The Mindy Project Is Back, And Boy-Crazier Than Ever!

When Fox declined to pick up a fourth season of The Mindy Project earlier this year, we all got another reminder that broadcast television is increasingly irrelevant and that streaming media services can come through for fans, as Hulu didn't just pick up what Fox had dropped but ordered twenty-six episodes of it. Four months later, we reunite with the titular Mindy, and if this is what we can expect in the Hulu era, one might be forgiven for musing that Fox could have kicked Mindy out of bed a lot sooner and we'd have all been better off for it.

First, the episode pays off the cliffhanger of the Season 3 finale, with Danny making his way to India to tell Mindy's parents he's in love with their daughter. There's some fairly sitcommy stuff where Mindy's dad threatens the father of Mindy's baby, whomever that is, so that Danny hems and haws and covers and pretends to like Boston, but his subterfuge ends up being short-lived when he's joined by someone from back home, determined to deliver a good outcome for Mindy by keeping Danny honest.

Meanwhile (...sort of), Mindy wishes she'd never fallen in love with Danny Castellano and wakes up next to a totally other guy. Matt shares a face and body with Joseph Gordon-Levitt, has a far more glamorous job than Danny's, and has apparently been keeping Mindy in extremely elegant style. But is Mindy actually having a better life with a man who lets her get away with way more of her shit than Danny does? Is she happier in a timeline where she and Danny not only aren't a couple but haven't spoken in two years?

Mindy's fantasy reunites Mindy Kaling with Gordon-Levitt for the first time since the two of them co-starred in a short film she wrote for HitRECord On TV with none other than Chris Messina, and though Messina and Gordon-Levitt don't share any scenes on The Mindy Project, that might be for safety reasons so their combined hotness didn't burn out all the cameras in the area. I mean, the dancing segments in this outing obviously had to be filmed in some kind of asbestos-lined test studio with the location drawn in later. YOW.

What I like best about this premiere is that while Mindy has to learn (again) what's actually important from getting a glimpse at what her life would be like if even more of the choices she made were wrong, Danny is the one who has to make the greater journey, and not just from New York to the subcontinent. As a young old man, Danny's got a lot of ideas about the way the world should work and why the absolutes he's declared for himself have been fixed for eternity. But parenthood can cause even the most rigid person to relax some of their principles, so it's probably a good thing for his unborn child that this season premiere moves him to change some of his stances.

But enough about Mindy and Danny: the office staffers don't show up in either timeline...with the exception of Morgan, who rocks them both. Why can't they make the whole show out of these three characters? You know Beth Grant's got scripts for indie movies that want to cast her as a weirdo stacking up, and Ed "Dreamboat" Weeks will be just fine from now until the end of his very handsome life. I enjoy Danny's curmudgeonly attitude, and lord knows I live for Mindy's outfits. But Morgan is the heart of this show, and all the other Schulman hangers-on are just taking up screen time that should belong to him. (I am not a crackpot.)

But I digress. The Mindy Project lives, on Hulu; the romance at its centre is still sweet and fun; and if ever there were a sitcom heroine who wasn't going to let a baby ruin her life, it's Dr. Mindy Lahiri. I look forward to seeing the many drawers and designer purses she sticks that kid in on her way out the door to Magnolia Bakery. Or the gun range.

New episodes of The Mindy Project hit Hulu at midnight every Monday (so...Tuesdays).