My Quick Thoughts on How I Met Your Mother "Oh Honey"

How I Met Your Mother’s schedule has been really frustrating lately. It did however make me anticipate this new episode. With the death of Marshall’s dad pretty much in the rearview, the show is ready to establish its arc for the rest of the season. What we got in this episode was a return to form for HIMYM with only a couple minor plot disputes. This was easily one of the better episodes of the season.

With Marshall being stuck at home in Minnesota it brought a lot of opportunity for comedy. Telling a story in different points of views has become a staple of HIMYM and it always leads to some of the most successful episodes. The episode was written by the creators of the show so it was no surprise that this episode felt so true to what HIMYM is. None of the jokes really fell flat at all. Katy Perry, much like the musical guest starts before her, really felt like she could be part of the show. Her character was well written and got more then a couple laughs from me (“I’m going to be on LOST!”) Even the character of Zoey, who I previously found fairly unlikable, had me falling for her right around the time that she put 100 bottles of ketchup in Ted’s fridge.

Earlier this season I wrote a lot about how Ted’s relationships that are not with the “mother” have seemed kind of exhausting the last couple of seasons. We know very well that Zoey is not the mother, so I am not so sure about how I feel about putting the two of them together. The only other extended relationship that Ted has had with someone we knew was not the mother was Robin, and the show worked fairly well then, so there is a reason to be optimistic. However, the last couple seasons of HIMYM have not been on the same level as the first few, mostly because a lot of times they seem to lack focus. Here’s hoping that by focusing on Barney’s quest for his father and Lily and Marshall’s quest for a baby, they can still keep the same high level of focus on comedy as this episode was able to.

SOME OTHER THOUGHTS:

Marshall explaining things to his family by using characheter from CLUE was excellent

Neil Patrick Harris can take the smallest things and turn them into laugh out loud moments. Loved his impression of his bed squeaking, complete with increase in pace

I mentioned the successful use of Katy Perry. She joins Brittany Spears, Carrie Underwood, Mandy Moore, and Enrique Iglesias on the list of well used musicians on this show

Great cameo by the Intervention banner!
　
Very funny episode for HIMYM and hopefully it puts the show on a strong path for the rest of the season. I give it a 9 out 10. Hertz Donut?

My Thoughts on How I Met Your Mother "Bad News"

Well after a long layoff for the holidays, I am back to review How I Met Your Mother. To recap, this season has been somewhat of a mixed bag. There have definitely been more good episodes then bad which is a significant achievement compared to last years mostly disappointing season. Heading into the holiday break we saw a very strong episode in False Positive. With so many reruns over the past two weeks i was very anxious to dive in to a new episode of HIMYM.

And while not as strong as False Positive on a comedy front, something happened at the end of this episode that had not happened in a long time with this show; I actually got emotional. But because that happened at the end, lets discuss the rest of the show first

We continue with the overriding theme of this season being Marshall and Lily’s pregnancy. It was nice to see an episode where Lily did not annoy the crap out of me. And while the whole sterility story is one that every sitcom dusts off when a character is inevitably going to be pregnant, It did lead us to the gang finally finding Barney’s Doppelganger. Neil Patrick Harris really got to shine here in playing his usual funny self as Barney and also getting to play the straight laced Doctor.

Robin’s story in the episode was not good at all in my opinion. It seemed really weird placed in this episode and kind of just felt like a "Best of Robin" episode interjected into a regular episode. The only good thing that her story brought us was the continuance of a drama free, helpful friend, Ted. In False Positive we saw Ted be the voice of reason for everyone in the group, and while this week his advice to Robin is not dead on, it was still nice to see him not have his own drama and to be a good friend and not focus on whatever is going on in his life. On a side note, Josh Radnor’s kicks can always make me laugh

And now we reach the best part in the episode. The emotion on Jason Siegel’s and Alyson Hannigan’s face was enough the sell the scene for me. Even though Marshall’s dad dying was very abrupt, it really allowed HIMYM to regain its emotional footing. It was a good memory that as goofy as HIMYM could be, this is a show, much like Scrubs before it, that separates itself from other comedies by being able to nail emotion so well when it needs to.
　
QUICK HITS

This is like a black cat walked through my uterus

Its like looking into a poorly dressed mirror

Leave the model of the vagina

How you doin Lily? Should i have a boner?

Gynomite!

I’d give my first born to not be able to have children

I’m here every Thursday!
　


Good way to start the year, I’ll give it a 7 out 10. Suit up!

My Thoughts on How I Met Your Mother "Blitzgiving"

Well color me impressed. I did not think that How I Met Your Mother could still put on 3 fantastic episodes in a row, but with “Blitzgiving” they did just that. It had the right mix of cleverness and silliness to really make it a great episode. Throw in a whole lot of Jorge Garcia and you have on satisfied viewer over here.

We see HIMYM go in a familiar direction here, by coining a new word or catch phrase to describe a phenomenon. However, having someone be “The Blitz” was one of the more clever ones of the last couple seasons. We all have the one friend who ducks out early, and in turn always misses something cool that happens. Steve has never been seen in the show before, and we are left to assume that is because he was always checking out early. In one of many clever nods to LOST, the way the curse of the blitz transfers from person to person was very much out of an episode of our favorite island show. All the actions that whoever is designated the blitz misses were a lot of fun as well. I would give anything to see a skateboarding dog! It is very interesting to see where this relationship between Ted and Zoey goes. We know Zoey is not the mother because Ted has already stated that he meets the mother at the wedding that was portrayed in the season premiere. However the writers have done a good job in actually making me care about a relationship Ted is in, even though I know she is not the mother. This is something that they have failed in doing in the past.

And let’s not forget about Barney. As funny as cool, wingman Barney is, Neil Patrick Harris’ best work as the character comes when he is acting like a petulant child. He really gets to shine here as a very whiney Barney; after Barney suddenly becomes the new Blitz. My only complaint in the episode was how annoying Lily has become. I’ve actually grown to start to hate her. Every week she is doing something hypocritical or wildly annoying. If she didn’t bring some funny lines out of Marshall, I would be fine with them writing her off the show.

QUICK HITS

“Quick I need some random number!...4,8,15,16,23,42!”

“Dear Wang Guy, can enemies become friends? Just wondering.”

“I was on that island for what seems like eternity. I’m gonna enjoy things on the other side.”

Everyone is shouting “Dance on the oven!” in the flashback except for Barney, who is shouting “Make out with Zoey!”

When Lily realizes that Reese Witherspoon was not responsible for You, Me and Dupree and announces, “Guys, we hate Kate Hudson,” Barney does not look happy.

One little nitpicking continuity thing: In one of the flashbacks, Blitz says he has to leave because he just picked up Madden 2k1 and he wants to play it. Robin was in this flashback. It was established that Robin did not join the group until 2005.

Another very solid episode, I give it an 8 of 10. THE GENTLEMAN!

My Thoughts on How I Met Your Mother "Glitter"

The first time we met Robin’s Canadian alter ego was in the episode “Slap Bet”. That was one of the best episodes of How I Met Your Mother. The next episode we saw Sparkles in was “Sandcastles in the Sand”, which was ironically the first time we meet Ted’s friend Punchy. That episode was mediocre and seemed to really be forcing the character of Robin Sparkles. So when I heard that tonight’s episode, “Glitter”, would feature the return of Robin Sparkles; I was not too excited for it. I felt like it was the show running out of ideas and after the strong outing HIMYM had last week, thought it would kill any momentum they had. And while from an emotional storyline standpoint, this was not the greatest episode, it was freaking hilarious!

That’s not to say that every aspect of the story worked on a comedic level. Punchy, while funny in the 30 seconds that we saw him in the other episode, really annoyed me after about 5 minutes. Sure, the moment that he had with Ted was nice but I feel like we could have gotten that moment with much less Punchy in this episode. We learn that Ted will be Punchy’s best man at his upcoming wedding. Look for that to be the wedding that we saw in the season premiere. I also was a little upset that all the work they did to redeem Ted last week was kind of put on the back burner in this episode. It almost felt like last week’s episode should have aired after this one

OK, now that we got the negative stuff out of the way, on to the parts that made this one of the funniest episodes of HIMYM in a long time. Everything that had to do with the “Space Teens” video was pure gold. Including the thing HIMYM does oh so well, and that’s mock Canada. I love the fact that Allan Thicke is their go to Canadian Celebrity. Also a real nice bit of continuity that many people may not have picked up on: When Barney first put in the video and gets really excited that it might be porn; he runs over to Marshall and is about to slap him until Robin assures him that it’s not porn. A great call back to “Slap Bet”. Barney’s and Ted’s spitting reaction to the shows conversation about “beavers” would have made this a great episode on its own.

QUICK HITS
“Oh yeah, this tastes like a big bowl of Porn Flakes”

“Dude! Feel the room...”

“Two dudes watching a kids show might be worse

“OK kids, everyone knows a beavers favorite food is wood”

“Robin… Lebron…”

Barney’s list of Reality show exit lines was great; I don’t think he missed one
Way too many to keep listing them.

Not a great episode from a storyline standpoint, but again, very funny. In line with last week’s episode I’ll give it an 8 out of 10

My Quick Thoughts on How I Met Your Mother 'Natural History' 11/8

How I Met Your Mother has been really hit or miss for the last season and a half. To be honest it has been more miss then hit. That has been especially true for the first few episodes of this season. However Tonight's episode was a step in the right direction on all levels. Sure when they have the whole group together its good for laughs but i think the show works best when they can separate the group. We were reminded why Barney and Robin seemed so right for each other ( and also reminded how bad the writers botched that relationship). The part of the episode that was the most refreshing though was that Ted was by far the funniest part of the episode. By keeping this ongoing mystery of the mother going for this long it has left Ted without direction for the most part and what was once one of my favorite characters on TV has become annoying and not funny. It seems that with one episode however, the writers were able to redeem him, and even got me to care about one of his relationships, even though it seems like Zoe is not the mother.

QUICK HITS

- Always have to love an episode where they bring back the sandwich = Marijuana gag

- We learn that Marshall will eventually leave GNB

- We learn about Barny's father rather surprisingly and i do like how they did not make it another mystery to drag out

- Gonads!

Overall great episode, i give it an 8/10