100 Favorite Shows: #35 — The Mindy Project
“I figure if I’m gonna be a mess, I might as well be a hot one.”
Following an early departure ahead of the final season of The Office and the success of her first memoir, Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns), the idea of Mindy Kaling as a showrunner for her own comedy was an alluring one for NBC. Developing a pilot with Kaling for a series entitled, It’s Messy, NBC eventually deferred the show to Fox, which picked it up and altered the title to The Mindy Project. The Mindy Project debuted in September 2012 and was Kaling’s baby completely, blending a semi-autobiographical nature with her beloved rom-com genre. Kaling stared as Dr. Mindy Lahiri of Shulman & Associates, a Manhattan medical practice, who worked alongside Danny Castellano (Chris Messina). While Danny began as one of Mindy’s partners, along with Jeremy Reed (Ed Weeks), he eventually developed into her romantic partner, too. The cast was constantly in flux on The Mindy Project — especially after it shifted midway through its run to air seasons four through six on Hulu. Eventually concluding in November 2017, The Mindy Project remains Kaling’s best television creation to date.
(If you don’t want spoilers for The Mindy Project, get out now.)
I was hesitant about The Mindy Project at first. Considering how highly it ranks on my list, I know how absurd that must seem. But when it debuted, I was only familiar with Kaling as a member of The Office and it felt almost like a betrayal that she would leave one of my most beloved series ahead of its final season to launch her own story. What I missed was that The Mindy Project was simply a purer distillation of Kaling’s talents, which I had grown so warmly to over the years. I didn’t see it as an opportunity for more Kaling, in terms of creation, writing, and performing. I only saw it as a lens of less Kelly Kapoor (and, by extension, less Ryan, as B.J. Novak (and his composer brother, Jesse) worked in behind the scenes roles on her Fox rom-com) and that was a mistake.
Fortunately, I came around after reading Kaling’s first collection of essays and began to understand why I loved the comedy of The Office, rather than accepting it as it came like the unaware child I was. Once I accepted that Kelly and Ryan were gone from The Office and that her series would lean more into the “Jim and Pam” style of a workplace comedy than the “Michael Scott” avenues, I was all in on the series. This shift helped set it apart from The Office, which was one-third of Kaling’s series ingredients (the other two being her memoir and Nora Ephron romantic comedies), because the sensibility was purely Kaling’s! She took what she learned from an early career of creation and proved she was ready to do it herself, like Steve Kerr taking on the coaching job of the Golden State Warriors. The Mindy Project was all Mindy! It was hers! A production company tag based on her name that told us to go to bed, a bouncy tone, a slew of romantic kisses. It was all Kaling and she crushed it every step of the way.
On the rom-com side of The Mindy Project, many characters fell in and out of love or flirted with one another. Morgan Tookers (Ike Barinholtz) asked out Tamra Webb (Xosha Roquemore), Peter Prentice (Adam Pally) married Lauren Neustadter (Tracey Wigfield). But the central romantic tension of the series always stemmed directly from Mindy, the character, herself.
The driving force of her romantic pursuits was simply that Mindy Lahiri was a woman who wanted to be desired and wanted to be loved. Over time, she became more and more deft at handling the various awkward mishaps in her love life (like when she refused to fight the “other woman,” Heather (Ellie Kemper), in her relationship with Josh (Tommy Dewey)), but romance was always complicated. (The later seasons even tossed a baby into the mix, providing another hurdle for Mindy to navigate in her daily life.)
A brief moment in season two’s “You’ve Got Sext” demonstrates Mindy’s tendency to think about love frequently, as she walks down the street to Danny’s apartment and notices every loving couple in a New York City winter sharing affection and time with one another. As most swooning moments of zoning out go for Mindy, she’s snapped out of a floating daze by Danny, complaining about when she last came to his apartment and changed his WiFi password to something regarding Miley Cyrus.
For as hip as Mindy thinks she is (her musical loves also extend to Beyoncé and Taylor Swift), for the most part, she’s an awkward dork who is one of television’s strongest champions of the “hot mess” archetype. When Morgan encourages Mindy to “act hot” (something she frequently loves to do) when flirting with the nearby lawyer, Cliff (Glenn Howerton), her idea is to describe the rash she has on her ribs, protesting only, “I was cool, I thought!”
That’s a solid way to describe most of Mindy’s behavior. She quotes Tony the Tiger when trying to “play it cool” around another potential source of affection, Brendan (Mark Duplass), she brags about her time on the bowling team (“Storks and Stripes”), she coins the alias Chloe Silverado for herself when pretending to be Danny’s fiancée to appease his “stalker,” Amy (Sarah Burns). Every step of the way, Mindy is almost impossibly awkward, but her behavior always manifests because she thinks she has her life together.
Take season one’s “Josh and Mindy’s Christmas Party,” for example. When Danny bemoans the idea of another holiday bash after Mindy passed out at the last one, she defends herself by saying she simply “had too much to drink.” He clarifies that that’s not a defense of what happened and more of a description, but she dismisses the statement instantly because Mindy is deaf to any claim that she is anything but a modern woman who can truly “have it all” in the big city — just like all her favorite romance characters.
That still doesn’t change her willingness to sleep on a Thai restaurant mattress or spill syrup and wine on couch cushions or request “red” flavored popsicles. Mindy may be unabashedly immature in a manner that is clear to all of us and all of the people in her life (sans Morgan, who worships Mindy like Gary did Selina on Veep), but she’ll never admit that most of her relationships fail because of that quality. Because she’s not always ready.
Now, that doesn’t mean that Josh was right to use her for an affair or Danny was right to demand she act a certain way as the mother of their child (she handles both with her patented ability to be self-deprecating). Of course, those actions are the faults of the men Mindy with whom she was intertwined. It’s just that Mindy does not respond to heartbreak well, especially when it differs from the three-act structure to which she’s deeply accustomed. And, I mean, who does respond well to heartbreak? That’s part of the journey we’re all on and it’s part of Mindy’s path, too. She’s not just looking for love; she’s seeking self-actualization.
These attributes of The Mindy Project were derived, in an exaggerated form, from Kaling’s own persona. Anyone who’s followed Kaling (and, by extension, Novak, who created the iconic Keough Novak) knows how obsessed she is with fleshing out a character creation with specific, lived-in details. Kaling famously had her own take on Michael Scott (coupled with endless, Bible-esque ideas for what that character would love to do in modern years), but she also clearly delights in crafting her own characters to play, like ratcheting up the valley girl aesthetic of Kelly Kapoor and churning out a pseudo-metrosexual “disasterpiece” in Mindy Lahiri.
In a sense, Lahiri was basically a medically intelligent, aggrandized version of Kaling herself. (As anyone who read her book knows, many of the sentiments included were also featured on the show, like her claim that “best friend” is a “tier, not a title.”) Lahiri is someone who lived in New York City like it was a quaint suburb of Phoenix (complete with a misplaced love of warm weather and endless, knowing allusions to bombastic New York Post headlines that make plays on the word “slay” at Christmastime or on her profession (“O.B. Slayed by S.O.B.”)), but secretly wanted it to be like Los Angeles. When she watches the Nature Channel, though, she’s simply reminded of how happy she is to live in an urbanized, metropolitan area. It’s perhaps the only city that someone as metrosexual as Mindy Lahiri (shoutout to MVP costume designer Salvador Perez) could actually thrive within.
Knowing a fair bit about Kaling’s life (through her books and social media), I see these parallels between her character and her real persona more readily than I did when I simply knew her solely as Kelly. (Knowing how she interacts with people like Novak and Barinholtz on these apps (reverentially and dismissively, respectively) also contributes to the fact that their characters on Mindy were also exaggerated depictions of their actual lives. (Ike’s Instagram comments really lean into the idea of he and Mindy possessing a one-sided friendship.) Yes, she exists in the realm of The Office and that brand of humor, but based on the myriad cameos on Mindy (from Bill Hader to Seth Rogen to Seth Meyers to Joseph Gordon-Levitt to Meyers’ dog, Frisbee), it’s clear that Mindy Kaling is a cross-sense of humor star.
Her talent is obviously legendary (she wholly deserved an Emmy nomination for her work and I still find it cruel that the Television Academy made her wake up early only to not read her name on the teleprompter), which is in direct contrast from the Lahiri character, who thought she was hilarious even though her funniest jokes were inadvertently made. Her takes on world matters (positing the notion that she and Danny should buy and split Greece, to rescue it from economic disaster) were colored through a lens of interspersed conservatism, as Mindy Lahiri believed climate change to be a hoax and Rudy Giuliani to be a dime piece.
While Kaling does not share these beliefs with Lahiri (Giuliani’s level of attractiveness pending), she did ensure that the progressive nature of the fact that she was an Indian woman running and starring in her own network comedy was beside the point. The Mindy Project was never an explicitly “woke” series, by traditional, muddled definitions, because what Kaling wanted to create was her own version of a television rom-com. Any other social narratives just happened to tag along with the series, which was such an anomaly in the annals of television up until that point.
On The Mindy Project, Mindy Lahiri could date whoever and like whatever she wanted because the notion of an OB/GYN strictly focused on her professional life at all times is a laughable one. Lahiri demonstrated an ability to be wickedly intelligent, but also invested in popular culture and superficial celebrity worship. “I’m Mindy Lahiri, M.D., stupid bitch!” she exclaims when wrestling with Heather at the Christmas party gone awry, illustrating that just because a woman is interested in keeping up with the Kardashians, that doesn’t mean she’s not also interested in furthering her medical career and ensuring she handles being overwhelmed by the work in a more effective manner.
Mindy Lahiri was all things and when she gave a speech, it could be inspiring and it could include a quote from Mariah Carey (introduced as another prominent “woman of color” and a clear role model of Mindy’s). Because such concepts are not mutually exclusive. The Mindy Project was endlessly impressive, but it was deft in its depiction that what is easily dismissed by obnoxious men, who spend too much time on the Internet, as “feminine drivel” is actually inherently valuable. It’s just unfortunate that such an idea needs to be stated, rather than allowing people to find pleasure in whatever they like and maintaining a relationship with culture that is not dependent on belittling girls and women for their interests.
This also applied to social media and technology, which was well-harnessed by Kaling and consistently depicted in a cute way (namely with colorful, on-screen text bubbles and narrating voice-overs). “I want you to love me in a way that I can show on Instagram,” Mindy tells Danny, even though his traditionalism blinds him from seeing why that matters to her. Viewing a relationship through the lens of social media is unhealthy, but showing off love through a medium that Mindy gravitates towards is not. It’s just part of the modern dating landscape.
Clearly, a great deal of inspiration for The Mindy Project comes from the lineage of rom-coms and the personality of Kaling’s own book. But it is also distinctly connected to The Office because, frequently, Mindy operates as a workplace comedy.
There was Jeremy, who was good for moral support and finding “Christmas Wrapping” by The Waitresses cute when Mindy spends an extended sequence at her desk dancing to it, even if the show infrequently knew what to do with his character. There was Peter, who ended up proving to be a good pal of Mindy’s, in spite of his initial frat boy persona (and Pally gelled admirably with the cast). But there was also a vastly inconsistent ensemble around them. Mindy, Jeremy, Ike, and Beverley (Beth Grant) are the only characters to occupy main roles for the entire series (Tamra was recurring for season one) and many initially main characters were gone by the third season. Mindy’s best friend, Gwendolyn (Anna Camp). Her boss, Marc (Stephen Tobolowsky). Her receptionists, Betsy (Zoe Jarman) and Shauna (Amanda Setton). All long forgotten by the time the series shifted to Hulu (even Danny, the male lead, was only a guest star for season five!). (Though, to be fair, the later stage series characters, like the Kimball-Kinneys, Jody (Garret Dillahunt) and Colette (Fortune Feimster), were stronger inclusions than the bubbly vagueness of Hulu (at the time) initially implied.)
When the cast was cohesive, though, The Mindy Project was as stellar as any workplace comedy from the 2000s and 2010s, with characters endlessly involved in one another’s business and a barrage of one liners revealing fun details about them (“I kissed my grandmother so tight on the lips this morning, she said, ‘Get the hell off me!’” Morgan explains). The best example of this over-the-top behavior with colleagues comes in “You’ve Got Sext” when Peter and Morgan take to sexting Cliff (so Mindy can have an in with him), debating how fast they should reply and which emoji is the right amount of suggestive. Their manipulation of Cliff eventually backfires, but not before they claim that Mindy is wearing a cardigan, corduroy slacks, and a breast cancer awareness pin. They were workplace hijinks, but they were those of Mindy Kaling’s particular brand of comedy.
At its core, though, The Mindy Project was always at its best when managing the relationship between Danny and Mindy. After all, Danny Castellano was as specific a creation as Mindy Lahiri was. A lover of cooking and crafts (both of which were passions he learned from his mother (a brilliantly cast Rhea Perlman)), Danny took pride in his work and in the work emanating from his hobbies. (He insulated his gingerbread house with cotton candy, showing the loving meticulous touch of Danny’s creativity.) Described as a “rich kid from Staten Island” by one of Mindy’s many flings, Charlie (Tim Daly), Danny — with his glasses that split at the middle and attached around his neck — is the kind of old soul who’s set in his ways. His idea of culture is a windmill book, not Sex and the City (he saw one episode and they were all “walking down the street”). From the beginning, he’s also very clearly endgame for Mindy.
In the aforementioned Christmas episode, Wham!’s “Last Christmas” plays over every intimate Danny and Mindy scene, as he helps deliver her speech through her tears, speak to Heather on the phone while pretending to be someone else, and generally try to stop her from sabotaging herself. In spite of their separate worldviews, the chemistry between Kaling and Messina was so romantically thrilling that it was obvious what The Mindy Project was establishing from the get-go (even if doubt did creep in after Mindy and Danny split following the birth of Theo).
Danny claimed to prefer being single, while Mindy sought love on every street corner. He preferred the lack of commitment and the lack of a wet toothbrush; she thought that rinsing a toothbrush after use negated any mouth it entered. She thinks Danny smells nice, but he says it’s just deodorant and that he wants to be left alone. They weren’t quite enemies before they became lovers, but they certainly possesses adversarial personalities (occasionally to the point where chauvinism in male-dominated relationships was addressed in the form of Danny labeling other women as sociopaths, despite his leading them on) that make it all the sweeter when they eventually unified.
Like any great television rom-com, Mindy and Danny did take a little while to finally commit to one another (and Danny had to prove that his outdated, swine-like perception of a mother’s role in parenting was buried under a mound of impenetrable cement when the series finale eventually came around to join them once and for all). Their first kiss comes at the end of “The Desert,” for example. After visiting his absentee father on a detour in a trip to Los Angeles, Mindy proves herself to be the only one who can connect with his father and his sister. While Danny, on the other hand, spends a large chunk of the trip drunk and lost in a desert (he tried to follow the Big Dipper, but didn’t know what that meant), as if he’s intent to prove Mindy’s selected doubts about dating him (and his own insecurities) correct.
Realizing how foolish he was to push Mindy away before ever giving himself a chance to get to know her, Danny pushes himself in a few moments of courage to kiss her in the back of the airplane that’s heading for New York. At first, the flight was seen an obstacle between Mindy and her potential reunion with Cliff, as the episode began with his dumping her. In her mind, she felt that she could win him back, just like the movies she’d been raised on and had her shades of romance colored by. But as Danny says, break-ups don’t happen in real life when the people enjoy dating one another. Their lives aren’t like movies and his kiss tells Mindy she can either accept that her love story is not what she planned it to be or insist on following the formulaic trajectory she laid out for herself. By kissing Danny back, the notion that “every great love story” has a beginning and an ending is cemented. It just so happens that the end of her love story with Cliff is the beginning of her love story with Danny.
The kiss is a seminal moment in The Mindy Project, but it’s just a moment in Mindy and Danny’s relationship. What actually matters, beyond climactic moments and cliffhanger acts of love, is the love story of Mindy and Danny. A true romance with mutual love is better than any meet-cute on the subway or any missed connection on Craigslist, after all.
In the season two finale, “Mindy and Danny,” all of Mindy’s rom-com fantasies seem to become reality. Danny masquerades as a missed connection with an eye for Mindy named “Andy” via email (just like Tom Hanks in You’ve Got Mail). He references “Meathead” when remarking about how Rob Reiner directed When Harry Met Sally. He finally plans to start dating Mindy at the top of the Empire State Building (where Mindy says they’re gonna have as many “ugly” nannies as they’ll have kids, as she pokes Danny and teasingly calls him a “perv”), as if he’s taking a cue from Sleepless in Seattle. It’s a flurry of rom-com homages as delightful to unpack as the myriad cues to Martin Scorsese films in The Sopranos and Sergio Leone stories in Deadwood.
It’s also a perfect depiction of how The Mindy Project sprung fully formed from Mindy Kaling’s brain. And it’s a brain I can understand. After all, her fantasy of being proposed to like she’s Meg Ryan or Drew Barrymore is not unlike those fleeting moments in our lives when we feel as if our greatest romantic fantasies are coming true. As if we were raised on Aladdin and we happened to be walking at sunset in a seaside community with the woman of our dreams and she turned to us and asked, “Do you trust me?”
Not every romantic moment will happen like this. In fact, we’re lucky to experience even a fraction of Mindy Kaling’s rom-com fantasies transpiring in real life. But when they do, they feel as kismet as the soundtrack that scores these many moments.
When Danny and Mindy kiss atop the skyscraper, it plays to The Cars’ “Drive” (earnestly, as opposed to Arrested Development’s sardonic use of the song). When she races to him, it’s to “Dancing in the Dark” by Bruce Springsteen, his favorite singer. But when they finally decide they’re each other’s forever partners, a different sort of Springsteen tune plays. It’s “I’m on Fire,” a Springsteen song, but covered by the Chromatics.
At night I wake up with the sheets soaking wet
And a freight train running through the
Middle of my head
Only you can cool my desire
Oh, whoa, oh
I’m on fire
A little bit of what Danny likes. A little bit of what Mindy likes. A perfect blend at the beginning of a “happily ever after” for a couple who didn’t even know they were in a “once upon a time.” That’s a storybook romance I’m excited to revisit for the rest of my life.
