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How I Met Your Mother – All that setup for two jokes?

'HIMYM' is a show that takes some pretty big swings sometimes, and sometimes, the show strikes out. Tonight was a good example of a strike-out.

- Season 5, Episode 18 - "Say Cheese"

All things considered, it is actually kind of ironic. Deb handed off the honor of covering How I Met Your Mother to me because she felt she didn’t love the show enough to cover it in a positive light, and here I am — in one of my first couple of posts on the show — not necessarily loving it myself.

If I learned anything from Studio 60, it’s the phrase “Buy the premise, buy the bit.” Tonight, it was all about Ted being a douche by allowing his revolving door of a love life affect his friends’ lives. This, unfortunately, is nothing new. It’s high time that we actually see some growth from our characters. They’ve seen very little change from who they were in the first episode of the series. This show does so many things so well, but in this case, a little more effort wouldn’t hurt.

That being said, there were a couple pretty damn funny payoffs to some of the jokes that were set up:

  • Robin actually playing the role of the “random skank” in a wedding herself, and the Japanese woman playing the same “Name that Bitch” game that Lily started.
  • The running gag of Barney taking the perfect picture got paid off in the “One Year Later” coda, with Robin using Barney’s allergies to finally take a not-so-awesome picture.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve still got a lot of faith in the show. I’m not jumping up and down saying that we need to meet the titular mother sooner rather than later. But I think it’s high time to come up with something for Lily and Marshall to do each week (baby time?). And put Robin and Barney back together; that seemed to piss off everyone but me!

Notes & Quotes:

  • Marshall’s inability to keep his eyes open would have been much funnier had they hadn’t make a separate joke about it.
  • “Well, this one you admitted you were just trying to bang … Respect.”
  • “He was grabbing my ass, too. How many arms does that guy have?”
  • “HER NAME WAS STRAWBERRY!!”
  • Neat that they got Anne Dudek and Laura Prepon to return as two of Ted’s ex’s.
  • I’ve always wondered (and never checked) to see if Lily’s hair in the flashforwards are the same when we actually get there in real time.

Photo Credit: CBS

5 Responses to “How I Met Your Mother – All that setup for two jokes?”

March 22, 2010 at 9:47 PM

HA! As I was watching I kept saying to Keith, “I’m so glad Ivey’s covering this one tonight!” I can’t believe they totally blew the Barney joke by having a bad picture of him at the end … ruined the mystique!

And Ted wasn’t the only selfish ass in this episode — grow up Lily; your friends shouldn’t have to make the earth turn just for you once a year… ugh.

March 22, 2010 at 10:47 PM

I’m all for Barney and Robin back together!!! :)

March 23, 2010 at 8:50 AM

I think that the Barney picture joke was not funny. At first it was, but then it got really lame, when Robin tried to make a photo of him eating chips. I like that, the story sometimes takes a leap of faith (like Marshall and Lily jumping out of the window), but this was just stupid.

March 23, 2010 at 9:45 AM

Not a great episode at all. Part of the draw of this show is that these people are such good friends. I, for one, am not that interested in watching them fight and bicker to the level that they did in this ep.

March 24, 2010 at 12:59 AM

Not a great episode overall, but for me, the biggest disappointment was that nothing was revealed in the “one year later” coda, which they usually use to tease some future development (Lily and Marshall getting married, Robin moving in with Ted). It might just be me, but I really hope that we see Ted and the mother building a relationship, rather than just them meeting and the series ending. So I’m getting pretty impatient with all these girls who we know won’t work out, given all that we know. When the “one year later” text came up, I was hoping for something hinting that Ted and the mother were together – Lily commenting that Ted didn’t bring the random skank he’s dating, or Ted saying she couldn’t make it. Give me SOMETHING!

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