Danny Hits A New Low In The Season 4 Finale Of The Mindy Project

After my blistering Danny Castellano takedown last week, I sincerely thought it possible that I could have said everything there is to say on the subject of a formerly lovable character so currently irredeemable that the only way forward was for his show to kill him off. But now that I've seen "Homewrecker," the Season 4 finale of The Mindy Project, I'm not sure mere death is a bad enough fate for Danny; now, I think that, post-mortem, his skeleton also needs to be picked clean by a flock of rabid vampire bats. Guys? IT'S BAD.

Remember last week, when the worst things Danny had done lately were to try to dictate which men Mindy could date, and to get engaged to a woman Mindy didn't even know existed? Those were the good old days! As we rejoin Danny in the season finale, he's standing in the hallway outside Mindy's apartment, preparing to drop off Leo and rehearsing how he's going to break the news of his engagement. But when he goes inside, he only manages to say "I'm getting" before pivoting to "fed up with this mess." At least Danny knows he can always wriggle out of uncomfortable conversations with Mindy without making her suspicious if he just starts criticizing her: that will just feel natural to her!

And it would be one thing for the show to portray Danny trying to pick a fight because he's too cowardly to be honest -- that is a recognizable and even somewhat forgivable human behaviour. But what happens next is where we get our first inkling of how problematic this whole episode is going to be: MINDY AGREES WITH HIM. She starts tearfully apologizing that her relentless schedule doesn't permit her to stay on top of the housework; when Danny feels guilty and tries to backpedal, she waves him off: "We have the same job, and yet your toilet is cleaner than my whole kitchen." It's not the idea that Mindy might not be a great housekeeper that makes this exchange feel icky; Mindy is messy in every aspect of her life, and some women -- even ones with kids -- don't care much about the state of their homes. It's that if Mindy's going to get upset about it, it should not be because Danny called her out on it, when the mess Danny is currently living in is far more unseemly.

Danny then leaves, without telling Mindy anything, and drops her wedding invitation in the hallway mail slot. So because he's afraid of Mindy's reaction if he tells her all his news in person, he's letting USPS deliver her an envelope full of three kinds of bad news at once: that her child's father kept a gigantic secret from her; that others have definitely known about it, so he's involved their mutual friends in his deception; and that parenthood has bound her, for the rest of their lives, to a coward who doesn't respect her.

Let me pause for a moment here and say I realize this is pretty heavy talk about The Mindy Project, a romantic comedy, and that romcoms' fated couples have to get embroiled in, fight about, and ultimately get past all kinds of deceptions. Except this one is different in a couple of ways you don't see in a How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days or Notting Hill. One is that there's a child involved, which means the kind of stupid shit you could get away with when you were only hurting each other is no longer okay when you're also both responsible for an impressionable minor. Another is that, barring some kind of Carrie/Big 11th-hour reunion just in time for the end of their story, Danny and Mindy are no longer fated. They're just two people who can't make it work as a couple, and yet -- legally -- can't escape each other's company. Knowing these destructive patterns are unlikely to change for the rest of their lives makes them a lot less fun to watch.

Speaking of depressing repetition: Mindy's on her way to Miami with Whitney and Chelsea when she and Danny get summoned to Leo's preschool, where they learn that Leo's been suspended for biting someone. As you would expect of these two immature idiots, they can't stop themselves picking a fight with each other in front of the school official -- including, when Mindy repeats her assertion that she and Danny have the same job, his bitter denial that he works as much as she does, because why not revive that misogynistic plank in Danny's anti-Mindy platform? The bickering continues into the elevator which, because it's a TV show, stops, trapping them in it. Once Mindy gets past the expected panic, she decides what she needs to pass the time is for Danny to...tell her stories...about the women he's dated since he broke up with her? And she's rapt with attention? She loves hearing about them? (Of course he doesn't mention Sarah at all, even when Mindy's basically invited him to -- although, in fairness to Danny, closed up in a box together is probably not the ideal situation for Mindy to get the news.) When Danny gets over himself long enough to hear a story about MINDY's life after HIM, the one she chooses to tell is about a time she happened to come upon him unawares on the street and spent the day tailing him and being delighted by all his curmudgeonly activities. And then, mere moments after Mindy's told him she consciously chose to limit her exposure to Danny because she didn't want to fall in love with him again, he attacks her face, and sex ensues.

Did DANNY WRITE THIS EPISODE? Because I've watched this season, and it hasn't been my experience that Mindy has been actively pining for Danny. She's dated other guys -- Marcus and Drew -- who might not have been exactly right for her but with whom she had fun. She also seemed like she thought she might get pretty serious about Jody before his syphilis diagnosis. In fact, Jody's like Danny 2.0: just as fuddy-duddyish to begin with, but with a greater willingness to change, a greater capacity to consider Mindy's feelings (witness the thirty-minute formal apology he wants to deliver to her in this episode), and a greater facility with meaningful gestures. Sure, Danny ended Season 3 by traveling to India to declare himself to Mindy's parents...but Jody is ending Season 4 by buying the apartment above Mindy's to make it a bigger, more fitting, better conceived home for Mindy and her son, primarily so that she can have her walk-in closet back.

WHAT COULD BE MORE ROMANTIC?!

Except Jody's big move is undercut before he can even make it by FUCKING DANNY, walking Mindy back home after their elevator adventure and answering her "I love you" with "I love you too."

We know why Danny's face falls, and Mindy's about to find out, too.

Mindy's about to find out exactly how Danny managed, very efficiently, to screw over two women he claimed to love, and whether or not she decides to explore a relationship with Jody (which I hope she does: THAT CLOSET, THO), I hope this is the moment Mindy realizes she's allowed to want something more than Danny is apparently ever going to be able to offer her. It's not that Mindy's perfect; Mindy has faults, some of which she even admits. But after this season, I'm so done with Danny's rigidity, Danny's denigration of Mindy, and Danny's general shittiness. Danny sucks. May Season 5 be all about how much better Mindy's life gets when she catches up to the rest of us and figures that out.