June 29, 2025 • 10 mins
In this episode of The Rank Podcast, John dives into his Sitcom Rankings series with Season 2, Episode 5 of The Mindy Project, aptly titled “Wiener Night.”
Mindy starts the episode by flirting on a flight with Jason, a cultured arts-and-culture writer (played by Ben Feldman), only to realize he thinks she's too pop-culture obsessed when she admits she loves One Direction and Rachel McAdams films. Meanwhile, at the office, Danny is horrified when his ex-wife's nude photo exhibit is revealed, earning the episode its cheeky nickname.
John breaks down how “Wiener Night” deftly balances Mindy’s romantic missteps with Danny’s humiliation, packed with cringeworthy humor and heartfelt moments. From the awkward plane flirtation to Mindy consoling Danny at the art show, this episode hits hard on character dynamics and romantic development.
Where does “Wiener Night” land in John’s sitcom hierarchy? Tune in to find out!
E-mail your fan questions, comments, and suggestions to TheRankwithJohnandZac@protonmail.com.
Support the show by becoming a patron at Patreon.com/TheRankPodcast.
Visit The Rank's website for up-to-date rankings at TheRankPodcast.com
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
The banter between Mindy and Jason is fun and enjoyable, even
though he's kind of a Dick in this.
Interestingly, we've had the douchebag style Dick with Josh.
We've also had the childish bro with Casey.
It wasn't. Bad, but still.
Now we're getting the snobbish Dick with Jason.
Here, how many Dicks is that? A lot.
(00:36):
Welcome back to another episode of The Rank.
I'm John and today we're going to be ranking the next episode
of The Mindy Project. Now, if you're enjoying these
episodes or if you're just a fanof The Mindy Project and enjoy
consuming content about it, please subscribe and or follow
like the episodes, comment on them, send me emails for
suggestions or just to chat, whatever you want to do.
Please also consider becoming a patron on our
(00:56):
patreonpage@patreon.com/the RankPodcast.
Now today we're ranking the 5th episode of the second season of
The Mindy Project called Wiener Night, written by Jack Burditt
and directed by Michael Weaver. So this has been out a while.
Just so you know. Spoilers ahead.
I'm not going to worry about spoilers.
I assume that since this is kindof like a rewatch type
situation, you've already seen these episodes.
(01:16):
As I continue my goal to find the best sitcom of all time by
watching, slash, rewatching and ranking all the episodes of
different series, let's dive into this episode of The Mindy
Project, starting with the Potent Motors episode of the
second season aired Tuesday, October 15th, 2013, The Mindy
Project took a little dip, goingfrom 2.9 million viewers to 2.7
(01:37):
million. Once again, it was the least
watched of Fox's Tuesday lineup.Although interestingly, the
other three shows of the night for Fox all got 3.4 million
viewers, which probably makes aneven worse case from The Mindy
Project. Actually, as per competition,
the only shows a beat in its time slot were Supernatural on
The CW, which had 2.3 million viewers and I Dream of Nae Nae
The Wedding on Bravo, which had 1.36 million.
(01:59):
Otherwise it was beaten by The Voice on NBC, which had 13
million viewers, Trophy Wife on ABC which had 4.1 million, the
BET Hip Hop Awards which had 3.69 million viewers and NCIS
with Los Angeles at 14.6 million.
Also NCIS regular won the night as always with with 18.8.
Now we've got a couple silly potent notables here that are
(02:20):
related to other shows, but I think they're kind of fun.
So first, Cliff played by Glenn Howerton is a lawyer who
comments on being used by the employees of the practice
without being paid. This is reminiscent of a running
joke on It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia where the gang
harassed and stalked the lawyer into handling their numerous law
issues without ever paying. 2nd guest star Ben Feldman tells
fellow guest star actor directorKevin Smith that he loved
(02:43):
Smith's film Chasing Amy. I love chasing Amy and whatever.
Feldman later went on to Co staron Superstore where his
character Jonah romantically pursues a character named Amy,
thus Chasing Amy. Fun stuff.
All right, so Kevin Smith's cameo was a take on an incident
that had happened to him in February of 2010 where he was
kicked off a flight because he was too fat.
(03:04):
Smith had fallen victim to Southwest booking guidelines for
a customer of size, which say that passengers who are unable
to lower both armrests when seated should book another seat
because of complaints they have received from customers whose
comfort has been ruined by the encroachment of a large seat
mate. Smith used his Twitter account
to reveal he was deemed a safetyrisk by the captain of the
(03:25):
plane. Quote, I know I'm fat, but was
Captain Lasath really justified in throwing me off of flight for
which I was already seated now? This led to a bunch of angry
former customers expressing similar stories, and eventually
Southwest ended up apologizing. Smith's response to the apology?
Quote. PR challenged fatty haters.
Your apology is insulting redacted bullshit.
I didn't even need a seat belt extender to buckle up.
(03:48):
Somehow that shit fit over my safety concern.
End Quote. Anyway, those are the potent
notables. Let's go to the episode
overview. We start out the episode on an
airplane. Why?
I don't know. Where is Mindy coming back from?
Well, apparently the wedding of an enemy.
I'm not sure why you would go tothat.
It felt like it was just an excuse to get a cameo from Kevin
Smith to make fun of his experience on Southwest, but
(04:08):
that wasn't it. Oh no, it's time for a new love
interest. Enter Jason Richardson, played
by Ben Feldman, who would go on to be the lead of another show.
We may end up ranking Superstore.
Turns out Jason is a writer for the Arts and Culture section,
the New York Independent. Then a scene later, he edits the
section. Which I'm not cultured enough to
know whether or not that's a coherence issue.
So culture is going to be cultured.
(04:30):
Stuff is going to be good. I feel like you should know that
since you probably watched the episode, but in case you didn't,
that was why I said that. Anyway.
That being said, the banter between Mindy and Jason is fun
and enjoyable, even though he's kind of a Dick in this.
Interestingly, we've had the douchebag style Dick with Josh.
We've also had the childish bro with Casey.
(04:51):
It wasn't. Bad, but still, now we're
getting the snobbish Dick with. Jason here.
How many Dicks is that? A lot.
You'd think at this point, with her track record, she'd stop
going for white guys, but it seems like we might be setting
up a love triangle between Cliff, another white guy, Jason
and Mindy. And if you're like Cliff,
really. Yep, Cliff is back in this
episode, which definitely gives us a clue that he's got an arc
(05:12):
upcoming. You know who else is back?
The de Lauriers. Well, just one of them.
The main one, the one that sleptwith, Oh, I guess he's the yoga
dude style Dick. We've got a bunch of Dicks in
this. Anyway, he had a fun little
cameo in it. At this point, you may be
wondering, well, what was the story?
And you're right, Mindy enjoys dating the pretentious Jason,
and I'm not really sure why, butbecause of his pretension, she
(05:33):
ends up feeling the need to prove that she's at the same
level as him. Meanwhile, Danny finds out that
his ex Christina is exhibiting an art show of nude pictures of
him. That's right, Chloe Savini is
back with a little cameo as well.
Obviously, Danny doesn't want anart show with nude pics of him
to happen, so he enlists Cliff'slegal expertise to get him out
of it. And this is how we get Cliff
back. Of course, all of his
machinations only serve to get more people to come to the show,
(05:55):
so the entire office goes, whichfeels inappropriate, but
whatever leads to comedy. So that's fun.
Peter calls it Wiener night. It gonna be a Wiener Night,
which is also fun. Mindy invites Jason to prove her
cultural intelligence. It of course backfires because
she doesn't give a shit about this and frankly, I'm with her.
Let people like what they want to like, you know?
They make fun of her for liking Katy Perry and for liking
(06:17):
Romantic comedies with hot people.
You know, Yes, I do see the irony in me saying that as I'm
literally ranking films and shows.
But just because I'm a hypocritedoesn't mean I'm wrong.
That's how it works. Now this all culminates in
Jason's singing Mindy a song on a ukulele outside her apartment,
asking for forgiveness for beinga snap.
Now I agree that he should have apologized, but I'm not sure why
(06:39):
he likes her or she him. But it doesn't matter that I'm
not sure because the episode ends and we're definitely going
to see him again. So let's see how this one ranked
a wank. The rank is where I rank the
episode based on five categories, story, acting,
dialogue, episode coherence, andcharacter relatability.
I rank it on a scale of one to five, one being the worst, five
(06:59):
being the best, and then I add the laugh counter, which is
where I tally up the amount of times that the episode made me
laugh out loud. One point for a laugh out loud,
and that gets added to the score.
First category is story, which Igave a two what story?
Look, the story is the burgeoning love between Mindy
and Jason, right? It's not particularly good as
far as story, but it's fine. Fine, but there's no real story
because the point is to just walk around with Mindy, you
(07:21):
know, and the gang and enjoy their interactions with each
other. That's like the idea, and that's
fine, but not great story. So let's go to acting, which I
gave a 4.25. The acting is really good as
always. Ben Feldman was really good as
Jason. Actually, Chris Messina was a
lot of fun as Danny. Mindy is always pretty good.
Ike Barinholtz is always funny, but not great as an actor.
Still good though. Everyone was really good.
(07:41):
Basically though, 4.25 dialogue.I gave a 4.75 because dialogue
is fantastic. It's quick and witty and silly.
It's the one category that I pretty consistently love about
this show. The addition of Peter as a
character has been great. The douchey bro character is a
lot of fun as a mixture with this team.
Let's go on to episode coherence, which I gave a three.
I mean, there's not really a story to cohere to, so it
(08:04):
definitely just felt like I was watching them walk around doing
stuff. Character wise it was pretty
coherent though. I think my biggest issue with
coherence is I don't understand how Jason and Mindy are still
talking to each other after the first date.
And even if I accept that, certainly not after the 2nd.
And maybe, maybe that's a character relatability thing,
but I think it has more to do with coherence and a lack of
growth for Mindy than it does for character.
(08:24):
But character relatability is next, and I gave that a 4.25.
I think it's pretty relatable. I know what I just said in the
previous category, but I can relate to thinking that I would
want to prove a girl wrong if she thought I was uncultured
after I went on a date with her.Of course, I wouldn't be able to
just get another date with her because I wanted one, which is a
very different dynamic between men and women.
Anyway, the high score really isfor Danny because I really felt
(08:46):
for him in this one. That would really suck onto the
laugh counter, which I had 18 sopretty high laugh counter that
always is going to help the score.
So even if it's a less than stellar episode structure wise,
if you get a lot of laughs, it'sgoing to up your score.
So that puts the grand total of the episode to 36.25.
That puts it in the Holy Grail. As for the series average, it
(09:09):
continues its ascent as it goes to a 35.2 keeping it in the Holy
Grail. So thanks for listening and or
watching everyone. If you'd like to see a list of
of our episode and series rankings, you can do that on our
website at the rankpodcast.com. Remember to subscribe, review,
and comment. Please consider supporting us on
our Patreon at patreon.com/the Rank Podcast where you can get
access to all of our archived episodes.
(09:30):
You know, the ones with Zach andI and all of the old.
Anyway, I'll leave you with this.
You know what Danny's biggest complaint about the art show
was? It was cold in there.
Actually. Not bad for the pictures, this
is Megan. Weldman later went on to costar
(10:00):
on Superstar Super. That's cheap.
Wow. What do they call that?
Tourette's. Tourette's syndrome, Yeah.
The banter between Mindy and Jason is fun and enjoyable, even
though he's kind of a Dick in this.
Interestingly, we've had the douchebag style Dick with Josh.
We've also had the childish bro with Casey.
It wasn't. Bad, but still.
Now we're getting the snobbish Dick with Jason.
Here, how many Dicks is that? A lot.
(00:36):
Welcome back to another episode of The Rank.
I'm John and today we're going to be ranking the next episode
of The Mindy Project. Now, if you're enjoying these
episodes or if you're just a fanof The Mindy Project and enjoy
consuming content about it, please subscribe and or follow
like the episodes, comment on them, send me emails for
suggestions or just to chat, whatever you want to do.
Please also consider becoming a patron on our
(00:56):
patreonpage@patreon.com/the RankPodcast.
Now today we're ranking the 5th episode of the second season of
The Mindy Project called Wiener Night, written by Jack Burditt
and directed by Michael Weaver. So this has been out a while.
Just so you know. Spoilers ahead.
I'm not going to worry about spoilers.
I assume that since this is kindof like a rewatch type
situation, you've already seen these episodes.
(01:16):
As I continue my goal to find the best sitcom of all time by
watching, slash, rewatching and ranking all the episodes of
different series, let's dive into this episode of The Mindy
Project, starting with the Potent Motors episode of the
second season aired Tuesday, October 15th, 2013, The Mindy
Project took a little dip, goingfrom 2.9 million viewers to 2.7
(01:37):
million. Once again, it was the least
watched of Fox's Tuesday lineup.Although interestingly, the
other three shows of the night for Fox all got 3.4 million
viewers, which probably makes aneven worse case from The Mindy
Project. Actually, as per competition,
the only shows a beat in its time slot were Supernatural on
The CW, which had 2.3 million viewers and I Dream of Nae Nae
The Wedding on Bravo, which had 1.36 million.
(01:59):
Otherwise it was beaten by The Voice on NBC, which had 13
million viewers, Trophy Wife on ABC which had 4.1 million, the
BET Hip Hop Awards which had 3.69 million viewers and NCIS
with Los Angeles at 14.6 million.
Also NCIS regular won the night as always with with 18.8.
Now we've got a couple silly potent notables here that are
(02:20):
related to other shows, but I think they're kind of fun.
So first, Cliff played by Glenn Howerton is a lawyer who
comments on being used by the employees of the practice
without being paid. This is reminiscent of a running
joke on It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia where the gang
harassed and stalked the lawyer into handling their numerous law
issues without ever paying. 2nd guest star Ben Feldman tells
fellow guest star actor directorKevin Smith that he loved
(02:43):
Smith's film Chasing Amy. I love chasing Amy and whatever.
Feldman later went on to Co staron Superstore where his
character Jonah romantically pursues a character named Amy,
thus Chasing Amy. Fun stuff.
All right, so Kevin Smith's cameo was a take on an incident
that had happened to him in February of 2010 where he was
kicked off a flight because he was too fat.
(03:04):
Smith had fallen victim to Southwest booking guidelines for
a customer of size, which say that passengers who are unable
to lower both armrests when seated should book another seat
because of complaints they have received from customers whose
comfort has been ruined by the encroachment of a large seat
mate. Smith used his Twitter account
to reveal he was deemed a safetyrisk by the captain of the
(03:25):
plane. Quote, I know I'm fat, but was
Captain Lasath really justified in throwing me off of flight for
which I was already seated now? This led to a bunch of angry
former customers expressing similar stories, and eventually
Southwest ended up apologizing. Smith's response to the apology?
Quote. PR challenged fatty haters.
Your apology is insulting redacted bullshit.
I didn't even need a seat belt extender to buckle up.
(03:48):
Somehow that shit fit over my safety concern.
End Quote. Anyway, those are the potent
notables. Let's go to the episode
overview. We start out the episode on an
airplane. Why?
I don't know. Where is Mindy coming back from?
Well, apparently the wedding of an enemy.
I'm not sure why you would go tothat.
It felt like it was just an excuse to get a cameo from Kevin
Smith to make fun of his experience on Southwest, but
(04:08):
that wasn't it. Oh no, it's time for a new love
interest. Enter Jason Richardson, played
by Ben Feldman, who would go on to be the lead of another show.
We may end up ranking Superstore.
Turns out Jason is a writer for the Arts and Culture section,
the New York Independent. Then a scene later, he edits the
section. Which I'm not cultured enough to
know whether or not that's a coherence issue.
So culture is going to be cultured.
(04:30):
Stuff is going to be good. I feel like you should know that
since you probably watched the episode, but in case you didn't,
that was why I said that. Anyway.
That being said, the banter between Mindy and Jason is fun
and enjoyable, even though he's kind of a Dick in this.
Interestingly, we've had the douchebag style Dick with Josh.
We've also had the childish bro with Casey.
(04:51):
It wasn't. Bad, but still, now we're
getting the snobbish Dick with. Jason here.
How many Dicks is that? A lot.
You'd think at this point, with her track record, she'd stop
going for white guys, but it seems like we might be setting
up a love triangle between Cliff, another white guy, Jason
and Mindy. And if you're like Cliff,
really. Yep, Cliff is back in this
episode, which definitely gives us a clue that he's got an arc
(05:12):
upcoming. You know who else is back?
The de Lauriers. Well, just one of them.
The main one, the one that sleptwith, Oh, I guess he's the yoga
dude style Dick. We've got a bunch of Dicks in
this. Anyway, he had a fun little
cameo in it. At this point, you may be
wondering, well, what was the story?
And you're right, Mindy enjoys dating the pretentious Jason,
and I'm not really sure why, butbecause of his pretension, she
(05:33):
ends up feeling the need to prove that she's at the same
level as him. Meanwhile, Danny finds out that
his ex Christina is exhibiting an art show of nude pictures of
him. That's right, Chloe Savini is
back with a little cameo as well.
Obviously, Danny doesn't want anart show with nude pics of him
to happen, so he enlists Cliff'slegal expertise to get him out
of it. And this is how we get Cliff
back. Of course, all of his
machinations only serve to get more people to come to the show,
(05:55):
so the entire office goes, whichfeels inappropriate, but
whatever leads to comedy. So that's fun.
Peter calls it Wiener night. It gonna be a Wiener Night,
which is also fun. Mindy invites Jason to prove her
cultural intelligence. It of course backfires because
she doesn't give a shit about this and frankly, I'm with her.
Let people like what they want to like, you know?
They make fun of her for liking Katy Perry and for liking
(06:17):
Romantic comedies with hot people.
You know, Yes, I do see the irony in me saying that as I'm
literally ranking films and shows.
But just because I'm a hypocritedoesn't mean I'm wrong.
That's how it works. Now this all culminates in
Jason's singing Mindy a song on a ukulele outside her apartment,
asking for forgiveness for beinga snap.
Now I agree that he should have apologized, but I'm not sure why
(06:39):
he likes her or she him. But it doesn't matter that I'm
not sure because the episode ends and we're definitely going
to see him again. So let's see how this one ranked
a wank. The rank is where I rank the
episode based on five categories, story, acting,
dialogue, episode coherence, andcharacter relatability.
I rank it on a scale of one to five, one being the worst, five
(06:59):
being the best, and then I add the laugh counter, which is
where I tally up the amount of times that the episode made me
laugh out loud. One point for a laugh out loud,
and that gets added to the score.
First category is story, which Igave a two what story?
Look, the story is the burgeoning love between Mindy
and Jason, right? It's not particularly good as
far as story, but it's fine. Fine, but there's no real story
because the point is to just walk around with Mindy, you
(07:21):
know, and the gang and enjoy their interactions with each
other. That's like the idea, and that's
fine, but not great story. So let's go to acting, which I
gave a 4.25. The acting is really good as
always. Ben Feldman was really good as
Jason. Actually, Chris Messina was a
lot of fun as Danny. Mindy is always pretty good.
Ike Barinholtz is always funny, but not great as an actor.
Still good though. Everyone was really good.
(07:41):
Basically though, 4.25 dialogue.I gave a 4.75 because dialogue
is fantastic. It's quick and witty and silly.
It's the one category that I pretty consistently love about
this show. The addition of Peter as a
character has been great. The douchey bro character is a
lot of fun as a mixture with this team.
Let's go on to episode coherence, which I gave a three.
I mean, there's not really a story to cohere to, so it
(08:04):
definitely just felt like I was watching them walk around doing
stuff. Character wise it was pretty
coherent though. I think my biggest issue with
coherence is I don't understand how Jason and Mindy are still
talking to each other after the first date.
And even if I accept that, certainly not after the 2nd.
And maybe, maybe that's a character relatability thing,
but I think it has more to do with coherence and a lack of
growth for Mindy than it does for character.
(08:24):
But character relatability is next, and I gave that a 4.25.
I think it's pretty relatable. I know what I just said in the
previous category, but I can relate to thinking that I would
want to prove a girl wrong if she thought I was uncultured
after I went on a date with her.Of course, I wouldn't be able to
just get another date with her because I wanted one, which is a
very different dynamic between men and women.
Anyway, the high score really isfor Danny because I really felt
(08:46):
for him in this one. That would really suck onto the
laugh counter, which I had 18 sopretty high laugh counter that
always is going to help the score.
So even if it's a less than stellar episode structure wise,
if you get a lot of laughs, it'sgoing to up your score.
So that puts the grand total of the episode to 36.25.
That puts it in the Holy Grail. As for the series average, it
(09:09):
continues its ascent as it goes to a 35.2 keeping it in the Holy
Grail. So thanks for listening and or
watching everyone. If you'd like to see a list of
of our episode and series rankings, you can do that on our
website at the rankpodcast.com. Remember to subscribe, review,
and comment. Please consider supporting us on
our Patreon at patreon.com/the Rank Podcast where you can get
access to all of our archived episodes.
(09:30):
You know, the ones with Zach andI and all of the old.
Anyway, I'll leave you with this.
You know what Danny's biggest complaint about the art show
was? It was cold in there.
Actually. Not bad for the pictures, this
is Megan. Weldman later went on to costar
(10:00):
on Superstar Super. That's cheap.
Wow. What do they call that?
Tourette's. Tourette's syndrome, Yeah.
Popular Podcasts
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.