The Mindy Project successfully ran for six seasons. It followed the life of Mindy Lahiri, OB-GYN, as she navigates her professional life, ambition, romance, and friendships. The show balanced good humor and running gags with more serious moments where we see Mindy growing as a character and taking on challenges that push her out of her comfort zone.
Throughout the show's duration, we were introduced to various storylines and characters. Some of these storylines were cut short. Others seemed to disappear. Listed below are 10 such storylines that never felt resolved in our book.
Early Potential Love Triangles
Two characters were introduced that proposed a potential love triangle with Danny and Mindy. One character was Shauna, the young, beautiful, and cool woman who worked in the office. It was revealed that Shauna had a crush on Danny as she longingly watched him dance when they all went out to the club in Season 1. However, this crush seemed one-sided, and Danny (although not romantic towards Mindy yet) regarded Mindy more highly than he did Shauna. On top of that, the character of Shauna appeared to have disappeared from the show with little explanation.
The other early potential love triangle was Mindy's friend, Alex, who did date Danny in Season 1. However, like most of Mindy's outside of work friends from Season 1, Alex's role was gone from later seasons. Although removing Alex was removing a potential obstacle to the Danny/Mindy romance, it would have made for good television to keep up that potential love triangle.
Betsy! The Innocent Office Assistant
While we were happy that Beverly (previously horrible nurse but comic gem) came back and became an office assistant, we miss Betsy. Betsy and her story disappeared from the show. This could be because Morgan and Betsy shared similar character traits of being innocent and seeing the world in a much different way than their other colleagues. Betsy hung on longer than Shauna. Still, we would have loved to see Betsy try to play matchmaker with more members of the office, like she once did with Mindy.
Rishi's Music Career
Throughout the series, we often saw more of Danny's family than Mindy's. So, anytime we saw Mindy's family and her interactions with them, we were really happy. Rishi, Mindy's brother, whom she was helping with his education decides to take his own path and become a DJ. Although initially not supportive, Mindy stepped in to help Rishi.
While he is on a break from DJ school and his quest for a rap career in Season 5 when both visit their mother for some respite, we don't get the details as to what happened. We also don't get the details concerning his next step. Like Mindy, we want to see Rishi succeed, but we learn little about his path.
Beverly's Murky Past
Throughout the series, Beverly's past is hinted at several times. It is suggested that she changed her name and is running from previous crimes. This becomes a running gag when various people seem to almost recognize her. Not that we would need to full details of her past, but we would love to know more (or at least have a few more hints to keep us satisfied).
Mindy's Mom: Acting Aspirations
We find out that Mindy's Mom has always wanted to be an actress, but that she put her dreams on hold. In Season 5, we see her sneaking around to get a break in the business. Both Mindy and Rishi incorrectly think she is having an affair.
When they discover their mother's real dream, Mindy decides to help her out. She tells her mom to write her own play based on her life. We end the episode with both Mindy and Rishi listening to their mom read from a journal. However, we don't learn if Mindy's mom achieves her dream or not.
Neepa's Story
In Season 3, Mindy get a medical fellowship to Stanford. She meets Neepa while there. Neepa is a first generation immigrant, working hard for her success and her family. In addition to attending the fellowship, she works at a fast food place. She is mad at Mindy, seeing Mindy as a second generation immigrant who takes the easy way out. Later, Mindy and Neepa become friends.
In a rare moment of unselfishness, Mindy doesn't cover for the doctor who is teaching them (even though he told her to) because she recognizes that Neepa earned it. We wish we knew more what happened to Neepa and her friendship with Mindy, especially because it seemed close. Neepa was the first person to know that Mindy was pregnant.
Danny's Sister: Little Danny
When we first met little Danny, she was a sweet kid. Then we meet her after she gets into her rebellious stage—getting suspended for slapping both her teacher and her principal. Initially, Danny's dad tries to get Danny to take care of the sister. While Danny doesn't ultimately take in little Danny, we wonder what happened to her story. Did she change back into the sweet kid we met at the start or continue to rebel? Did she become a cool aunt to Danny and Mindy's son?
Mindy, Tax Fraud, And Budget
Mindy is infamously bad with money. In addition, her brother, Rishi, also ruined her credit. We find out in Season 3 that she has committed tax fraud. While that does get sorted out, for Mindy to start her own business, she would need to be better with budget.
We don't get much information on how she improves her chronic budget problems, although we would like to know. We know from her mother that Mindy is ambitious and hard on herself. So, we would expect that this would translate in how she would improve her budget and conduct her business.
Rob
Rob is Danny's friend, and was meant to be Mindy's business partner. They were going to be partners on a fertility clinic together in California. It took Mindy a while to gain Rob's respect, so it is very telling that he wanted to partner with her. Rob had the potential to be on the show for longer--a former nemesis turned friend--but once Mindy returned back east, Rob slowly disappeared from her narrative.
Mindy And Gwen's Friendship
In the first season, we see the unique best friendship Mindy had with Gwen. Gwen was someone who knew Mindy before she worked at the clinic. She was always there for Mindy but also willing to call Mindy out when needed. A major hurdle in their friendship was Mindy adjusting to her best friend being a mom. They no longer could do the same sorts of gatherings that Mindy craved. However, Mindy adapted for Gwen. No doubt, Gwen could have served as a successful role model for Mindy when Mindy had her own child.
Gwen's character slowly disappeared when The Mindy Project decided to focus more on Mindy's office friendships. While that focus made narrative sense, it would have been good to keep Mindy's outside friends. That way, we could see how she struggled to balance parts of her life. Additionally, Gwen was such an important friend for Mindy, and unfortunately, she seemed cut out of Mindy's life for no reason. We needed more closure than that.