The third season of Fox’s The Mindy Project premiered last Tuesday, Sept. 16, and its debut episode was... a lot. Followers have undoubtedly learned to anticipate a healthy dose of tongue-in-cheek outlandishness from the program, which is centered around Mindy Lahiri (played by Mindy Kaling, the show’s creator). Each episode narrates a new escapade in the life of Lahiri, an idealistic thirty-something OBGYN living and working in New York City, as she juggles her career and love life, as well as the occasional celebrity sighting.
Fans of The Mindy Project were particularly anxious for the series to return this fall. After last season’s finale resolved Danny (Lahiri’s co-worker played by Chris Messina) and Mindy’s romantic tension that had kept audiences hooked for the first two seasons, there was significant pressure on the writers to deliver a fresh and interesting story line that could carry the show for at least one more season.
Even the most promising sitcoms like That ‘70s Show, New Girl and How I Met Your Mother can be held hostage by an exhausted plot, a predicament that results in writers struggling to walk the line between monotony and nonsense. This challenge is especially common for situational romantic comedies and ultimately offers writers two options: to drive a wedge between the couple for another season of trusty — albeit under whelming — will-they-won’t-they, or to go big and create new layers of plot in the hopes that the audience will take the bait.
The Mindy Project’s season three opener, “We’re a Couple Now, Haters!” opted for the latter, exceeding the show’s standard for dynamic and bizarre plots. In a gesture of showiness reminiscent of a daytime soap, the episode features an office love triangle, a convict cousin and a mysterious stripper. To reiterate, it was a lot, but that’s not to imply that it wasn’t necessary. In order to avoid relying on Mindy and Danny’s budding relationship to carry the heart of the show, groundwork for new story arcs needed to be put in place.
While the episode’s narrative was scattered as a result, the writers proved themselves capable of weaving the pieces together in a way that was easy to watch, even providing a handful of clean, easy laughs. There were a few notable loose ends, such as the insertion of Morgan’s (played by Ike Barinholtz) murderous cousin (played by Rob McElhenney) with a tattoo of Richard Lewis. However, it is safe to assume — for now — that these seemingly extraneous aspects will be significant later on. The writers even acknowledged the excessive drama in the episode, when character Peter Prentice joked: “It’s like a soap opera up in here.”
If this season’s kick-off told viewers nothing else, it did make the promise that the rest of this year’s run would not be boring. Here’s to more drunken stumbles through Manhattan and uncomfortably intimate conversations with coworkers.
