The Mindy Project recap: The Parent Trap

After last week’s revelation that Danny wants more kids, the episode opens up with a montage of Danny and Mindy having sex. Or rather, procreating. When Mindy realizes what he’s trying to do, she tells him she doesn’t want to get pregnant, but he’s all, “We’re not trying, and we’re not not trying” — a.k.a. he’s trying.

Mindy confides in Morgan about her suspicions, and Morgan, who already hates Leo, is vehemently against the idea of Baby No. 2. His solutions are either a) Mindy goes on birth control or b) he and Cousin Lou give Danny a vasectomy while he’s sleeping. Helpful, as always. But in other news, Mindy has her first pregnant patient, and she and Morgan are ecstatic to soon welcome a newborn and put up the first photo on their Lahiri Fertility Clinic Wall O’ Fame.

She’s been working so hard that Danny decides to take her out on a date. A full-blown date that includes dinner, champagne, sparkling wine, prosecco, and a horse-drawn carriage. The next morning Mindy gushes to Morgan and Tamra about how romantic it was, saying, “I always think the worst of Danny, but he was just trying to do something sweet.” As soon as those words are out of her mouth, she notices “OML” written on his calendar, which Morgan informs her stands for “The Ovulation of Mindy Lahiri.” Not so romantic after all. Mindy rushes over to Jody’s office for a birth control prescription and just in time because Danny wants to take her out on another date, this time using When Harry Met Sally to set the mood for his procreation plans.

Before the movie, Danny drops by the fertility practice and runs into Jody, who’s fantasizing about the future success of the business. Danny asks Jody if he’d be able to run the practice by himself because he and Mindy want another baby. But after prescribing her birth control pills, Jody knows the truth and confronts Mindy about her deception. “I just want to get married, and then we can deal with this kid stuff later,” Mindy says. Jody — who for weeks has been trying to get her to talk to Danny about her true feelings — notes that he shouldn’t know more about her relationship than her fiancé.

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Meanwhile, Morgan, of all people, is giving Danny a reality check, too. He confronts Danny about his lack of support for Mindy, who built a practice that is now starting to succeed, all while Danny was on the other side of the country. Danny wants different things, but as Morgan so wisely puts it, “If she’s important enough to you, maybe it’s time for you to want something else.”

But just when it seems possible that Danny might seriously consider what Morgan said, he finds Mindy’s birth control pills, and the rest of the episode is them duking it out, each of them confronting the other about their betrayal. This is not a good scene to watch for those of us already fed up with Danny’s behavior. He accuses her of leaving Leo alone while she works, which causes Mindy to call him out on his pattern of attacking her character whenever he disagrees with her. “In your eyes, every single thing I do is more evidence that I’m a bad person,” she says. For what seems like the hundredth time, she tells Danny that she’s good at her job and that means something to her. She doesn’t want to give it all up to have more kids.

After a long pause — during which I think Danny couldn’t possibly say anything worse — he tells Mindy that she’s being selfish. “Whenever you decide to do something, it’s selfless. And whenever I decide to do something, it’s selfish. You get to choose all the definitions,” Mindy responds. Instead of recognizing the truth in her statement, Danny infuriatingly says that he makes the good decisions and goes on to list her flaws.

At this point, Mindy puts the argument on pause because her patient goes into labor. She gets to work in a montage set to M.I.A.’s “Bad Girls,” harkening back to those instances in the pilot and season 1 finale when she was a total badass at her job. We’re reminded that, yes, she eats a lot of junk food, spends way too much money on emojis, and always has a bunch of relationship problems, but she has also always been a great doctor. Sometimes that fact is just overshadowed by her theatrics.

Mindy returns home, still reveling in the success of the delivery and ready to tell Danny about how amazing it was. And Danny, oh Danny. He screws up his one last chance to redeem himself, interrupting her to say that they should hold off on the wedding so they can think things through. As Mindy’s left to process that statement, she receives a photo text from her patient. And though she must be heartbroken over the argument with Danny, the episode ends with her smiling as she looks at the picture of the family, which she helped make possible.

Next week’s episode is the last before the winter hiatus, and it’ll be a flashback of when Mindy and Danny first met. But is it setting us up for a make-up or a break-up?

Best lines:

“This isn’t a way for you to use a coupon, is it? I would rather die.” ­—Mindy reacting to Danny’s date proposal

“Give me the pill, or I will tell everyone where to find your Star Search episode.” —Mindy to Jody

“Whenever you decide to do something, it’s selfless. And whenever I decide to do something, it’s selfish. You get to choose all the definitions.” —Mindy to Danny

By the numbers:

Outfits: 9

How old Morgan was when he started speaking in full sentences: 7

Number of times Danny says something ridiculous: Too many