Beth Dubber/FOX
It's been an uneven freshman year for new sitcom The Mindy Project. After a rocky start we've seen a few characters come and go, a string of Mindy Kaling's boyfriends get the axe, a bunch of truly memorable episodes (like Seth Rogen's visit or the company triathlon), and, of course, one haircut so awful it could have been made with a Flowbee. When the finale aired last night, I was so happy that there was another high point not only of Fox's Tuesday night lady-comedy block, but of the week in general. That is until the last few minutes of the episode where I was more disappointed than Mindy finding out there are no peanut M&Ms in the vending machine.
I was pissed because it looked like Mindy and Danny were going to smooch. By the last scene, Mindy had won her man Casey back and planned to move to Haiti with him for a year. But then she had a touching moment in the doctor's lounge with her coworker and foil Danny (the impossibly dreamy Chris Messina) and he leaned in toward her for what looked like I kiss and I shouted out, "No!" at the television screen. They didn't kiss, but they had one of those conversations in soft tones that is supposed to make the audience think, "Maybe she should leave her boyfriend, the one who is impossibly handsome, giving, kind, funny, wonderful, and has a big penis, so that she can be with Dr. Danny."
Let's get this clear, writers and producers of The Mindy Project...No one wants Mindy and Danny to get together. Not one single person who watches this show regularly wants this to happen. None! This seemed like the intention as the show kicked off, but like so many things this year, it seemed to course correct in a different direction. They went from Sam and Diane on Cheers, adversaries whose chemistry crackled with sexual tension, to Jack and Liz on 30 Rock, friends who approached the world from different angles but learned from each other. They've grown so close in a Platonic way that when they went for what seemed like it might be a kiss it seemed like Danny was about to kiss his younger sister or was going to lay one on a baby goat, something that would make us squirm or maybe giggle, but nothing that was going to make the live studio audience let out a collective "Awwww."
Not every man and woman on a show need to get together. Sure, New Girl has fast-tracked the Jess and Nick romance so that they're sweetly bumping uglies at the end of Season 2, but The Mindy Project is not New Girl. Unlike its predecessor in the lineup, it is essentially a workplace comedy (which is why they ditched the dead weight of having Mindy's friends in the episodes) and people hooking up with their coworkers never ends well in real life and ends even worse on TV. So give it a rest with the Mindy and Danny hot and heavy action, will you? With all the improvements made this year, Season 2 is shaping up to be humdinger, as long as they don't mess it up with Mindy and Danny humming and dinging for each other.
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