Mindy's Rowlf Wasn't That Bad

The Mindy Project, S01E15

Mindy's pitiful taxi video about women's health brought her enough ridicule and infamy that the local news wanted her to do a segment on their show.  Danny coached her on how to successfully present facts without being a joke, but Mindy had to bail on the show at the last minute to look after a patient.  Danny reluctantly took her place.  Beverly also got rehired to the practice as part of the administrative staff, but she had trouble using computers.

I didn't think that Mindy's little video was so bad.  It was definitely dorky, but not so bad that I think that the cab driver needed to express a wish to kill himself the longer he heard her voice.  It was strange that when I saw her open her mouth super-wide, it reminded me of The Muppets, but I still didn't get why she was dressed up as a dog.  It wasn't until later when Mindy said that she was trying to be Rowlf that I got it.  I felt like an idiot, but I felt like it made me like her video even more.  Only Mindy would dress like him to teach tips about women's health.  She is so random that it ends up being a little adorable.

I had mixed feelings about her being on the news, though.  On one hand, it was a chance for her to redeem herself and show that she's not just some goofball playing with puppets, pretending to be a doctor.  On the other hand, they only wanted her because her rating for pity was so high.  Damn. She wasn't that bad.  I don't think her taxi video was the best thing to bring in customers, but I don't think it was something that should have been on Tosh.0 as one of his "Fat Losers of the Week."  People's reaction to her video were way over the top.  She was being silly about reporting health.  It wasn't like she was sobbing over a cheeseburger on the floor or something.

I thought Mindy was going to make herself look even more like an idiot until she picked job duty over PR repair.  Her choice was the right one, I think.  We got to see Danny mess up on all the things that he assumed Mindy would do, proving once again that he (and Jeremy) shouldn't act like she's the only one capable of making their business look bad.  I'm pretty sure that Mindy would have been able to keep it together a little better than Danny.  He fell apart so quickly.  The best thing about him doing the news segment, though, might have been that his screw-up probably distracted the town from her dog-doctor video.

The absolute greatest thing that happened in the episode was one of my favorite scenes so far.  Danny and Mindy were in the elevator when Brendon came in.  I was not ready to see his smug face so soon, nor did I want to see Mindy being lured into his trap again.  Thankfully, Mindy did not want to give him the time of day:

[Brendon] Mindy, why aren't you answering my texts?

[Mindy] Because you're a dick.

I wanted to leap out of my chair and cheer when I heard that.  Finally!  It took her long enough to cut the bastard off.  I couldn't have possibly handled her being fooled by that piece of trash one more time.  Way to go, Mindy.

I didn't care too much about Beverly coming back to the practice.  So far she doesn't bring much besides a knack for racist quips.  Maybe that'll grow on me with time, but for now I wasn't impressed by the story about how she didn't even know how to use a mouse.  Who hasn't seen an elderly person struggle with technology?  This was nothing new, nor made me glad to see Beverly employed there again.

This episode was okay.  It had an incredible moment where Mindy basically told Brendon to shove it, but that didn't really make up for the entire story.  I like seeing Mindy putting her patients above her own reputation, but I'm a little tired of her being made a fool of for little reason.  Beverly, known for punching Mindy square in the nose, has returned to the show, but I don't see her value quite yet.  We'll see if she's able to make herself as indispensable as Morgan or Betsy.

Sometimes It Takes A Punch In The Nose

The Mindy Project, S01E02

Mindy, after being frustrated by their incompetent nurse at their practice, asked for Beverly to be fired and to be given the responsibility of finding her replacement.  Although, Dr. Shulman granted her that right, Danny couldn't trust her and made sure that he was part of the hiring process as well.  The two had completely different ideas of who would be a good employee.

Again, I feel like there was a lot of funny things in the episode, but it didn't make me exactly laugh out loud.  For example, I liked how Mindy was narrating her life on the train as if she was in a movie and then later was interested in a scenario Danny had come up with about stepping off a train and being sent into the past.  It's funny that she sort of lives in a fantasy and can look at the world in terms of it leading to her next big romance.  But again, it was exactly laughable, just entertaining at the moment.

Another interesting thing is the amount of guest starts from sketch comedies that appear on this show.  This episode marks the second appearance of an SNL member (this time Seth Meyers) and former MADtv member Ike Barinholtz.  I like this trend and wouldn't mind seeing more people like that.  The appearance of Barinholtz seems to be a possible reoccurring character, as his character Morgan got hired in this episode.

Morgan is about as crazy as the woman they fired, Beverly, so it's kind of dumb that he ended up being her replacement.  However, if he can supply some extra comedy, I'm all for him.  He was pretty funny during his interview, especially when his name "Ransom Tookers" was questioned:

You wouldn’t ask a black woman named "Destiny" if that was really her name. This feels racial.

I also liked when he fixed Mindy's nose and kissed her on the forehead.  He may be a potential loose cannon, but at least he can seem to reset a broken nose.  At that point, I was glad that Mindy hired him just because I felt like maybe the guy just needed to be given a chance and at least Mindy had some heart to give him one.  Plus, I feel like Mindy could have a little power over him, unlike Beverly who seemed to act like her own boss.

Speaking of when her nose got broken, I was really surprised by that.  I figured that Beverly might do something crazy, but I never thought it would be that violent.  Mindy has the worst luck.  But I think I like that the pattern of this show seems to be things going from bad to worse before they end things with slightly better than she started off.

The  last thing that I thought was amusing in this episode was when Mindy was on the train with Danny again and she pretended like he was her husband and was the one responsible for her injured nose.  It was kind of wrong of her to imply that he had hit her, but I liked it because Danny is a jerk and needs to be taught a lesson.

I'm still not a 100 percent on board with this show, but I feel like I'm getting there.  However, I might stop writing about this show and switch to Ben and Kate, which I've also been watching, but hadn't anticipated it being funny as well.  So we'll see which of them ends up being more my favorite, and rather than writing about both, I'll just do one of them.  I'm still rooting for Mindy, though, because there's just something about her that I really like.