The Mindy Project - "Hot Mess Time Machine" - Review

"The Mindy Project" returned with its season 5 premiere with quite an homage to "Groundhog Day." We left off with Ben (Bryan Greenberg) breaking up with Mindy, telling her she doesn't deserve him. In this episode, as she repeats the same day over and over, we learn that he broke up with her because she was very shallow and selfish, taking no interest in him. So, what hilarities ensue when Dr. Lahiri realizes she's reliving the same day?

As she wakes up, and of course, her alarm is the song "Call Me Maybe," she realizes she's out of tampons. The news guy announces it's Wednesday. At work, she has to sit in one of Jeremy's boring meetings, deliver her least favorite patient's baby, bump into Ben as they wait for the elevator and take snark from him. When this keeps repeating, she confronts Morgan about it. He's surprisingly not surprised by this at all. "Freaky Friday" happening to Mindy would have done the trick, though.

In order to make the most of this situation, Mindy does everything she's always wanted to do without worrying about consequences. Tomorrow, all of her actions won't matter anyway because she's reliving the day again anyway. Soon enough, she gets tired of it and begins to make improvements to her routine. Except for one thing which doesn't change. She still avoids Ben and he's still angry with her.

Morgan advices her to change that if she wants to go back to living life normally. So, now, everyday instead of avoiding Ben she tries to speak with him and learn more and more about him. She uses the information she learnt the next day [still the same day] and manages to impress him by the end.

In the end, she finally wakes up and it's not the same day, and Ben forgives her and they reunite.

This episode may seem monotonous and even cliched, but "The Mindy Project" did a solid job of keeping us entertained throughout. It was intriguing to see how they would bring Mindy and Ben back together after their heavy fallout, and I'm glad it wasn't an immediate thing. Mindy truly had to go through this process, this realization of who she was as a girlfriend. Ben has been so great for her and with her. All signs point to the fact that he may, indeed, be the one for her. And, I may miss Chris Messina's Danny Castellano, but I'm okay with that.

What did you think about the episode? Where do you see this relationship going? Where you all in with the "Groundhog Day" theme? Let us know in the comments.