(S03E04) It's funny; as boring as the Ted and Robin relationship was -- from season one's chase to season two's short-lived domestic bliss -- it was one of the biggest reasons why people tuned into How I Met Your Mother week after week. The other was the interaction amongst the ensemble cast. It was the proverbial glue that kept the show together. Now, with Ted and Robin broken up, and the two of them separately groping around until they find the next big relationship, the whole chemistry of the show has been askew.This week's episode is no exception. Robin has roped Lily onto her island of sitcommy dating misadventures, leaving the boys to play in the sandbox on the other side of the playground. And the result is just as uninspired as the first three episodes have been.
One of the big issues that has contributed to the show's "off-ness" this year is that we haven't really pushed forward the whole "mother" story since the very first episode of the season. And, without any significant Robin-and-Ted interaction, that mythology becomes more necessary than ever. Yes, Robin and Ted hang out a little in this episode -- though Ted still exhibits a little bit of discomfort over talking about his ex's dating life -- but there really is no emotional exploration of their breakup; it's basically the two of them sitting next to each other.
So here's what we've been getting: Wild Ted's not-so-wild life as a single man, and Robin going through the book of sitcom dating cliches. There were a couple of mild twists in Robin's story, but nothing that couldn't be predicted. We knew she'd get attached to the kid. And the "new mommy" part -- that little Dougie got more attached to the other girl Robin's guy was dating -- wasn't that big of a twist, either. I think my favorite part of the entire story was seeing how Robin first interacted with the kid, trying to discuss the Fed cutting the interest rate with the six-year-old. Also, the flashback, where Robin tells her little sister that all she wants to do after a hard week at school is to relax and read her Highlights and drink her OJ in peace, was textbook Scherbatsky.
With Ted, we got a game of... well, "Who's Got Game?" It held a lot of promise, didn't it? A classic opportunity for Barney to pull a couple of switcheroos and deploy his usual mind games. But, even here, it didn't exactly surprise much that Barney would freak Ted out by making him think he's following Barney in the conquest of Mt. Stacy. "Do you think 200 showers is enough?" asks Barney, suggesting that almost a year's worth of cleansing won't remove his scent. But I did like the tiny pith-helmeted Barneys that Ted saw scaling the heights and plumbing the depths of his date.
Really, the best part of either plot was Marshall's pathetic attempts to prove he has game, from calculating the number of times he and Lily have had sex -- he counted the lull when he thought someone looked like a "young Lily Aldrin," but not the six months they were separated? -- to recounting his favorite pickup line: "You a model?"
By the way, was this the most linearly-told episode of HIMYM in a while or was it me? Except for the flashbacks where Barney recounts how he systematically used Ted to work his way into Stacy's heart (but not her pants... he's really gonna have fun at that Sunsplash festival), this seemed to be a pretty straightforward episode.
A few notes:
- Our fearless leader, Keith, IMed me a good observation about the "Aunt Robin" drawings at the end of the episode: "Interesting that 'Aunt Robin' was always without an uncle in those crayon drawings." That is interesting; wonder if that's part of the mythology?
- The cold open -- where the gang discusses the "but" part of any set-up -- got my hopes up that this was going to be a more classic HIMYM episode. I did like the list of "buts" they secretly had for Robin: Ted: "She's afraid of commitment!" Lily: "She's a gun nut!" Barney: "She's Canadian!" Marshall: "She didn't like Field of Dreams!"
- Despite the head games he played with Ted, my vote for Best Barneyism is when he called "shotgun" after Robin uttered the line "I like sports cars but I'm not about to pass a Ferrari through my vagina."
- Second place is Barney's creative eye patch pick-up story. "Patch up!"
- Robin to Lily, who's little Doug's teacher: "Doug's right. You are a pain in the ass."
- More Robin: her onslaught of break-up cliches she said to Doug after she realized that the little guy never got dumped before. Of course, she got them right back when she realized that she wasn't the "new mommy" in the picture.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
10-15-2007 @ 11:30PM
SenorWeird said...
I want this picture in high resolution. Like massive. It is so awesome and all I can find is the cropped version from the official website and the tiny one available from TVSquad. Please, how did you guys score it?
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10-15-2007 @ 11:36PM
vincent said...
maybe Aunt robin became the new mommy, after Ted's first wife died.....hmmmm
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10-15-2007 @ 11:39PM
BigTed said...
The Ted-Barney interaction with the girl was entirely predictable. What might have made it good would have been for Ted to have figured out what Barney was doing all along (after all, he's done that sort of thing before), only pretended to break up with her, then got her to do something humiliating to Barney when he tried to sleep with her.
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10-15-2007 @ 11:42PM
Tom said...
I think you made some pretty good points up front, the fact that the Ted/Robin split both killed their relationship and is keeping the gang apart is probably a big part of what has gone wrong this season. On that note I agree that the cold open probably was the best part of the show.
That said, I have to disagree on the patch storyline. That and the mini-barneys were the text book definition of “cheesy sitcom device” Also, is it just me or did Robin come out of this episode looking really, really bad. They tried to cover with her acknowledging how bad her opinions sounded but I still thought the character came across as a pretty awful person (though in fairness she came off a lot better than the womanizing Dad who lets his kid hang out with his one night stands on a regular basis)
It pains me to say it but I think HIMYM just earned a “countdown clock” from me. If things don’t pick up in the next 4 episodes I’m going to have to jump ship.
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10-15-2007 @ 11:48PM
Tom said...
@senorweird - I don't think you'll get much better than this...
http://www.whedon.info/article.php3?id_article=23027&img=alyson-hannigan-how-i-met-your-mother-sitcom-promo-hq-01-1500.jpg
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10-16-2007 @ 12:20AM
Jake said...
I think the show is fine. Is it the High Octane awesome we have seen? No. But I don't think it has gone down in quality. So Suck it Up Suit Up and keep watching.
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10-16-2007 @ 12:29AM
khamel said...
good but not great. maybe it was because i was watching baseball at the same time but i didnt pick up on the barney sneaky-ness, so i thought that part was awesome.
i actually liked how terrible of a person robin 'seemed' in this episode. most people are that terrible, they just dont say it out loud. every person is the person they are when they are drunk (i dont drink so im a fairly transparent asshole quite often).
i'll obviously keep watching but things i hope happen soon (although i know one wont).
1) a slap
2) an episode where they all do something together
3) an episode with the indian cab driver
4) more barney!
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10-16-2007 @ 5:40AM
Girish said...
With all due respect - The show's 'off-ness' What the hell are you talking about? If Slap-Bet was Legen...wait for it...dary, then episode was awesome.
"I'm Loving it!"
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10-16-2007 @ 7:10AM
Shashwat said...
Let me be honest. This episode was awesome. I've been religiously following HIMYM since their began, and though Season 3's premiere hugely dissappointed me like everyone else, this episode has all the elements of why I love it. No, Barney winning the game was not at all predictable, and the best part for me was BARNEY SAYING NAMASTE AND FOLDING HANDS! That comes straight from my culture and it was WOW! WOW! WOW! to see Barney do that.
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10-16-2007 @ 7:31AM
KMF said...
I loved this episode. I loved poor Marshall's lack of game and Barney being at his sneakiest best.
They can't all be slap bet, but it hasn't suffered in quality at all. I think the show is making good progress. Did we really expect Ted to be off the hook wild? His wild may be mild. That's Ted. And I think after a period of time, the gang will be back to normal. When Lily and Marshall were on the outs it was weird but then things clicked in again. Give them time people, Rome wasn't built in one episode, or four!
I'm one of those poor women out there, like Robin, who doesn't really like kids. Oh kids love me, and I can get on with them, but kids aren't my thing. I'm happier when they are back home with their moms. I totally understood Robin. She didn't come off as terrible. She did try her best to get along with Doug.
I loved the 'but' discussion. My favourite was "But she has a dead tooth. . ." sounds like a few girls in my town.
Mini-Barneys and Mini-Teds, that was hilarious mostly for the reactions of seeing them by Ted/Barney.
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10-16-2007 @ 8:24AM
Alicia said...
This season certainly isn't what it was last season... or the season before... but it's still has promise.
I just hope they get back to the mythology soon... and this isn't going to be a season of "Wild Ted" because this Ted... this Ted blows.
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10-16-2007 @ 9:32AM
RC said...
This was the first review I disagreed with this season. I thought this episode was the funniest so far this season with several laugh out loud moments. My favorites:
1. Marshall making wildly inappropriate comments to the person in the next stall.
2. Flashback of Robin as a kid.
3. "He won? Wait, the winner gets the kid?"
4. I'm not really a kid person but the kid in this episode was pretty good.
5. I totally did not see the twist coming with Barney at the end of the episode.
6. "You can't spell GAME without ME."
Best episode ever? No. But I think it's the best this season.
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10-16-2007 @ 9:35AM
SpaceVenus said...
I thought this episode was funny. I think the chemistry is very much there, and I wouldn't expect people to get back to normal in one week after breaking up (even amicably).
I don't think Robin is a terrible person at all. It's refreshing to have a female character who isn't into kids. Normally, it would be a guy and nobody would think twice about it. Because it's okay for men to not like kids, but not for women, right? Well, I'm not that into kids either.
There are a lot of us out there. (end of rant)
With all due respect, Joel, wouldn't meeting "the mother" kind of be the beginning of the end for the show? It's all about the journey. Wink.
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10-16-2007 @ 9:59AM
Porchland said...
Dead on review.
I'm frustrated with this show right now. 1. Robin has nothing to do. 2. Ted has nothing to do. 3. Lily has nothing to do. 4. Marshall is turning from a nuanced oddball to a stereotypical sitcom wacky neighbor. The only character they're consistently getting right is Barney.
Carter and Bays need to look over the Friends and Seinfeld playbooks to see how to pull off multiple stories in a single 22-minute episode. It requires a certain amount of zen that the show doesn't have right now.
And do something with Ted's hair.
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10-16-2007 @ 10:39AM
D said...
You're being too hard on it. The show is a sitcom. The episode last night was hysterical. What more do you want?
If the plot never moved forward again on the whole "who is the mother" front, who cares, if it's still funny every episode. It's not like "Lost" where the show loses a lot of value if it never has a conclusion.
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10-16-2007 @ 11:08AM
Gihan said...
Not every episode is going to be "slapbet" funny, but the show is far from the sinking ship people are making it out to be.
I hate that people are missing the entire point of the Robin and Ted relationship.
They arent meant to be together, and god, who wants to endure watching another "Ross and Rachel" type situation. Whats nice is you know they end up being an important part of each other's lives as evidenced by all the "Aunt Robin" references.
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10-16-2007 @ 1:35PM
Tom said...
For the record, in the literal sense the show is in fact a "sinking ship". Its the lowest rated show on CBS's Monday night lineup (200,000 under Big bang theory, 5.9 million under 3.5 Men and around 3 million under Rules) and its losing viewers weekly.
If you truly feel last nights show was hilarious than i don't know what to say to you but for everyone else who thinks a mediocre show is ok I'd suggest you prepare yourself for HIMYM to disappear
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10-16-2007 @ 1:59PM
iamhoff said...
Interesting point on the "Aunt Robin" drawings at the end. It didn't click with me that she wasn't drawn with somebody besides the kids. Either way, I dug the episode. "You can't spell GAME without M-E" and "Wait, you mean the winner GETS the kid?" were classic! In a way Marshall seems to be the character that I see as the most adrift. Now that Wild Ted is on the prowl with Barney, as the married guy Marshall is just stuck on the sidelines. Lily gets to help Robin in her dating process, but Marshall is just trying to prove that he's still relevant. Some of the work interaction with Marshall (with Barney, with his coworkers, with his law school peers) was some of the best stuff from him. He needs something to do. And please do something with Ted's hair!
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10-16-2007 @ 2:40PM
r.r.r. said...
i admit that this season isn't doing it as much as others...but this episode was hysterical. can folks just get over the fact that robin and ted aren't going to get together anymore? i hope this doesn't become a ross/rachel thing...that would be horrible! i loved marshall in this episode! i can't wait for next week! :)
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10-16-2007 @ 3:29PM
GD said...
Son jeu se salopes! Translation - 'Its got game, btches'
~Greetings from India~ NAMASTE!!!
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