The Mindy Project: “Danny Castellano Is My Personal Trainer” (Episode 2.12)

Mindy Lahiri starts off “Danny Castellano Is My Personal Trainer” with her usual voice-over to state that the best part of new relationships are all the firsts. She and Cliff have begun dating, and soon they will be taking their first vacation together. While Mindy might be talking about the beginnings of her new relationship, this week’s The Mindy Project truly seems to be about some of the firsts between her and Danny. I will be very surprised if this doesn’t end in a new relationship between the two of them.

The “will they or won’t they” component of The Mindy Project has always looked quite obvious from the outset. Mindy and Danny will almost definitely end up together, likely very soon, and if not, definitely by the end of the series (which could also be quite soon). Like The Mindy Project’s closest sibling, New Girl, Mindy and Danny are moving closer to each other in such incremental steps, that when it happens, it’ll make complete sense.

As the episode’s title states, Mindy needs to lose weight, as her and Cliff’s vacation will involve him seeing her in a bikini. After a trial run with trainer Morgan, Mindy chooses to give Danny a shot as her personal trainer, even if he compares the experience to Full Metal Jacket.

But even compared to the beginning of this season, the way that Danny gets Mindy has evolved so much. Instead of motivating her in tough ways like early season 2 Danny would have, he talks to her in her own language, creating scenarios for her in which exercising will help her save various celebrities. It makes complete sense, and it totally works.

While Mindy usually has her tricks to keep her boyfriends from seeing her naked, an incident in the steam room causes Danny to see her naked, skipping step one when the two inevitably end up together.

Back at the office, Peter is taking over boss duties from Jeremy, which immediately blows up in his face. By the end of the week, what seemed like a simple task has left the office with a million pairs of gloves and a owl flying around. It’s a pretty standard sitcom scenario, having the slacker-type become the boss, yet watching the life slowly drain from Adam Pally due to his new responsibilities does revive it.

The two stories converge when Mindy checks out her new body naked in her office when an owl flies in and Danny comes to her rescue. Later, Mindy comments that she’s sure Danny has plenty of comments on how she can fix herself, but Danny basically says she just needs to stay who she is. For a while, Danny has hinted that he might have a crush on Mindy, but at this point it’s pretty apparent that at least one half of this duo has some feelings for the other.

New Girl might have set the most recent precedent for how to handle these types of friends-to-more-than-friends situations, but at this point, The Mindy Project is doing a fine job of handling that situation all on its own.