhhhhhhhh, what a relief. I've been so mad at other shows recently for keeping supposedly strong women with garbage partners despite their best instincts.
posted by ktkt at 2:40 AM on December 10, 2015


That is a great article on the show and I'm happy to see it's getting some coverage. My only quibble with the article concerns it's opinion that the show was telling us that Danny was always a jerk. I don't think that's an accurate summary of Danny's character. He was always introduced in the first season as something of a jerk, a very egotistical person who often refused to consider any world view other than his own to be superior. That is the Danny who we first met, and part of Danny's character arc has been to transcend this behavior. That's why Season 4 has been particularly rough because Danny has kind of regressed from being the guy who overcomes his own insecurities and feelings for the betterment of his relationship with Mindy.

It's more of a case, Danny began as a jerk, got better, but has suffered a jerk relapse. Worse, he essentially blames Mindy and Leo as his excuse, claiming that he wasn't the type of guy who wanted to get married or have a lot of children until they entered his life. Ugh. I really love and appreciate the story arc and themes they're attacking, but it's coming at the expense of the progress Danny's character had made previously. He was always a jerk, but for a while, he got better.
posted by Atreides at 8:40 AM on December 10, 2015


This is really all over the place. I still get a few solid laughs out of your average episode of this show, but Danny is really horrible. We've been shouting at our TV for weeks that he (obviously) should be the one to stay home with Leo, since it's so important to him. When Mindy FINALLY suggested it in the final episode, he actually scoffed. Scoffed!

Yuck.

At this point it feels like Danny is being written out of the series and, the way his character has evolved (de-volved?) I'd be pretty okay with that. Give us Mindy balancing fabulous/heartbroken single mama life and her awesome mostly-successful work schemes and we will survive.
posted by Zephyrial at 2:17 PM on January 3, 2016 [1 favorite]


The newest episode was just released today, "Will they or Won't They," and I have to say, I felt as if the quality of the show was significantly better than some of the other Hulu episodes. (Apparently, we didn't have a Season 4 finale, it was a mid-season break finale.)

In sum, a montage opens the show to fast forward through Mindy's (and Danny's) life over a matter of months. It concludes with the engagement off, the couple broken up, and the episode pivoting to focus on where Mindy and Danny are now in terms of relationship, as well Mindy's success with her fertility clinic. Also, Seth Meyer guest stars.
posted by Atreides at 11:22 AM on April 12, 2016


It's possible that people have given up, because after this week's episode, I'm pretty much ready to quit. I had pretty high hopes with "Will They or Won't They"-- the audience didn't get dragged through the rest of the season with "will they? they probably should, Danny is awful, ugh". The last two episodes, "So You Think You Can Finance" and "Mindy Lahiri is DTF" had some promise: a friendship with a woman, Mindy dealing with being on her own, and some hints of real, single motherhood (where she tells her hookup he has to be out before 9pm because her son will be back-- funny, but also real because it's not just the baby magically disappearing anytime it's convenient). The Jody set up is such a drag though. Their (inevitable) relationship is starting off just as hers and Danny's did with mutual dislike and then realizing they're great friends, then Jody realizing he has feelings for her (and now we're in the "will they or won't they?" stage). I kind of like Jody as this Southern gentleman with leather and oak and money, but only as a background guy, not the love interest who takes Danny's place.

This week's episode also had another female friendship (Eliza Coupe, who is great and I want her to stick around) pop up, but one that had seemed like an earlier blip with no continuation or mention until now. I must have missed the outrage or something about those episodes when Mindy helped the teenage girl get birth control or those moments when she rushed into action to be the great doctor she is actually is. Is that kind of multi-dimensional female character so disliked that producers just got rid of it to focus solely on relationship antics? I was really hoping the move to Hulu would meld those early series scenes with the loose-ness the characters seem to have now.
posted by thefang at 9:11 AM on May 5, 2016


Yes, thefang... what the heck is happening?

The latest episode has such fun moments (the slutty friend! the bartender! "Pork'd") but everything to do with Jody is so cringey and unwanted, at least for me. When Danny burst in I thought, "Oh! They realized that pushing Jody as a new love interest was a misstep and this is their course correction, to have Danny scare him off!" but that doesn't seem like the direction they went with it. Argh. Single Mindy balancing work and baby is the best Mindy, I feel... at least given where we've been.
posted by Zephyrial at 10:50 AM on May 5, 2016


I haven't seen the last episode, but I completely agree about the Jody thing. Given the weird downward spiral that was Danny's character, you'd think they might want to try and just leave Mindy's romantic life alone for a while.

Apparently, people are tuning in. The show was just renewed for a fifth season.
posted by Atreides at 1:25 PM on May 5, 2016


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