The Mindy Project “Nurses’ Strike” crammed a lot of comedy into one show. It started off with Mindy learning that Jody was selling the apartment he had just given her. He explains that the apartment purchase was a romantic gesture. “No romance, no apartment,” Jody tells Mindy.
“You want me to have sex with you? Fine pop up there on the piano and we’ll get this out of the way.”
Jody tells Mindy that she can bid on the apartment and the doctor must scramble for extra money. The nurses at work go on strike after Mindy initially signs their petition to join the union and then erases her signature. (This happened after she learned that any pay rises would come out of her pocket.)
Baby Leo gets an earache and she takes her son to the doctor. The “celebrity” medico give the boy ear drops and the nurse; Ben, tries to give Mindy a tip on how to make the ear drops work. She ignores him. The end result is that she must take Leo to the emergency room later when his ear gets worse.
All the nurses are on the picket line and Mindy, along with Jody, want to meet the demands of the striking staff. Jeremy talks them out of it and the strike continues.
Ben helps Mindy out with Leo’s ear ache and she offers him a small amount of money. He declines payment and tells her that he is a bouncer at a nightclub.
By the end of the episode, Mindy has the money for the upstairs apartment and the nurses are all still on strike.
There were plenty of comedic moments in this episode of The Mindy Project. At the beginning Mindy ponders the possibility of putting Advil in her pancakes. She cannot find any chocolate chips and the pills are sugar coated.
After her confrontation with Jody, she takes his cookies (baked for his open house) but loses them as she falls down the stairs. The fall happens because she is spending more time telling Jody off than looking where she is going.
The comic highlight has to be when both Mindy and Jeremy come out of their respective treatment rooms with blood splattered on their jackets. Mindy’s is from trying to take blood (“I practiced on my neighbor’s cat last night.”) and Jeremy’s is from a morphine drip.
Throughout the episode all the doctors treat their nurses as second class citizens. Ben has to repeatedly remind Mindy that he is her pediatrician’s nurse.
Possibly the funniest line the episode comes from the confrontation in the pancake factory.
“I’m your pediatrician’s nurse.”
“Dude, how old are you? My pediatrician is ancient.”
Ben has to explain that he means Leo’s doctor’s nurse. The male nurse also ends up helping Mindy solve her apartment money problem. He tells Dr. Lahiri that nothing is too embarrassing when it comes to supporting your kids.
Mindy then becomes the “on call” doctor of the midwife business upstairs. As she proudly hands Jody the check for the apartment, a bus drives by with her picture on the side advertising the new midwife option of childbirth.
The Mindy Project is consistently funny. Mindy Kaling is pure comedy gold walking around in a brightly colored skirt and high heels.
The series airs Tuesdays on Hulu. Stop by and check out this funny and slightly irreverent show.
Cast:
- Mindy Kaling – Mindy Lahiri
- Chris Messina – Danny Costellano
- Ed Weeks – Jeremy Reed
- Ike Barinholtz – Morgan Tookers
- Beth Grant – Beverly
- Osha Roquemore – Tamra
- Fortune Feimster – Colette Kimball-Kinney
- Garret Dillahunt – Jody Kimball-Kinney
Guest starring Bryan Greenberg as Ben.
Mikes Film Talk 