Naturally, Mindy returns from her trip to Texas to learn that Jody got himself a girlfriend. This is good news for us viewers: We know what happens when will-they-won’t-they couples get together too quickly. So it’s another week of this little dance, thanks to new flame Courtney. And yet! Mindy and Jody need some way to spend extra time together so their sexual tension can simmer. Enter Princeton, Mindy’s alma mater, which has invited her and Jody to give their “Later Baby” presentation on campus.
To add some extra tension, Jody has plans to go away with Courtney for the weekend. “I’ve been practicing ukulele for the rowboat ride,” he whines, at first refusing to cancel his plans for Princeton. Compare that to Morgan, who has plans to meet his biological father, but blows them off for Mindy. In fact, Morgan can’t understand why Jody would allow his relationship to interfere with work. After all, when he was dating Tamra, they just had sex at the office — the kitchen and Mindy’s office, to be precise. That solved everything!
Mindy confides in Morgan about that moment she and Jody had a few weeks ago while watching movies at her place. She even reenacts the pivotal hair-brush, with Morgan playing her. It was such a hot moment that Morgan is uncomfortably turned on by the mere reenactment.
The next morning at the office, Jody announces that he will join the trip after all, which unfortunately means Mindy cannot do her parody song, “Ain’t Too Proud to Egg.” Also unfortunate: Courtney is coming with them. She postponed her allergy appointment just for the occasion! One more unfortunate thing: That means she sneezes throughout the trip.
There’s a moment of hope for Courtney and Mindy to bond when Jody tells them they’re both from Boston. Mindy lights up, spouting Bostonisms: “No, Ma! Yankees suck! Spotlight!” Not to be outdone by that last gleeful reference to pedophile Catholic priests, Morgan adds, “Racism!” But the true sacrilege comes when Courtney reveals where she’s actually from: Winchendon, a quaint little town that Mindy describes, not inaccurately, as “basically New Hampshire.” Courtney gets worse from there. She describes her profession as “currently on lawsuit” — in other words, she is awaiting a sexual-harassment settlement from her former employer.
Once they arrive at Princeton, Mindy has bigger problems. A bunch of football coaches show up at the auditorium she booked for the presentation, claiming they had reserved it for a recruiting session. Mindy snarks that she didn’t know the football team recruited: “I thought they just accepted whatever nerds wandered onto the field with their heads in a math book.” The coach (played by Jay R. Ferguson) snaps back, “We only allow athletes who can run a ten-minute mile or whose parents donate a building.”
When Mindy pulls out her phone to triumphantly show him her confirmation for the room, it turns out the confirmation date was actually scheduled for 2017. She tries one more time to argue that her women’s-health issue is more important than “a bunch of fat guys playing grab-ass.” When that doesn’t work, she lets the coach (actually, makes him) touch her boobs. Somewhere around that awkward moment, they realize they went to Princeton at the same time and start to warm up to each other. The coach gallantly backs down and volunteers to take his recruiting session to the stadium, ceding the auditorium to Mindy, Morgan, and Jody. The football guys won’t be able to show their highlight reel, but maybe that’s for the best: “The only team we beat last year was Columbia,” the coach admits. “And that was only because half their team was off for the High Holidays.”
Jody threatens to leave anyway and give Courtney the weekend he promised … sort of. They’ll have to just pretend his apartment is a bed-and-breakfast. (“I’ll find some Germans to have breakfast with us.”) But Mindy persuades him to stay, promising to recruit lots of young women for their seminar. The coach even helps with her recruiting efforts, during which we learn he was a French-lit major.
Mindy dazzles the women in the library with her recruitment speech, and Coach is impressed as well. The presentation is a hit, with 16 new patients signed up. The gang hits a campus bar afterward to celebrate, and, of course, run into Cute Coach again. He’s full-force hitting on Mindy at this point, Courtney is sneezing up a storm, and Morgan is randomly breaking out an excellent Tim Gunn impression. (Just go with it.)
Mindy and Coach’s flirtation is cut short because Courtney really wants to leave the chilly bar. At the hotel, Courtney accidentally gives Jody the gift Mindy got him in Texas: a gigantic “JODY” belt buckle. Touched by her gift — and by Morgan’s earlier revelation that Mindy had told him about the moment — Jody goes to Mindy’s room to talk to her. But Morgan ruins this potential moment before it happens, and soon enough Mindy gets a text from Coach asking her out.
They hook up, Courtney presumably sneezes through the night, and Coach tells Mindy he’ll be in New York on a recruiting trip next week. Anyone else imagining Diego and Coach both showing up at the same time for romantic interludes with Mindy? And Jody getting jealous enough to make a grand gesture? Just a thought.
