Stephen Colbert Condemned 'The Mindy Project'
Stephen Colbert made a guest appearance on Tuesday night’s The Mindy Project, appearing as a Catholic priest condemning sex outside of marriage and thus scaring the bejesus out of Danny (Chris Messina).
Sporting his own little miracle — a bushy white beard — Colbert was perfectly cast as Father Michael O’Donnell: A practicing Roman Catholic, Colbert didn’t need a stunt double to recite a snippet from the Latin Mass.
The plot involved Danny trying to hide just about everything about Mindy Lahiri — that she’s not “of the faith,” that the couple has not only had sex, but she’s pregnant — from Colbert’s priest. The script by Jack Burditt allowed for a lot of good Mindy lines (our self-proclaimed Hindu Madonna to Danny: “I don’t have a Catholic bone in my body — except yours”; “The New Testament? There’s a sequel to the Bible but not Gone Girl?”).
Related: How ‘The Mindy Project’ Became One of the Funniest Shows
But it was hard to take your eyes off wild-man Colbert, his Report horned-rims gone, shrugging into a leather jacket, and boasting of the number of women his character had sex with before entering the priesthood (for the record: 275). Surveying the apartment Mindy and Danny share, he thundered, “This is the lair of Lucifer.”
It all made me look forward once again to the Colbert who’ll take over The Late Show, and made me wonder once again why The Mindy Project isn’t the big hit it deserves to be.
The Mindy Project airs Tuesdays at 9:30 p.m. on Fox.
