(S03E08) HIMYM has always been at its best when it is shifting perspective and twisting time in a knot. This episode does both of those things. While neither plot was very earth-shattering from a creative standpoint, the time-shifting involved in telling the stories (along with some very funny sound effects in one case) made them both very funny.Oh, and just as an aside, I'd like to finally welcome back Cobie Smulders and her character of Robin Sherbatsky back into the fold. She's been kind of on the outside looking in all season, but the she's been fully integrated back into the gang the last couple of weeks, and the show's much better for it.
Ok, back to the "spoiler alert" part of the plot. Look, friends not liking a friend's new girl for some unspoken reason has been done before (Seinfeld) and friends annoying each other with their grating habits has also been done before (every other sitcom ever made). But this was a case where writing trumped plot. Take when we first see the dinner the gang had with Ted and his new girl Kathy. It's from Ted's perspective, so it seemed like his friends were just being impatient with Kathy. But after the spoiler was revealed (with a nifty glass shattering sound effect that we heard throughout the episode), we found out what really happened; she yammered on so much that Robin and Lily blurted out responses just to get a word in edgewise.
But there was a bit of re-direction there, wasn't it? We didn't really see or hear much about Kathy after the shattering occurred, because we moved on to everyone getting some annoying personality quirk about themselves revealed. Lily chews like a jackhammer. Ted corrects people (fitting, given how snotty he can be). Robin says "literally" all the time. Marshall sings everything he does. And Barney talks in a high voice, spews catchphrases, and spaces out when people are talking to him (well, we knew about Barn's "stuff" already).
The funniest quirk was Lily's loud chewing; not only were the over-the top chewing noises hilarious -- especially when she was eating cotton candy -- but so were everyone's colorful observations of how it sounds. "It's like you're sticking a screwdriver in a pencil sharpener" said Robin. "It's like you threw drywall screws into the garbage disposal," was Marshall's impression. To think that the dainty flower girl Lily has such a loud gross habit...
Marshall's singing was funny, too, especially the song about how he uses the charity address labels even though he doesn't give money to that charity. I've always wondered what kind of return on investment those charities get on those things, because no one I know makes a donation in response to getting those labels. Nice job by Bays and Thomas of tying the habits into Marshall's quest to find the password that will allow him to see his bar exam results. If it weren't for his catchy song that spelled AOBC8663, he would have screamed at his grandmother a few more times before getting the results in the mail. And Barney played that anxiety to the hilt, pretending to hack into the bar association's web site just to trick Marshall into seeing the video of a dog pooping on a baby. That's the Best Barneyism of the week, especially when he called the dog a "Caca Spaniel" and a "Golden Reliever."
So Marshall passed. He's on his way to being the balding corporate stooge. Good for him... I think.
There were a few more funny moments this week. Ted used his sign language abilities to spoil Kathy for her deaf fiancee three years later, complete with the subtitle "(Glass shattering)." Marshall writing in his bar exam blue book until it's ripped from his hands. The romantic montage between Kathy and Ted turned into an annoying montage after the spoiler is dropped. Marshall's list of sweets and his love of UFOs. Barney's non sequitur story of his "romance" with a woman named Lucillia. But there wasn't much extraneous in this episode; just two standard sitcom plots taken to a funny place by smart writing. Let's hope the pre-strike episodes that are left are at least as good as this one.
And, just an FYI, the Slap Countdown clock is now at less than one week and counting. I'm looking forward to the slaptacular episode next week, aren't you?
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
11-12-2007 @ 10:49PM
Kristen said...
Considering that the NY Bar exam results are coming out tomorrow, this episode hit a little too close to home. Poor Marshall, no one told him that the day after the exam results come out they are posted online for the entire world to see. He wouldn't have to wait for the actual results to come via mail.
This episode was the best this season, and I will most certainly be thinking of Marshall when I am checking the NY Bar exam results online tomorrow
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11-12-2007 @ 11:10PM
Roxie said...
I agree! best episode so far this season! the show is def back to form.
makes me sad there are prob only a few left in the can....
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11-13-2007 @ 12:07AM
Ryan said...
I laughed SO much. I think what broke me was Lily's loudly chewing the cotton candy. I *died*. Fantastic episode. And this is coupled with last week's awesome one.
Thank you for being back my dear little show.
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11-13-2007 @ 12:30AM
sabercat said...
I also loved Barneys "LawSUIT up" at the end. I almost didn't catch it because it was his high voice, but i thought iit was funny.
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11-13-2007 @ 12:38AM
n.p. said...
did anyone else catch robin's look she shot barney after she said, "i didn't want her to choke ... at first."
uh ... what the hell was that? and can we see more of that build up? please?
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11-13-2007 @ 1:15AM
keepitreal said...
np,
i did notice that look and it was HOT so i can only assume if barney saw it he took a liking.
i enjoyed the ep but thought the first half was lacking laughs during the build up. am i just being too picky?
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11-13-2007 @ 8:05AM
KMF said...
in my best barney high pitched voice. . .
It was 'Aaawwweesoommme!!!!'
Loved this episode!I have this pet peeve, I guess you'd call it about hearing people chew, drives me crazy, so poor lily's loud chewing had me laughing because everyone's reactions to it was how I feel when I hear that sound ;P.
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11-13-2007 @ 8:58AM
Grover said...
Am I counting the hours wrong, or is the slap countdown set to expire around 7:28 PM this coming Monday??
Great episode, btw
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11-13-2007 @ 9:40AM
Kevo said...
Does anyone know the song with the trumpets played as an outro towards the end of the episode? JW
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11-13-2007 @ 9:46AM
fred said...
Yeah, I too felt like this was the best of the season so far!
Awesome episode, I'm literally in love with that scene where they all went at each others !! Pure awesomeness!
http://88.191.26.34/i_watch_tv/2007/11/13/how-i-met-your-mother-spoiler-alert/
And yeah, I noticed those looks between Robin & Barney too...
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11-13-2007 @ 9:50AM
Elizabeth said...
I'm pretty sure the song at the end was The Underdog by Spoon.
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11-13-2007 @ 10:46AM
khamel said...
they mentioned the apartment (i was wondering if it was never going to come up again) but why is there no mention of lilly and marshall moving? if i was paying 18% interest i would be enjoying the hell out of it. unless theres going to be an episode about them flipping it or whatever.
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11-13-2007 @ 10:49AM
Dave said...
Regarding Robin's looking at Barney, was that visible in SD? It looked like it might have been out of frame. If so, it was probably more of her breaking character and the director not noticing b/c the show is blocked for SD.
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11-13-2007 @ 11:02AM
bert said...
Elizabeth, THANK YOU so much, that is the song. It's been driving me crazy since last night. Now, off to itunes...
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11-13-2007 @ 11:22AM
Stacie23 said...
Why is the slapcountdown at 7:28pm Monday 12/19? I have been thinking since I heard about the slap countdown that it was going to be at some point during the actual episode. But now it is at least 1 hr too early. That would be ridiculous if they did this website and taunted Barney about it a few weeks ago only to have made a mistake and put the time wrong. The East gets the episode first so it doesn't make a whole bunch of sense. But I guess we will see.
This episode was fantastic. I would say one of the best of the entire series. It was very reminiscent of FRIENDS when we found out all of the FRIENDS' secrets that nobody else knew including the audience. It was little bits of information that the cast and audience got revealed to at the same time. Like when Chandler knew but nobody else knew that Ross (I believe) made out with who he thought was a beautiful blonde in a dark bar, only to find later it was a beautiful blonde...man, also when everyone found out about Chandlers 3rd nipple and Joey's porn career and so on. But this isn't Friends but I do feel that this show is right on par with it's writings. I just wish they would have their audience because this show deserves it.
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11-13-2007 @ 11:33AM
Peckapalooza said...
Anyone else notice during the "3 years later" segment at the end, Ted was still not wearing a wedding ring. Unless it was a mistake, I guess that tells us he's still not married three years from now.
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11-13-2007 @ 12:01PM
iamhoff said...
Maybe the slap bet clock is off due to daylight savings time, and somebody at CBS needs to figure this out.
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11-13-2007 @ 10:52PM
jeff stiefer said...
great episode! I loved the sound effect of lily chewing cotton candy.
Ive noticed Barney playing with his iPhone quite a bit on the last few episodes. Cant say i blame him but it was something ive noticed.
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11-14-2007 @ 12:45AM
Richie G said...
Thanks, Elizabeth! That was going to drive me nuts. It seems like there's always 1 very good, iTunes-worthy song in every episode.
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11-21-2007 @ 9:48PM
Milton Scritsmier said...
I have to wonder if the "Spoiler Alert" title referred to more than just the "glass shattering" revelations. The show's producers promised us that sometime during this month the "Mother" in the title would make a brief appearance. What if the real "spoiler alert" is that it's Kathy??? In the forward flash three years later we can imagine Kathy's fiance breaking up with her after Ted's induced "glass shattering" moment. Kathy then takes a long hard look at herself, realizes her one fatal flaw, takes steps to correct it (perhaps with Ted's help), and in the process also gets back with Ted. After all, at the start of the episode Ted said she was perfect except for the one flaw he failed to see at first.
In the meantime, the series has given itself three more years of plotlines where Ted isn't hooked up with his one and only. I've often thought that once we know who the lucky woman actually is the series could become dull as it moves towards the inevitable. This pushes that little problem out into the distant future where at least the series will have enough episodes for a long syndication run if it self-destructs at that point.
Since we didn't see how Ted and Kathy actually met, I'll even bet there could even be an interesting backstory there at some point.
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