The Mindy Project 2.20: "An Officer and a Gynecologist"

“I don’t know why Peter said you’re not funny. Your cranky old man character is hilarious!”
-Sally

Another episode of “The Mindy Project,” another chapter in the saga that is Mindy and Danny. I really liked them together (pre Danny becoming an ass), but this drama is seriously getting old fast. Conveniently, just as Danny finally comes to his senses, realizes he was an ass, and realizes that Mindy is good for him, Mindy as gone and found herself a new love interest. Television rules, I tell ‘ya. Anyway, other than the advancement of the Danny and Mindy saga, there wasn’t really much about this episode that stood out. We got another example of Mindy being really good at working with teens, and we got some Judaism-related farce in a B-story with Danny and Peter. At least the former involved a guest spot by Tim Daly (playing the titular Officer). I’m always up for more Tim Daly on my television!

Early in the episode, we learn that following the break-up with Danny and the events of the previous episode, Mindy is swearing off men for a while. She has decided that rather than face more heartbreak, she should pour herself into work. This leads to an appointment with a young college student named Jenny. Mindy starts counseling Jenny about birth control, even though Jenny says her dad would never allow it. Mindy gives her birth control samples anyway. This leads to a run-in with Jenny’s father, Detective Lang (Tim Daly). Lang is really rude to Mindy and threatens to put her on the no-fly list. Mindy yells him right out of the building. Unfortunately for Mindy, Lang then gives her a ticket for “Public Female Hysteria.” I could root for a little Mindy/Lang action if he wasn’t an even bigger ass than Danny.

Meanwhile, while on the subway, Danny helps out a Rabbi whose hat has been stolen by some hooligans. Rabbi Adler sees Danny’s demeanor and “Shulman and Associates” on Danny’s bag and immediately assumes Danny is Jewish. He invites Danny to Shabbat dinner and says that if Danny plays his cards right, he’ll refer his entire congregation to Shulman and Associates. He’s just been waiting for a nice, Jewish gyno to come into his life, apparently. There’s just one problem, Danny is actually Italian Catholic. He enlists the help of Peter, who is actually Jewish, to make his Shabbat dinner charade seem at least somewhat legit. At first this plan works, with Peter chiming in appropriately at the dinner. Rabbi Adler just eats it up.

Jenny comes back to Mindy and says she’s come to a realization. She doesn’t want to be taking direction from a man right now, be it a boyfriend or her dad. She wants to stay with Mindy for the remainder of her Spring Break. Mindy takes this rather odd request in stride, and she does her best to make the experience a wholesome one. When Jenny wants to engage in some questionable activity, Mindy offers to let Jenny and her friends have a party at her place instead (so Mindy can keep an eye on them). When Mindy arrives home, however, she is pretty concerned about the party. It’s such a cheesy make-out party that it’s obvious farce. Kids are making out all over the place and drinking from red solo cups (can you get any more stereotypical!). And Jenny has handcuffed poor Morgan to the bed. Well there’s no accounting for taste.

The Shabbat dinner is going swimmingly until one of the Adler kids catches a peek of Peter in the bathroom. Apparently Peter was never circumcised, which apparently diminishes his Jew cred in the Orthodox Adler household. Danny confesses that he’s even less Jewish than Peter, and Rabbi Adler is not amused at all. Later, however, Rabbi Adler sees Danny and Mindy on the subway, and Danny goes to talk to the Rabbi (out of politeness, I guess). The Rabbi says that while Peter had been going on about how Danny and Sally aren’t good for each other, he sees true love. There’s just one catch. The Rabbi saw Danny and Mindy, not Danny and Sally. When Danny next sees Sally, he tells her they need to get some coffee and talk. Finally, the man has come to his senses!

Backing up a bit, when Mindy sees the crazy party going down in her apartment, she does the responsible thing and calls Detective Lang. While he is being his LEO self and trying to bust kids for cocaine as they leave the party, Mindy has a really sweet conversation with Jenny. Jenny had been scared into thinking she needed to start her own list of conquests after seeing Mindy’s box of relationship souvenirs. Mindy stresses that it’s a box of heartbreak, not conquests, and relationship matters should always be a personal choice. Jenny wishes there were any guys interested in her so that she would actually have a choice to make (I can sympathize with that one, even if it does seem like a juvenile sentiment). Mindy assures Jenny that she will have guys interested in her someday. Detective Lang overhears all of this and realizes that Mindy isn’t such a horrible person after all. By the end of the episode, he is asking Mindy out.

So, leading up to the final two episodes of the season (I think?) we’re in a pretty straightforward place. Danny has just realized that he does truly love Mindy. I find it interesting that the Rabbi was the person who was finally able to get through to him. At the same time, Mindy has finally started to take some real steps to try and get over Danny, including her potential date with Detective Lang. I think I’m seeing all of this heading towards a quick relationship between Mindy and Detective Lang, then a reunion between Mindy and Danny. Both “Mindy Project” and “New Girl” seem to be following similar trajectories this season (although the trajectory is more compressed for “Mindy”). The endgame couple gets together, breaks-up, then maybe moves towards getting back together again. It will be interesting to see how all of this plays out.

Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. 1.21: "Ragtag"

“I am not that scared kid anymore.”
“Then stop acting like it!”
- Ward and Garrett

Welcome to the penultimate episode of season 1. We dive right in to Ward’s past. We find him fifteen years earlier in juvenile detention. Garrett comes to him and offers him a chance to join his super-secret organization to keep him off death row for maybe almost killing his older brother on purpose. Ward seems interested and they bust him out with a tactical team. It seems pretty obvious why Ward would join up with Hydra. He is not a nice guy. Then again neither is Garrett. Garrett takes Ward out to the middle of nowhere and tells him to survive on his own in the wilderness for a few months and then he’ll maybe take the kid to SHIELD. I’m not sure what this supposed to teach Ward, other than to be completely self-reliant.

The team is still chilling in the hotel when they see a news feed of a drug lord being killed by a monster. It’s really Deathlok and the team knows it. Before FitzSimmons can question too much why Hydra is taking out drug lords, Coulson calls a team pow wow and they come up with the plan to get into Cybertech so that Skye can plug in a flash drive and gain access to the Trojan she planted on the drive. She didn’t have time to build in a way for her to hack from anywhere so they need to be on the system. So Coulson gets them an appointment with R&D. Fitz is still worried that Ward may be somewhat innocent in all this. Yeah, buddy I doubt it.

While Coulson and Triplett are geeking out over some of Triplett’s grandfather’s whacky old spy stuff, Ward is moping about Garrett ordering Mike to almost kill him. But Garrett’s mood doesn’t seem to dampen. He gets the good news that the serum is almost ready and that they should have initial result soon to see if the version of the drug that saved Skye and Coulson works. They of course make the mistake of uploading it to their system (so Skye can get at it). Mike is still annoyed that Hydra is keeping his son in a cage but Raina seems more interested in Skye’s DNA. She makes a comment about her and Skye being similar. Which makes me wonder if she is an 0-8-4 as well. I highly doubt we are going to find out what Skye’s deal is before the season ends next week though.

Coulson and May go in to the R&D meeting and FitzSimmons hilariously try to feed them lines that sound all science-y but they just come off kind of rambly and awkward. Which was totally adorable. Skye does her hacking thing and finds that there’s some reinforced walls on the fourth floor so Coulson and May use some hand-to-hand to get past some people and into what they think is the server room. It’s actually just a giant file room. They are looking through the files just to see and find one on Deathlok going back to the 1990s. It turns out that Garrett was the first Deathlok. Since the information is only stored on paper, they toss the entire filing cabinet out a window and then zip line out of the building using their belts. Gotta say it felt very A-Team and I liked it.

We briefly see Ward huddled in the rain as a kid before it cuts to him continuing to bitch at Garrett for thinking he (Ward) is weak. Then of Garrett has a bit of a malfunction. The SHIELD team figures out that Garrett made himself part mechanical and it seems he wants to super serum to solve his own health issues and if he creates some super soldiers for Hydra on the way, they yippee for him. But the team also catches a break when they find several Cybertech shipments all landing in Cuba. How our team is going to get there, I’m not quite sure. We also get a nice scene with May and Skye where May basically says she’s furious with Ward but she’s bottling it up until they meet again and then she’s going to unleash it on him. Good on her.

Down in Cuba, Raina tells Ward that she doesn’t think Garrett is going to be interested in her findings about Skye. In addition to medical records and her DNA, Raina thinks that Skye is a baby from a province in China where everyone but said baby died and supposedly the baby’s parents were the “monsters” that killed everyone. Well that’s more than we knew about her history before so maybe I was wrong and we will get answers. It kind of falls in line with a few theories I’d read about her. Garrett and his crew are packing up the lab and Ward lies to Garrett about what Raina told him. Interesting. Our heroes are at least in Cuba and they’ve figured out that Garrett was using the barber shop as cover. FitzSimmons finds the plane and unfortunate Ward finds them. But thanks to some quick thinking by Fitz, he at least kills all the electronics on the plane with an EMP buzzer.

Back in the day, Garrett shows up after six months to find Ward self-sufficient. Their next lessons is shooting. We jump forward in time a bit where Ward is at least played by the actor who normally portrays him and they’re having a conversation about what happened to Garrett (that led to the whole mechanical implants thing). He says he got nailed by an IED and SHIELD basically said screw it. So he ended up joining up with Hydra. I’m guessing that’s how he got Ward involved as well. The next assignment is infiltrating SHIELD…and shooting his dog. He sends the dog off running and then shoots him at long range. Bastard.

While Coulson, Skye, May and Triplett try to find the system to upload the rest of the Trojan, Ward is given orders to shoot FitzSimmons. Raina is infusing Garrett with the super soldier serum that Raina created. And Ward shows his true colors by sending FitzSimmons out an airlock into the ocean. I really hope they survive. The serum seems to work though he goes all crazy. Back at the barber shop, Triplett uses one of his grandfather’s gizmos to find a hidden door. Just as they are about to bust in, a centipede soldier shows up with what looks like the Berserker staff. Quinn goes to DC to sell the super soldier program. I’m guessing that won’t end well for anyone!

Game of Thrones 4.03: "Breaker of Chains"

“Money buys a man’s silence for a time. A bolt through the heart buys it forever.”
-Littlefinger

“Breaker of Chains” didn’t really have much of a unifying theme. I’ve come to expect this from most episodes of “Game of Thrones,” unfortunately. The title refers simply to the final scene in the episode, which involves Daenerys and has pretty much nothing to do with events happening in the rest of the episode, seeing as it takes place across the Narrow Sea. I suppose if I had to pick one focus of this episode, it would be the aftermath of Joffrey’s murder. Tyrion is the prime suspect, Cersei wants vengeance, and Tywin is trying to put together some semblance of a trial. If I lived in Westeros, I don’t think I would have any ambition to be Queen. Westerosi rulers don’t tend to live very long.

The episode starts exactly where the last left off. Joffrey is dead, and the royal wedding reception has erupted in chaos. Tyrion is arrested, but thanks to Ser Dontos (who creepily approached Sansa in the garden a few episodes ago), Sansa is able to escape. Ser Dontos takes Sansa on a row boat, where they dock with a larger, sinister-looking ship. On that ship is none other than Littlefinger. He no doubt wanted to rescue Sansa thanks to his creepy obsession with her mother. Dontos worked for Littlefinger and did what he was told, but Littlefinger kills him for his trouble so he won’t talk.

Things are most definitely not well at all with the Lannisters following Joffrey’s death. Which is fine by me, really (although I certainly don’t at all condone what happened to Cersei). Tyrion is the only Lannister than I can at all stand, really. Anyway, Cersei and some others are in the Sept mourning over Joffrey’s body when Jaime arrives to kill the party. He wants private time with Cersei. Really private time. He has not been happy that she’s been completely ignoring him since he returned, and he’s obviously upset about their son’s death, too. If you’ve been following the TV blogosphere at all, you know that all these swirling emotions lead Jaime to rape Cersei right there in the Sept. Other commentators have already talked about this scene and what it means well beyond the saturation point. I’ll just say that the show overall hasn’t felt rapey like this episode since the first episode or two of the very first season. I hope that escalating questionable scenes from the books into full-on rape in the TV show is not a trend that continues.

It wouldn’t be an episode of “Game of Thrones” without brief check-ins with many of the ongoing stories, so let’s deal with some of those now. We pay a brief visit to Arya and the Hound, who are still roaming the countryside on their way to the Eyrie. A farmer catches them on his land, and surprisingly, the farmer invites them to his house for supper. At supper, the farmer offers the Hound some work. The Hound accepts, but later he decides to just steal silver from the farmer instead. The Hound reasons that the farmer is weak and won’t survive the coming battles anyway, so why not take the silver. Arya is pretty disgusted. In other news, Stannis wants Davos to get him a new army. He’s worried that if Tommen (Joffrey’s younger brother) becomes King, everyone will forget about Stannis’ legitimate claim. A reading lesson with Stannis’ daughter gives Davos an idea. He’s going to write to the Iron Bank of Braavos for help.

There’s plenty of action happening up North as well, at the Wall and beyond. Earlier in the episode, Sam is fretting over Gilly living at Castle Black. He thinks that because so many of his brothers are rapers and Gilly is the only woman at the Castle, she’s going to be attacked eventually. Sam wants to take Gilly to Moletown (the nearest small town to Castle Black, famous for being the place that Night’s Watch brothers go to when they want to forget their vows for a little while at a brothel), which kind of seems reasonable until we actually see Moletown. To call it a hovel would be generous. The whole place seems to revolve around the sex trade, and several pimps seem to be eyeing up Gilly. Sam has arranged pretty disgusting accommodations for Gilly in exchange for her doing cooking and cleaning, and of course the proprietor wants to know if she’ll do other work, too. Sam may have taken Gilly out of the frying pan and into the fire, really.

In other news from the North, the Wildlings, including Ygritte, are on a rampage. We see them completely ransack a small village. The only survivor is a little kid who managed who hide for a bit before being found. The Wildlings spare his life so he can go to Castle Black and let the Night’s Watch know they are coming. It’s pretty disturbing, really. One of the Wildlings tells the kid he is going to eat the kid’s parents. Gross. The news of the Wildling attack causes some chaos at Castle Black. The brothers all disagree on how to face this new threat. Jon Snow hits on the real problem. They don’t have nearly as many brothers as he told Mance Rayder they had. They need to put off the Wildlings gaining that knowledge as long as possible. The biggest threat is the mutineers who have taken over Craster’s Keep. They know how few brothers are left, and it probably won’t take much to get them to spill the beans.

Back in King’s Landing, Twyin is doing what he does and trying to pick up the pieces. He visits Prince Oberyn of Doorne at the brothel (where the Prince is engaging in a massive orgy…classy) to ask him to be one of the judges for the trial that will look into Joffrey’s death. Oberyn accepts. It struck me that Tyrion is really the Lannister sibling who is most like their father. Both Tywin and Tyrion keep a level head and use cunning to get the family out of messy situations. It’s a shame that Tywin can’t get past Tyrion’s physical appearance to recognize that kindred spirit. Speaking of Tyrion, he’s in jail. Tyrion’s squire, Podrick, pays Tyrion a visit and gives him some contraband food (the wine he tried to smuggle in was confiscated). He gives Tyrion the news about who the judges will be at his trial. Tyrion doesn’t seem especially optimistic at the moment, but we can tell the gears are turning. He’s beated a murder rap before.

We end the episode across the Narrow Sea at the gates of Meereen, where Dany and her army have finally arrived. It seems like the whole city is watching them from within the walls, but only one jouster comes through the gate. The idea is that Dany is supposed to pick a champion to challenge the jouster. The whole thing becomes a literal pissing match when the jouster engages in a demonstration to show how different he is from the eunuch Unsullied. Dany chooses Daario as her champion (she says it’s because she has the least need for him, but there seems to be something brewing under the surface), and he kills the jouster without even needing a horse of his own. He then continues the pissing contest in celebration. The residents of Meereen look skeptical, but then Dany gives a big speech about freeing slaves. She also has her army shoot barrels of broken slave chains over the walls. The slaves see the broken chains and start giving their masters uneasy looks.

Once Upon a Time 3.20: "Kansas"

“Whether it works or not is irrelevant, dearie. Because no matter what you change of your past, once thing shall remain the same. Who you are. And that is a fate you can never escape.”
- Rumple

The big day is upon us. Zelena is going to cast her curse as soon as the Snowing baby arrives and by the looks of things, Snow’s labor is moving quickly. She’s understandably scared that Zelena will try to take the baby but Emma and Regina are on protection detail. Emma casts a protection spell over the hospital and then decides she’s going to bring the fight to Zelena. She’s really not happy to have Hook tag along but David insists he help, even if he is just cannon fodder. I laughed so hard that bit. The look on Hook’s face was hilarious. I’m thinking that may be hard with Zelena on the move. It turns out she’s let Rumple spin because it clears his mind and she transforms the spun gold into a brain. She’s got a little ritual circle all set up with Regina’s heart, his brain and Charming’s courage. Now all she needs is the baby.

Back in Oz, Zelena is watching Rumple train Regina and is annoyed at how hard a time Regina is having conjuring fire. She’s still bitter Rumple chose Regina. But Zelena get a visit from Glinda. She thanks our green witch for turning Walsh into a monkey and putting a stop to his charlatan ways. She wants Zelena to meet her “real” sisters. And I have to say it sounded a little bit cultish. Glinda takes Zelena to her sister witches and they want Zelena to fill their fourth seat (of innocence). Apparently they believe she is meant to help them protect Oz. Yeah, somehow I doubt she’s going to believe that for long.

While everyone else is waiting for the baby to come along, Henry is looking in the classified section of the paper for apartments that he and Emma can move into. He doesn’t seem to think it will be an issue staying in Storybrooke. Archie kind of points out that maybe he should talk to Emma first. Speaking of, she and Hook are bickering on their way to the farmhouse and he finally calls her on her bullshit. He says that she sees a future for herself in Storybrooke and she’s afraid of being happy. Just as she snipes that he must think she sees a future with him, Zelena busts up the argument. She leaves Emma in a no-win situation when she forces Rumple to drown Hook. Stupid Emma gives Hook mouth-to-mouth and loses her magic. I yelled so much at the TV watching that. Seriously, she could have done chest compressions or something to get the water out of his lungs or turned him on his side and pounded on his back. She didn’t need to kiss him. So now I’m guessing the protection spell at the hospital is kaput.

Zelena pretty easily makes her way through all the various layers of protection (read: people) at the hospital. She arrives in the room just after baby boy Snowing enters the world. I kind of wonder what they’re going to name him since I know that Zelena won’t win. But she absconds with the baby and Snow is left sobbing. I have to say I noticed that there was weird electrical issues in the hospital when she gave birth which were almost identical to when Emma had Henry. Knowing the writers of this show, it probably isn’t a coincidence. Zelena gets back to the farmhouse just as David decides to dash off to save the baby. Emma reveals to the rest of the family that she’s lost her magic and Henry points out that Regina can stop Zelena. When Regina says that she’s lost against Zelena twice, he says that she was using dark magic and that her using true love’s kiss was light magic and she just needs to believe that can be a hero. Hell, she’s got hunky Robin Hood giving her his vote so come on, woman! Put on your good witch panties and kick some ass. I really like that they are letting her be the hero now and redeem herself instead of having Emma do everything.

Back in Oz, Zelena gives up her vendetta against Regina (or so we’re led to believe) and she loses her green skin. She also gets the pendant that Glinda told the Charmings about last week. Just as Glinda is introducing Zelena to her land, a cyclone touches down from another land and deposits a young girl named Dorothy Gale in their midst. Methinks that Dorothy is really the innocent witch who should be filling Zelena’s spot at the table. And that’s what Zelena thinks as she watches the other witches faun over the girl. She also has read the rest of the prophecy and has determined that she is the greatest evil in Oz that Dorothy will defeat. Well, with an attitude like that I’d say it’s more of a self-fulfilling prophecy. She finds Dorothy getting a bucket of water and Zelena’s gone full-on green again. Dorothy is kind of freaked out when Zelena creates a fireball and throws the water at her. So of course we get the melting of the Wicket Witch. Seems Dorothy fulfilled the prophecy. But she doesn’t want to stay in Oz, she wants to go back to Kansas. So Glinda suggests a visit to the newly human Walsh. Zelena reconstitutes herself and sends Dorothy on her way with golden slippers. She now thinks she can change her past without being stopped. And she banishes Glinda to the Enchanted Forest.

Out at the farmhouse, Zelena starts to enact her spell to go back in time but the Charmings and Regina show up to thwart her. At first the gang gets their butts kicked by Rumple and he orders them to get his dagger so at least he can fight on their side. Regina finally musters up good magic and strips Zelena of her power. The spell ends and the baby is thankfully okay. And Rumple is free of her control. He wants to kill her for all the horrors she’s committed (and the fact she’s directly responsible for Neal’s death) but Regina grabs the dagger and stops him. Today she is a hero and heroes don’t kill. I really like the arc they are giving Regina this season.

So my happiness at Regina’s arc may have been a bit premature. Things clearly aren’t settled. Regina has her pendant and locks it in her vault in her crypt which we know isn’t the safest place in the world and I really don’t know if I believe Regina telling her sister to take a second chance. And Rumple is also playing both sides. He gives Belle his dagger and proposes to her but he then visits Zelena and has the real dagger. He kills her or so he thinks but we know she can reform. She disappears and green smoke flows from her pendant back to the spell markings and the spell seems to ignite again. Emma still doesn’t have her magic back but at least the Charmings get a sweet little moment with the baby who remains nameless. The final two episodes next week are going to be absolutely nuts!

The Mindy Project 2.19: "Think Like a Peter"

“No, Mindy, you do not apologize to him. This guy took advantage of your heartbreak, and that is a low move. That is disgusting. That is…exactly the thing that I would do. Am I a dick? Does everyone think I’m a dick?”
-Peter

“Think Like a Peter” employs a sort-of typical sitcom trope, but we get a satisfyingly unique “Mindy Project” spin on it. The typical trope is that Mindy is trying to approach dating more like a man, specifically a bro like Peter. Everything that happens is very true to the characters, though, and Mindy’s innate optimism wins out in the end. There’s even a sartorial choice that made me especially happy, because it was extremely prescient, and I can hear Mindy’s thought process behind why she chose a particular dress that she wore near the end of the episode. I’m still not happy with the direction in which the creative team is taking Danny, but I think it’s pretty clear that the seeds of regret for how he treated Mindy have been planted. He thought he was saving their friendship by breaking up with her, but he may have sacrificed the friendship, too.

We learn from the beginning of the episode voice over that when it comes to dating, Mindy is kind of nice to a fault. She’s on a date with a guy named Phil, and while he’s very nice and there’s nothing really wrong with him, Mindy is just not into him. She can’t bring herself to break it off, though. Mindy ends up lying on the floor of her office, trying to figure out what to do about the situation. Danny tries to go back to being Mindy’s friend, and he asks what’s wrong. Mindy’s still not ready to talk to Danny about her dating life, so she shoos him away in favor of having a chat with Peter instead. This clearly irks Danny, but really, it’s his own fault.

Peter’s advice is, essentially, to think more like him. Mindy wants to break up with Phil (is it really “breaking up” if you’ve only been on one date?), but Mindy doesn’t take the advice at first. She tries writing Phil a five-page break-up letter. While Mindy is writing, Phil texts her a rather disgustingly cute selfie, and Peter has had enough. He tells Mindy that radio silence is the only way to get rid of a clinger like Phil, and he grabs Mindy’s phone until Phil gets the message (from mere minutes of no response). Mindy is thrilled that her problem seems to have been taken care of, and she wants to learn more of Peter’s dating rules. She doesn’t want to be such a push-over anymore.

Meanwhile, while looking for a (food, not surgical) knife, Danny catches Morgan and Tamra hooking up in a supply closet. It turns out Tamra is still dating Ray Ron, too, and she needs some guidance about which guy to choose. Since Mindy hasn’t been letting him occupy that “friend” space lately, Danny offers to help Tamra make a pros and cons list (something he apparently used to do for Mindy). From everything Tamra is saying, Morgan is coming out way ahead (Ray Ron is really an ass), but then Danny plays the trump card. Tamra and Morgan work together, and workplace relationships (especially as Danny has recently experienced) often end in disaster with a side of awkward. Because Morgan is such a good guy, however, Tamra isn’t immediately convinced that working together is the deciding factor, so she says she needs some time to think about everything.

Mindy and Peter go to a bar to scope out a suitable rebound for Mindy. They come upon Lee, a seemingly sweet teacher played by none other than Max Greenfield. Mindy and Lee’s encounter is sort of ridiculously awkward at first, until Peter starts giving Mindy advice. She starts playing hard to get, and the plan works immediately. Lee seems to be smitten. The next morning, Mindy wakes up to find her bed empty. Lee is gone, but he left a scarf behind. Mindy is convinced this was a “Cinderella” move, designed to create a reason to see her again. Peter thinks it was probably an accident (because sometimes guys accidentally forget their stuff, you know), but Mindy is hearing none of it. She’s convinced that Lee is just that into her.

Danny is convinced that office romances are so terrible that he needs to continue to meddle, so he takes Morgan out to lunch. Morgan starts feeling guilty about the hook up with Tamra, so he finds Ray Ron to apologize. Surprisingly, Ray Ron isn’t upset. He’s actually really happy to see Morgan and gives him a big hug. Apparently Tamra already came clean to Ray Ron, and the whole thing made them even closer. Poor Morgan just can’t catch a break. On the other hand, if the better choice for Tamra is Morgan Tookers, she’s got bigger problems than being caught in the middle of a second tier love triangle.

Mindy decides to seek out Lee at his school to return the scarf, which is such a spectacularly bad idea. In this scene, however, she wears a dress with a blue poppy print by LK Bennett, which was famously worn by the Duchess of Cambridge on the recent tour of Australia. The dress was one of my personal favorite looks from the tour, so I was surprised to see it on television again so soon. Mindy is a celebrity gossip junkie like me, so while it probably wasn’t planned this way by the creative team, I can just picture her seeing Kate in the dress during tour coverage and immediately deciding she had to have the dress for herself. It’s quite a gorgeous dress, really.

Anyway, Mindy interrupts Lee’s class to return the scarf, and the whole thing is as awkward as you would expect. It turns out that Lee did indeed leave the scarf by accident, and Peter gets to gloat a little about that one. Then Lee just gets mean and asks Mindy if she’s the mother of one of his students. Mindy starts wondering if she’s good enough for any guy, since she’s had such bad luck recently, and seeing Mindy’s sadness, Peter demands that Lee apologize. The whole thing makes Peter realizing that the games he’s been playing with women (which he was trying to teach to Mindy) make him kind of a dick. It was nice to see Peter have that bit of self-realization. Then he sees a wedding band on Lee’s hand. Lee’s more of a dick than Peter, apparently, and Peter punches Lee right in the face.

Peter and Mindy both come to good realizations by the end of the episode. Peter realizes that maybe he needs to be a bit more of a romantic like Mindy. Mindy realizes that doing the right thing is probably the way to go. She pays Paul a visit and breaks up with him for real. She tells Paul that she needs more time to get over Danny. I’m telling you, these kids aren’t done yet. Speaking of Danny, he’s in bed with Sally, and the camera pans to show a pair of diamond studs under the bed. Clearly Mindy’s been playing Cinderella games. You get yours, girl!

Person of Interest 3.21: "Beta"

“There’s one other thing. I’d like you to avoid violence if at all possible. But, if they harm Grace in any way, kill them all.”
- Finch

As we saw at the end of last episode, Samaritan is getting a beta test and Decima is hunting for Finch. But he’s now here to be found and it’s been a week since the Senator helped pass the bill to buy Samaritan. Reese and Shaw however are busy helping the helpless. Shaw takes out a guy who was going to rob a convenience store (it was an inside job). They get a few blocks away when Root magically appears and ushers them off the street. Decima has teams waiting to take them out. Obviously Samaritan was able to find them. I have to say seeing Samaritan work is interesting. It’s much more movie frame set up than the Machine. Speaking of the Senator, he’s crabby that Samaritan has been up for four hours and nothing’s been found intelligence wise. The head of Decima assures him it will produce viable intel soon. But he’s focused on finding Finch. Samaritan isn’t having any luck but the tech suggests they compile all the info they have n Finch and try to find his closest living connection. Oh boy. Just as Root leads our heroes out into traffic (to avoid video cameras), a payphone rings. Reese stops to take the call and tells Root that if he’s going to keep risking his life, he wants a name, not numbers. She gets the name but it isn’t good. Samaritan has found Grace, Finch’s fiancée.

We briefly jump back to 2010 where Grace and a priest are giving Harold a very small funeral after she believes he is dead. It’s kind of sad that no one else showed up. Yes, I know he’s not really dead and the only person who probably would have showed up really was but still, Grace was pretty upset. We jump back to 2014 and Reese and Shaw save Grace from narrowly being abducted by one of Decima’s goons. They are caught on camera (nowhere really to hide) and are tracked to the precinct. Fusco is kind of annoyed that they showed up since the precinct is now crawling with cameras. Decima decides to use a little tact in trying to get Grace out of the precinct by sending in a fake FBI agent. Reese takes care of him in an interrogation room and then Root joins the party. SO at least they have someone on their side with access to the feeds. This prompts Decima to try and attack from camera blind spots. But that doesn’t really help because Root MacGyver’s some stuff together and knocks out the cameras. Grace is kind of freaking out (not because strange men are after her but because she’s been lied to). She sees a missing poster for the real Detective Stills. Root basically tells her that if she leaves, she’s dead or worse. Root then sets off an explosion and they use an unmarked car as all units are responding to get away from the precinct. I shouldn’t be surprised that Decima had someone waiting. And it’s a bit of bad luck that the bad guys get their hands on Grace. So I guess now Team Machine is going to need to find Finch to help get Grace back.

Well my prediction wasn’t quite right. Finch hasn’t actually showed up yet. The gang is holed up in a diner in New Jersey, outside the reach of Samaritan. Root however has a map of all the dead zones in new York City, including one by a marina. So they head there and find four container ships filled with computer servers. I guess Decima has a way to supercharge its pet project. Which seems really freaking scary if you think about it. Shaw takes out a lurking goon and they trace the origin of some self-deleting texts back to Brooklyn. Reese and Shaw make tracks for Grace’s probable location while Root stays behind. My guess is she’s going to destroy all the servers.

The head of Decima, meanwhile, is trying to find out what is so special about Grace. He believes that she’s an artist and that the rest of her background is true, but he wants to know about her relationships. Ultimately, she confesses to being engaged to Harold and she explains that he died in the ferry bombing. Something tells me she is going to find out that Finch is still alive. Which is not going to be good at all for any potential rekindling of a romance between the two. I have to say, I honestly hope they wrap up the Decima and Vigilance storylines this season and go back to basics next year. It’s not that I dislike overarching mysteries and mythology, because I do. But this just seems a bit overwhelming and over the top. Grace basically tells the head of Decima that she’s done answering his questions after he suggests that Harold lied to her about his identity. She trusted him despite her instincts to never trust anyone (due to a rocky upbringing).

Reese and Shaw make it to the Brooklyn address after leading a bunch of Decima goons on a wild goose chase on the other side of the city. Unfortunately, the head of Decima has already left with Grace and the IT guy our heroes find kills himself. But the head of Decima gives our team a message. Bring Finch to a bridge the next day and they get Grace back. Reese and Shaw are trying to decide on a new plan when Root calls and sends them to find Finch at Grace’s apartment building. He’s ready to turn himself over. The following day, Finch explains that he always knew this day was coming. Grace makes it to safety (she’s blindfolded so I guess that particular secret is still intact) and Finch gets whisked away by Decima. While Samaritan shuts down from its beta test and the Senator is pleased with the results of one terrorist captured, Root has secured a bunch of the servers. So she didn’t destroy them. I am intrigued to find out what she’s going to do. Grace is heading off to Italy to be safe so that’s a plus I suppose. Now all Team machine needs to do is find a way to rescue Finch and keep Samaritan from coming online permanently. Oh and they probably need to deal with Vigilance at some point, too. Overall, it as a decent episode and it is really setting things up for the final two hours of the season.

New Girl 3.21: "Big News"

“My uncle was on ‘Cops’ a bunch of times. He got no residuals, though. He’s poor.”
-Winston

While there have been strings of “New Girl” episodes where I have questioned the creative team’s overall direction for the show, one thing I can say for sure is that big events in the lives of the characters always seem to matter. Nothing happens on the show in a vacuum. This can’t be said for all comedies. More traditional sitcoms would introduce a big twist in one episode, and it would be gone in the next (or maybe it would be stretched out to a two-parter if we were lucky). Last we saw the roomies, Nick and Jess had just broken up. “Big News” deals with the immediate fall out of that decision. The way the episode ends also gives me hope that the creative team isn’t going to let go of this plot line any time soon.

So it’s the morning after, and Nick and Jess are still broken up. Two things are going to make this more difficult than your average break-up (if there is such a thing), and the first is immediately apparent. They live in the same very tiny bedroom in an apartment with three other roommates. Nick wakes up with thoughts from the previous night written “Memento”-style on his hands. I know that reference, by the way, because I worked in a movie theater in 2001 and saw at least 30 minutes of just about every movie released that year on my breaks. He’s still in a daze when he finds Jess trying to hide in the closet while getting dressed. There’s a super awkward sequence where they try to decide if they’re still allowed to see each other naked (the answer is no, of course). Both Nick and Jess are trying to keep it together, but it’s easy to tell that this break-up is going to be tough.

Nick and Jess think it will be easier to deal with the break-up if they can tell the rest of the roomies about it right away. This decision is the conclusion of a rather hilarious conversation where Nick makes small talk about the noise a monkey made in a documentary he saw when the monkey didn’t want trouble. Unfortunately for them, Winston put a bit of a kink in those plans. He, Coach, and Schmidt are dancing and singing along to the theme from “Cops” because Winston has finally been accepted to the police academy. Nick and Jess don’t want to spoil Winston’s big day with their sad news, so they decide to hold off telling anybody. Instead, the day is going to be all about Winston. He wants a “honey roast” (a roast where people only say endearing things about you) and a “prominent chair” (aka a throne).

Even though they have been playing it cool, Nick and Jess are both pretty upset, so they need to talk their feelings out with other people. Jess goes to Cece, and Nick goes to his silent older Asian pal, Tran. Schmidt is at Cece’s apartment helping her study for the GRE’s, so Jess takes Cece into another room to tell her the news. There’s a really funny juxtaposition of Cece comforting an emotional Jess on one side of the closed door while Schmidt delivers running commentary about what he thinks must be going on. What upsets Jess the most is that Nick seems to be okay with the break-up when she definitely isn’t. The conversation with Tran makes it clear that Nick isn’t okay either. Nick, however convinces himself that the best thing to do is to throw himself into planning Winston’s congratulations festivities. He goes through many attempts at making the “prominent chair,” and he’s not happy with any of them.

Coach comes home to find several of Nick’s failed chair attempts piled up in the living room, and Nick himself is stressing both over the chair and what to say at the honey roast. Coach says that obviously the cutest thing about Winston is his yawn, and Nick not realizing that is setting off alarm bells. Nick ends up admitting to Coach that he and Jess broke up. Coach, drawing on his own experience, warns Nick not to let Jess see his emotions, and he also suggest that Nick raid Schmidt’s supply of anti-anxiety meds (probably not the best advice). Soon after learning this information, Jess and Cece arrive back at the apartment (Cece convinced Jess that she needed to talk things through with Nick). Coach immediately moves into give Jess a hug, but then because he doesn’t want to spill the big news, he ends up giving everybody big hugs, claiming it’s his new style of greeting. It’s schticky, but it was a much needed tension-breaker.

Jess and Nick continue to try and convince each other that they’re fine while Cece breaks and spills the beans to Schmidt. Schmidt’s reaction is pretty hilarious, going on about how he’s delicate because he’s a child of divorce. The honey roast then begins, and with Nick high and Jess quickly getting very drunk on a whole bottle of wine, this could end very badly. The whole thing starts out as Winston’s dream party, with the prominent chair, Nick as emcee, and Jess dressed up as Furguson. Everyone is even laughing at Nick’s jokes. Then a very drunk Jess decides to turn the event into a real roast, and she starts insulting everyone. That’s when Winston knows that something is wrong. Jess says that the terrible thing about Nick is that he’s “okay” when she’s not, and she finally lets it slip to Winston that they broke up. Jess feels a little better when she finds out that the only reason Nick seems okay is because of the meds.

To his credit, Winston’s reaction to the news is gratitude that Jess and Nick cared about him enough to put such a devastating event aside to celebrate his achievement. The group all gets in a circle and holds hands, which is kind of stupid and adorably “New Girl” goofy at the same time. Winston wants to put off the honey roast until the next night, but the rest of the group doesn’t seem especially enthusiastic about reconvening. Later that night, Jess is finally on the couch crying as she watches “Dirty Dancing” (as she should be after a break-up), and Nick calls her from his bedroom. They’re trying to figure out the new potential friend paradigm now that they’re broken up. Nick still cares about Jess a lot, and when she says she is out of tissues, he tosses her a box from his room and wishes her good night. It gives me hope that these two crazy kids might make it once they grow up a little more.