Season 4 Episode 2: World’s Greatest Burger Discussion

By JD

[pictures to come on a Thursday in the future.]

Tonight we saw a moment in Marshall’s life. Much like season one saw Ted having adventures that turned him into the man he was to become, tonight Marshall had one of those maturating experiences. This wasn’t a mission to lick the Liberty Bell or help his car reach 100,000 miles, this was a mission for the World’s Greatest Burger.

I remember visiting New York as a young boy with my uncle. It was a dirty, messy, scary place. Now that I live here I can say things have cleaned up, and sold out a bit (it’s why I live in Brooklyn, ’cause I keeps it real.) I really enjoy the attention to detail they pay to the New York that exists within the show. All the fake, generic storefronts that were set in the same typeface and branding as real drug stores and fast food joints was a nice touch as well. If you can’t license it, it might as well be funny.

The Good

It was really good to see a return to form for the show. Tonight we saw the whole gang together, we got to see a flashback, we had an amazing adventure with an unexpected payoff and a lesson that helped move everyone forward in their lives. This is HIMYM firing on all cylinders. Even with a guest star, it felt real and classic and as good as the show gets.

Speaking of Regis, he was fantastic. I love the idea that he has super powers. And that he scares Barney. What exactly is a “Satchel Mouth”?

Considering this episode was probably shot sometime in the beginning of September I wonder if Craig and Carter saw the writing on the wall and wrote Goliath National Bank into the plot on purpose. As our economy and half the banks in the country crash and burn, it’s good to know that Mr. Stinson and Mr. Ericksen will be employed by a major bank.

The message behind Marshall finding the burger was duplicitous. The show does this so well—Marshall thought he wanted to return to a happy memory from when he first got to the city as a way to move on. As we saw however, it was back then that he had entombed himself in a boxer short hell of his own making due to fear of the world outside. What the burger really represented was the step in the right direction, the step toward conquering fear. Marshall took that step tonight by taking the job at the bank. That’s why he wanted the burger, it is the culinary punctuation on the major steps of his life.

I love watching Marshall give himself pep talks in the mirror. He wasn’t rubbing his nipples this time but his progressively less inspiring talks were wonderful.

Wendy the Waitress is back! Wendy the Waitress is back! Wendy the Waitress is back! Did I mention Wendy the Waitress is back? She is and she was fantastic as always. I wish she was my neighborhood pub waitress (my real neighborhood pub waitress is much more Amy Winehouse then Wendy the Waitress.) Welcome back Charlene, we all missed you!

The speech Marshall gave about that burger is fantastic. What was that voice he went into? Masterpiece Theater? Whatever it was, when he said “playful pickle” I about lost it. I’d have loved to transcribe the whole thing but it was just too long. Sorry.

The Bad

No Stella this week? That’s not really a complaint, I just hope we don’t do the “only Ted with Stella” or “only Ted with the rest of them” we saw last year. Can’t Stella go with Robin and Lily to try on wedding dresses or something?

Not much bad to say about this week though. It was classic HIMYM. If this is how the one-off episodes they talked about are going to go, I have no worries for the future.

Favorite Moments

  • “I just said ‘I don’t like Chinese’. Weird meat, funny music, side of rice, why are we splitting hairs?”
  • “You look like the last pick of the draft.”
  • “Does stuff stay open in New York after 9pm?” <– don’t laugh, coming from a small town I can tell you this is a HUGE deal.
  • I love the Johnny Carson envelope bit that Barney brought back.

Robin is the best “one of the guys” girls ever. And the hottest. She looked damn good tonight.

  • “I’m freaking starving. I just finished a seven day cleanse.”
    “I thought you started that yesterday?”
    “I finished early, OK?”
  • Her licking the deposit envelope and trying to eat the garbage chips had me cracking up. She’s a great comedic actress.

All the burger love was fantastic:

  • “It’s like Christmas in my mouth. Meat Christmas.”
  • “It’s like an angel from heaven landed at MacLarens. Where the chef killed it and ran it through the meat grinder.”
  • “I love this burger so much I want to sew my ass shut.” <– best line ever?
  • “I’m never brushing my teeth again, unless it’s with a toothbrush made from this burger.”
  • “I think I just had my first burgasm.”
  • “I want to take this burger out to dinner. Then maybe a movie. Then, take it back to my place, put on a little Terrance Trent Darby, and I would just…fool around a little bit, take things slow.”
    First, who is Terrance Trent Darby? Second, was he talking to this burger or maybe…Robin?
  • “I want to get tiny fitted sheets for this burger and just crawl into this bun and get all cozy and lie there.”
  • “Oh my god, I just want you inside me.”
    I think my friend Zach would have loved to be that burger…
  • “This feels so good I’m worried I’m going to get this burger pregnant.”
  • “If he does get that burger pregnant I have dibs on the delicious burger babies.”

Vocab Word of the Week

So HIMYM is back to coining catch phrases yet again. This week we have the Underpants Radius which is categorized by the area outside your bed in which one is comfortable wearing nothing but underpants. The size of this ratio is inversely proportionate to the level of self confidence one has.

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In Episode Discussion, Season 4 | Monday, September 29th, 2008 11:37 pm GMT -4 | By JD
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49 Comments to “Season 4 Episode 2: World’s Greatest Burger Discussion”

  1. J |  Tuesday, September 30th, 2008 12:02 am GMT -4

    I promptly went out and had a cheeseburger. It was awesome.

  2. Promethia |  Tuesday, September 30th, 2008 12:12 am GMT -4

    Marshall’s glorious burger speech is a homage to the movie Amadeus: Salieri describing Mozart’s music the first time he hears/sees it. Jason Segel had the mannerisms *down*. I began to suspect something was up when the music kicked in in the background. When he mentioned the pickle I was bouncing up and down on the couch, making myself annoying to my roommates. And when he got to this burger being God talking to us in meat . . . I just had to pause so I could stop laughing before resuming the episode. And *then* Lily’s line about getting their wedding vows from the Internet!

    Immediately after this episode, the aforementioned roommates and I looked wide-eyed at each other, asked in unison “Five Guys?,” and made a flailing dash to the car so we could go stuff our faces with burgers.

  3. Kevin |  Tuesday, September 30th, 2008 12:37 am GMT -4

    This was the best episode since “How I Met Everyone Else.” I absolutely loved it. The writing and directing in this episode reminded me of the deeply foreshadowed stories of the first season like “Drumroll, Please.” By the end of the episode, the burger was more than just a burger. It was a reminiscence of a past that might be passing us by. It was the hope that when things aren’t going your way, it can always turn around. Did anybody else tear up when Marshall said, “Guys, this is the one,” anybody? Oh well.

  4. Zack |  Tuesday, September 30th, 2008 12:38 am GMT -4

    this was such a great episode!
    i loved regis in this and nph’s imitation of him in the gym was great

    one thing kind of bothered me, and maybe im just dumb
    but in tonight’s episode didn’t they say they had just moved to new york eight years ago?

    that would put it at 2000.

    in season one, wasn’t it established that ted and marshall move into their apartment/ ted meets barney in 1998?

    maybe im just confused

  5. The Modern Gal |  Tuesday, September 30th, 2008 12:43 am GMT -4

    Great episode, great recap.

    I had a serious tasty burger craving about five minutes into the show tonight.

  6. InternationalBusinssman |  Tuesday, September 30th, 2008 12:58 am GMT -4

    I wish I was Robin’s best burger ever.

  7. Taryn |  Tuesday, September 30th, 2008 01:06 am GMT -4

    i’m really happy to see them getting back to the normal format of the show, but it kind of bothered me that there was no mention of Robin/barney. I mean, that’s what the entire first episode was about, and then in this one there was no mention whatsoever. I mean, if nothing happens between them i’ll be totally devestated, but we need a little closure with that arc…

  8. Steve |  Tuesday, September 30th, 2008 01:40 am GMT -4

    Hey JD:

    These are the fun ones I like :)
    Maybe I’m just too much of a Seinfeld sitcommer…I love how Big Bang Theory is only casually serial in nature.

    YAY FOR $YNDICATION (it’$ alway$ been thi$ way), and Yay for Philbin!

  9. AF |  Tuesday, September 30th, 2008 01:53 am GMT -4

    This was a marvelous episode!

    After Barney’s musical comment, I decided to find some Terence Trent D’Arby on youtube.com. I’ve got to say that the song “If You All To Get To Heaven” is really well sung. He’s certainly no Marvin Gaye or Reggie White though.

  10. AF |  Tuesday, September 30th, 2008 01:54 am GMT -4

    Ack! I meant Barry White. Not Reggie White.

  11. jackatak08 |  Tuesday, September 30th, 2008 02:39 am GMT -4

    All I have to say is I’m glad I watched this show on a full stomach.

  12. Dale Chumbley |  Tuesday, September 30th, 2008 04:41 am GMT -4

    JD,

    I have lurked here for some time now and felt the need to come out of the closet and say THANK YOU! You do a mar… (wait for it) …elous job of capturing this fabulous piece of television.

    You recap of tonight is spot on and a great archive of the highlights.

    Thank you!

    Dale

  13. High Hoper |  Tuesday, September 30th, 2008 05:09 am GMT -4

    I really haven’t liked it as I did with Do I Know You…

    I think that the second episode of every season is never as good as the first. Check Purple Giraffe with the Pilot, The Scorpion and the toad with Where were we, We’re not from here with Wait for it…

    You know what I mean, uh?

  14. Tara |  Tuesday, September 30th, 2008 05:28 am GMT -4

    I loved the Terrance Trent D’Arby comment. It reminds me of my youth. Check out “Sign Your Name” – that’s his most famous song.

  15. Brandon |  Tuesday, September 30th, 2008 09:02 am GMT -4

    Great recap; thank you.

  16. Geri |  Tuesday, September 30th, 2008 09:04 am GMT -4

    Yeah Tara…let’s educate these young’uns on Terrence Trent D’arby!

    TTD’s album was one of the late 80′s/early 90′s “sex records” you’d put on to get someone in the mood. Think Sade in male form (only Sade had better songs). Wishing Well and Sign Your Name were his biggest hits.

    As I said in the other thread, the return to the silly, unabandoned HIMYM episode was amazing! I’m a big fan of the one liners and the vocab words. It’s part of what makes the show so endearing.

    Regis was actually pretty great with his lines. I was pleasantly surprised.

    I still wonder though, will we ever REALLY know what Barney does for work? He said his company “bought out” the bank and now Marshall’s going to be working at a bank, so does this mean Barney works for banks or just in the financial world? I think i’ll just stick to calling him an International Businessman.

  17. Gravity |  Tuesday, September 30th, 2008 10:15 am GMT -4

    The heads or tails game show absolutely killed me xD

  18. Gravity |  Tuesday, September 30th, 2008 10:23 am GMT -4

    Also, allow me to be your scribe.

    Just a burger? Just a burger? Robin, it’s so much more than just a burger. I mean, that first bite, oh what heaven that first bite is. The bun like a sesame freckled breast of an angel resting gently on the ketchup and mustard below flavors mingling in a seductive (something foreign, help me out here). And then, a pickle, the most playful little pickle and a slice of tomato, a leaf of lettuce, and a patty of ground beef so exquisite swirling in your mouth breaking apart and combining again in a fug (sp?) of sweets and savories so delightful. This is no mere sandwich of grilled meat and toasted bread Robin, this is God, speaking to us through food.

  19. OpenCasketForTheLadies |  Tuesday, September 30th, 2008 11:15 am GMT -4

    Absolutely loved the episode, and every element within it. Two things that bugged me were that there was no mention of Stella… They could have made up a story of where she was. Also when Ted and Marshall move into the apartment (Lemon Law) Ted has a full goatee, and even when Ted and Barney meet he has a goatee. Typically the show is very detail oriented and it kind of threw me off… overall loved the episode

  20. Ike |  Tuesday, September 30th, 2008 12:08 pm GMT -4

    Great episode. My favorite was the burgasm because I’ve done similar things to describe intense joy, like cargasm-seeing a great classic car. Regis was amazing. The Johnny Carson reference was great. I really don’t miss Stella. Should she get time on screen with someone other than Ted, sure, but I’m not a fan of their relationship and think it will end before the I dos so I don’t care much. Cobie is an amazing actress, and wow I wish I was that hamburger. Jason Segel is just hilarious, the mirror talks are great. Wow they’re 2 for 2 in amazing episodes. I need a burger.

  21. Dee...Lightful |  Tuesday, September 30th, 2008 04:48 pm GMT -4

    @OpenCasket:
    It was at night (after 9) and only for a few hours; Stella was home with her kid.

  22. Diana |  Tuesday, September 30th, 2008 06:19 pm GMT -4

    I’m glad someone else caught the reference from Amadeus. I heard the music kick in, it was Mozart’s Golden Flute, and then Jason had all of the mannerisms and vocal inflections down.

    I really enjoyed this episode, and even though I had dinner not even two hours before, my boyfriend and I both were craving burgers….

    I was amazed at how tiny Regis was compared to Marshall, Ted, and Barney.

    Gosh I love this show.

  23. Daddy's Home |  Tuesday, September 30th, 2008 06:30 pm GMT -4

    I wonder how much burger sales across the country went up last night! I know 5 guys was quite crowded for it being 8:45 at night! And we were all talking about HIMYM!

    Amazing episode better than the premier if you ask me. Classic HIMYM. Absolutely loved it!

  24. Gaelle from Belgium |  Tuesday, September 30th, 2008 06:46 pm GMT -4

    I really enjoy those episodes with the five of them all together. They really have an incredible group dynamic.

    Two things I loved : Marshall’s pep talks in the mirror. If you experienced long term job searching, you must have find yourself in that part. And the Underpants Radius, so funny! I’m really fond of all the theories and concepts they bring into the show (and that we all if not experienced, at least witnessed) like the Lemon Law, the Hot/Crazy scale, the Oh moment,… and my favorite: the Chain of Screaming.

    Something I’m most certainly the only one to adore: when Ted drinks in his yellow TAXI mug (you can see it at the very beginning, at the “You look like the last pick in the draft’ line) because a couple of years ago, my parents bought me two New York mugs and these are the exact same ones (when I saw it for the first time I freeze-framed it to be sure!) So I drink my coffee in the same cup as Ted. It’s completely silly but it makes me feel like part of the gang!!

    One thing I liked less : how rude was it that no one gave Robin their hamburger while she was the only one really starving and they all seemed to have ordered the same classic hamburger? A certain BS could have had that selfless gesture! Robin is so strong, in this situation I would actually have eaten Marshall’s hand ;-) )

  25. Eric Reynolds |  Tuesday, September 30th, 2008 09:18 pm GMT -4

    Loved the Amadeus reference. Promethia….I had the exact same reaction as you.

    All day….I wanted to talk to someone about it.

    None of my red neck or blue collar friends could relate. In fact…none of my friends could. Much less my wife.

    Until reading your comment, I thought I would carry my joy about it to the grave.

    Thank you.

  26. Hee |  Tuesday, September 30th, 2008 09:48 pm GMT -4

    Quite possibly the worst HIMYM episode ever (ouch). It felt forced and overly sitcomy, like it was trying a little too hard. I’ve never loved sitcoms, but HIMYM is different. Usually.

    Although the group was together, there wasn’t much dialogue and a lot of not very memorable one liners. (Quantity, but not quality).

    Looking at the other comments I’d say I felt alone in this opinion, but I don’t. Even my brother surprised me with a disappointed sounding ‘it was alright ‘ (HIMYM is the only show he watches).

    Looking forward to next week!

  27. TheMix |  Tuesday, September 30th, 2008 11:34 pm GMT -4

    Thank God someone recognized the speech Ode To Amadeus….that’s all I have to say…

    I nearly crapped my pants.

    -Jason

  28. john darc |  Tuesday, September 30th, 2008 11:49 pm GMT -4

    I thought it was weird that Barney didn’t offer his burger to Robin, or split it, or whatever.

    Weird. He’d totally get points there.

  29. Humberto |  Wednesday, October 1st, 2008 12:09 am GMT -4

    Hee, you’re not alone I didn’t like it too much too even though I like the episodes where they all go on some big wacky adventure. There was so much hype with this Regis episode that it was bound to disappoint. But watching a 2nd time it was better. Barney’s bank pimping was funnier knowing the reason behind it. Maybe knowing why robin couldn’t eat the others burgers would’ve made that gag less annoying. Maybe there’s some weird peculiar way canadians make their burgers anyone know?

  30. blarg |  Wednesday, October 1st, 2008 02:01 am GMT -4

    Yeah, I with a few of you, that episode just didnt do it for me. It wasnt bad and it wasnt good. There were a few great moments but overall I came away with a flat feeling about this ep.

    Maybe I just wasnt in the right frame of mind at the time. Hopefully a few more rewatches later on will turn me on to it :)

  31. daserca |  Wednesday, October 1st, 2008 03:52 am GMT -4

    It’s wasn’t good for me either. I didn’t laugh much. There weren’t many moments to highlight. The authors of the show forget the ‘COM’ of sitcom. Anyway, I have been disappointed before, this isn’t new news for me. Next!!!

  32. Hee |  Wednesday, October 1st, 2008 07:21 am GMT -4

    HIMYM always improves on a second viewing. I think it’s partly that this episode feels like a midseason episode and not episode 2.

    John Darc yeah it was weird Barney didn’t share his burger, but I guess from what we know about him Barney isn’t good at sharing – from his apartment, to Ted.

  33. Jenn |  Wednesday, October 1st, 2008 08:16 am GMT -4

    Not sure if anyone else has posted this yet, but the lounge replaced by the bank was real! I’ve been on the Upper West Side for 8 years, and Fez was the upstairs lounge of the Time Cafe on 85th and Broadway. It closed about 2 years ago and shocker, was replaced with a bank!!!! That’s the big joke on the UWS, everything is replaced with banks and Duane Reades (drug stores). I wonder if one of the writers lives nearby!

  34. JD |  Wednesday, October 1st, 2008 08:53 am GMT -4

    The gang not sharing their burgers was part of the joke. They’ve done this since the beginning. All five of them are sort of selfish, in their own way, and part of the gag was that none of them cared enough to share. I thought it was really funny.

  35. Juna D |  Wednesday, October 1st, 2008 12:47 pm GMT -4

    Lots of great content on this episode. Burgers, Banks, Underpants Radius. Hilarious. I would have gotten a to go bag for all those burgers. I haven’t had a burger since that episode aired. I want either a whopper or a six dollar burger from Carl’s Jr.

  36. redviper |  Wednesday, October 1st, 2008 09:07 pm GMT -4

    My favourite part is “member FDIC”. I laugh every time I hear it.

  37. Ivy |  Thursday, October 2nd, 2008 03:22 am GMT -4

    I LOVEd this episode so much!!! A classic HIMYM, but better! :P

  38. RiC_aRd0_ |  Thursday, October 2nd, 2008 08:45 pm GMT -4

    Hey!

    I love HIMYM but here in Portugal is quite hard to understand some jokes…

    In this episode, particularly, I didn’t get the “You look like the last pick of the draft.” one. I googled and still, didn’t get it. Could you please explain some of these catch phrases?

    Thanks a lot from (all, I guess) international HIMYM fans,

    Ricardo

  39. response portugal |  Friday, October 3rd, 2008 01:11 pm GMT -4

    “You look like the last pick of the draft.”

    The draft- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draft_(sports)

    Obviously the last pick (from the verb to pick up) is the one that nobody wants. Like when kids choose friends to play a match. There is always one little overweigth boy that nobody wants. And usually they say it out loud.

    The bad/good thing about HIMYM is how they play with the language and some preknowledge about American culture. That’s why i don’t think that is going to have much success abroad unless there is a really good adaptation of the expressions to be understandable, but also funny.

    “Kennen sie Ted?” That’s how you will adress yourself to Angela Merkel, but not to a girl in a bar. The Deutsch version is killing me.

  40. BOTOX |  Friday, October 3rd, 2008 01:38 pm GMT -4

    Is it at all possible that Alyson Hannigan uses Botox?. In the scene where they find that the BUrger has been replaced by a Goliath bank ATM, and Marshall has to tell Lilly that he works for GNB, and she says… (Press pause and look at the unnatural stiffness of her face for two seconds. Press play) “I love you”. There is something strange with that moment. And that moment becomes very, very unnatural. So fake… PErhaps that weird “sista” head movement doesn’t help much.

    What do you think? Botox?

  41. Wingman |  Saturday, October 4th, 2008 02:56 am GMT -4

    I was only slightly disappointed that there was no Robin-Barney interactions. Barney. I know in the spirit of the joke that Robin doesn’t get to eat while everyone else pigs out. But I thought it would’ve been better if either Barney wussed out and shared his burger, or his comments about the burger were more relationship-references. like, “If I could eat only this burger for the rest of my life, I would be the happiest man in the world.” or “Its like all the other thousands of burgers meant nothing to me, and here this burger… the greatest burger ever. I love you. I love your burger.”

    Something to that extent.

    Throughout the show I felt like there was no progression and it was a filler episode that you’d expect to see mid-season, until the end, when Marshall joins Goliath.

  42. Gaelle |  Saturday, October 4th, 2008 04:38 am GMT -4

    I think translating is always a betrayal to the spirit of a show. But I hope it can work throughout the world because everyone should know and enjoy HIMYM.
    Here in Belgium the show is currently broadcasted on a cable channel in its original version with subtitles, which is just neat. But soon it will be on a national channel in french. I have the DVD and I never dared watching the episodes in french. What they have done with the show literally scares me! But I was so excited about the show I lent my DVD to my friends, and one of them watched it in french and still found it really funny. It was hard for me to understand how she could do that though, so I had to tell her FRIENDSHIP OVER ;-) )

  43. ritukar |  Saturday, October 4th, 2008 04:53 am GMT -4

    can u tell me which song was played at the end of the episode 2 season 4

  44. Mick |  Sunday, October 5th, 2008 05:37 am GMT -4

    Can someone please please tell me the name of the song at the end of the episode – that plays in the background when they’re finally in the *right* burger place.. loved the episode btw :)

  45. Picelli |  Sunday, October 5th, 2008 06:26 pm GMT -4

    man, I LOVE these ep reviews you do!
    Seriously, everytime I see Robin on screen, I just stop paying attention to the plot and start just staring at her.. she’s great!

    and this is definetly on my top10 himym ep!

  46. JD |  Monday, October 6th, 2008 09:47 am GMT -4

    @Gaelle, is your name guy-ell, like Enrique Iglesias’s character from last season? Guy? Kyle? Girl?

  47. Gaelle |  Monday, October 6th, 2008 04:49 pm GMT -4

    My name is the same as Enrique Iglesias’s charachter indeed, but mine is the female version! You spell it Gael for a guy (but in fact it can work for girls too!) and Gaelle for a girl.
    I laughed to tears at all those name-jokes!

  48. Matthew |  Tuesday, January 27th, 2009 04:16 am GMT -4

    I caught the episode again tonight, and had to track down the clip of Amadeus on youtube to show my wife. It was just like that for me to, as soon as he made the line about the pickle I was howling and my wife was looking at me like I was a freak

  49. NLP Counselor |  Thursday, April 23rd, 2009 04:19 am GMT -4

    Interesting blog post. What would you say was the most important factor in using NLP?

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