Last night’s new episode of How I Met Your Mother was called “The Best Burger in New York”, and it was — of all things — a filler ep! Right at the very beginning of the season! What was that all about? There was nothing about Barney and Robin, nothing about Ted and Stella, nothing new with Marshall and Lily… I know these fillers are standard fare in the grand scheme of the entire season, but to throw one out there as the second installment? Not a good play, IMO.
Ted/Barney/Robin/Lily/Marshall: There was just one storyline in the entire episode, and it involved the whole gang. Basically, Marshall has been losing his self-esteem because he can’t find a decent job. He lounges around the house in his underwear because he has no reason to put pants on, and eventually, his “underwear radius” starts extending to public places like diners.
The one thing that would get him back on track (besides a job) would be to find an obscure hole-in-the-wall burger joint where he had the best burger of his life the year he first moved to New York. He hasn’t been able to find the place since, but has been looking for it all this time. The rest of the gang realize that Marshall needs to have that burger experience again, so they go from place to place until they find it.
My Reaction: While there were a couple of funny parts in this episode (Robin licking the glue on the ATM deposit envelopes because she was so hungry), it mostly fell flat for me. Marshall-centric episodes rarely hit the right note, and this one was no different. The main storyline was kind of dumb (why hadn’t he ever put that much effort into finding the burger joint before that night?), and seemed like an unnecessarily elaborate way to let us know that Marshall is going to take a soul-sucking position at Barney’s bank. Yawn.
Also, while Robin’s extreme hunger did lead to a laugh with the envelope glue, I couldn’t help but wonder why no one ever offered her a bite of their burger since she was practically starving. Maybe she had a special order and that’s why it always took so long, but still… couldn’t they have offered her a fry? Give me a break.
This was probably one of my least favorite HIMYM episodes of all time. I’d like to just forget it ever happened, so next week’s ep can’t get here fast enough!