‘The Mindy Project’ Recap: ‘Mindy Lahiri Is a Racist’

After an underwhelming and somewhat stupid cold opening, featuring Morgan testing out his dog bite arm sleeve, I was a little worried about this week’s episode of The Mindy Project. Despite its shaking start, it was a pretty strong episode with a classic battle between Shulman & Associates vs. The Midwives.

The Midwives visit the Shulman offices to ask for their support for Tracy Whitfield, a congressman hopeful. Even though Peter says he went to Dartmouth with Tracy, the doctors refuse to endorse anything involving The Midwives. Sure it’s immature, but maturity doesn’t make for a good sitcom.

Later that day, one of Danny’s patients gives the practice huge praise and says that she’s been recommending Shulman & Associates on her mommy blog. This blog turns out to be “WhiteMommy.com,” a white power website. Almost as immediately as Danny discovers this news, The Midwives begin to picket the practice outside their building.

Jeremy hires public relations consultant Priscilla (Emma Elfman) to save the practice. She recommends that Mindy and Tamra, as women of color, write a statement over dinner, saying how they love working at Shulman & Associates. She also brings Danny in for a one-on-one session, since he’s mentioned most on the racist blog. This session turns into making out and hooking up, which doesn’t seem like very good PR to me.

At dinner, Tamra brings along her Vanilla Ice wannabe boyfriend Ray Ron. He pronounces Mindy’s name incorrectly, is a mooch, and spits out his food at the table.

“I like hate him so much,” Mindy says. “He’s such a deadbeat and not the hot kind that Beyonce sings songs about. The kind that Britney sings songs about.”

Mindy speaks the truth, but Tamra loves Roy Ron and leaves dinner insulted. The next day, she speaks at The Midwives’ rally against Shulman & Associates and calls Mindy a racist. In an attempt to defend the practice, Danny takes the microphone. He awkwardly talks about his four black friends and then accidentally tells the crowd about his steamy session with Priscilla.

The Midwives begin to steal patients away from the practice, which prompts Mindy to say (something I wish on a regular basis), “If only Olivia Pope were here!”

Tracy joins the rally, to assert his position against racism, so the doctors ask Peter to schoomze with his old college buddy and bail them out. Peter realizes that he didn’t go to school with Tracy and thought he was another person. With a topic as sensitive as racism, I can’t believe that the show took it that far.

Mindy finally gets a chance to talk to Tamra about the previous night. Tamra says that she knows Mindy isn't racist but feels like she is condescending to her subordinate co-workers. Mindy quickly apologizes and promises to be less judgmental.

Now that Mindy feels vindicates, she takes the microphone at the rally and clears Shulman & Associates’ name and even gets Tracy’s support. Well done, Mindy!

Last week’s Cliff-hanger was neatly resolved in this episode too. Mindy is upset with Morgan for texting Cliff under her number, but uses Cliff's sexts to her advantage. Although Cliff is now dating Heather, Mindy reminds him that he wanted to take her bra off with his teeth in and awkward elevator encounter. Once again—well done, Mindy!

After learning that Morgan didn’t delete the incriminating conversation, Cliff is a little more than upset and calls Morgan a bad person. Morgan, in a misguided apology, brings his friend Big Meat to punch him for Cliff. Of course, Cliff tries to stop this idiotic idea and gets punched in the face on accident.

As Morgan dresses his wounds, Cliff takes back calling him a bad person and instead describes him as “unbearable.” It’s not a text book make up, but I think it’s as good as we’ll get from Cliff.

What did you think of last night’s episode? Did you like Shulman & Associates vs. The Midwives? Is Morgan becoming more of a hinderance than an asset to the show, or am I just not getting that sense of humor?

Comment below!

Image: Fox