By Amy Nancarrow
Who hasn’t seen a friend, family member or significant other’s personal diary and been tempted to sneak a peek at their most intimate thoughts? Danny succumbs to his curiosity in “Diary of a Mad Indian Woman”, and doesn’t necessarily like what he reads.
Mindy realises that Danny never stays at her house, and after he accidentally kicks her in the face, she blackmails him into spending the night at her apartment. After Mindy is called away to the hospital by Dr. Fishman (guest star Niecy Nash), Danny is left to entertain himself at her place – and soon discovers her diary. Curiosity wins Danny over, and he’s soon taking a peek at Mindy’s inner most thoughts. As it turns out, Mindy has been attracted to Danny since they first met on their first day of residency in 2007. At first, Danny enjoys what he’s reading, but when he spills red wine all over Mindy’s diary, he’s forced to take it to Jeremy, who – despite swearing to use his mysterious calligraphy skills only for good – agrees to forge the entire diary so that Mindy will never know that he read it. Jeremy succeeds, but reads a passage that details a time when Mindy thought Danny would propose to her, and expresses her wish for it to happen by Christmas. Danny naturally freaks out, and when Mindy asks him if he wants to stay or leave, for a split second we think this will be the end of the central couple. But at the last second, Danny changes his mind and stays at Mindy’s place for the first time.
Meanwhile, Dr. Fishman ropes Mindy in to teach some new interns in the hospital. Mindy takes a shine to shy intern Candice, and shuts down promising and confident student (and the only male) TJ. Due to her increased attempts to mentor Candice (i.e. letting her perform surgeries that she hasn’t earned), Mindy finds herself facing a sexism complaint. Mindy and TJ talk, and although Candice doesn’t become a better doctor, Mindy helps TJ find a great bedside manner. Even though at first Mindy thinks she was mentoring herself, Dr. Fishman makes her realise that she was actually a pretty great mentor to TJ.
There was a lot of Mindy in this week’s episode; both the primary and the sub plots featured her heavily. In any other sitcom this would be a problem, but Mindy Kaling’s mixture of self-deprecation, confidence and sweetness make her a really charming lead. I liked that we were reminded that she actually is a doctor (it’s very easy to forget that about any of our characters at Shulman and Associates), and some professional humour was a nice change up. Hopefully we see more of our favourite OBGYNs actually doing some work for a change, because it’s a great source of humour and plot material.
Despite the main plot line yet again revolving around Danny and Mindy relationship issues, it was nice that one half of the couple didn’t even realise that there even was an issue. It was Danny’s commitment-phobia that was in the spotlight this week, and it was a new side to their relationship that we hadn’t seen before – up until this point, Danny and Mindy have seemed pretty rock-solid. For a brief second it looked like the couple were in real trouble – so I breathed a sigh of relief that the Mindy writers hadn’t succumbed to the classic break-up plot line – at least, not this early on.
Even though our supporting players weren’t featured much, it was nice that they were all featured at least once in this episode, even if only for a second (Tamra’s doctor impersonation was fantastic, if fleeting). I was surprised that I didn’t even miss a much-loved big dose of Adam Pally – he’s been given so much material lately that as much as I think he’s one of the best things about The Mindy Project. Additionally, it was nice that Ed Weeks and Niecy Nash were given more room to move. This is the second week in a row that I’ve really enjoyed The Mindy Project again – here’s hoping next week will bring a hat-trick.
Review Score: THREE AND A HALF STARS (OUT OF FIVE)
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