“Our girl parts are like spider webs … sometimes you catch things you don’t want.” – Robin
Tonight’s How I Met Your Mother had everything we’ve come to expect from Bays and Thomas: non-linear storytelling, a gimmick (tea cup pig), a catch phrase (“right now”), Barney the dirty dawg, Ted the loser, Lily the annoying and several mildly funny moments. Like many of the episodes this season, “Hooked” just didn’t hook me, although I’ll admit to laughing pretty hysterically during one scene tonight … and it’s not the scene you might think.
Normally, I’m a Barney gal. Granted, the history of hot girl jobs was clever and Barney’s sly wink is a welcome effect when used like it was tonight. Have I mentioned how glad I am that Barney and Robin are no more and he can be his disgusting, trampoline-jumping, slot-machine-playing, tea cup pig-loving self? As entertaining as all of that was, it wasn’t what made me roar tonight.
Ted’s and Robin’s abhorrent behavior definitely wasn’t a source of the funnies for me tonight either. Using people just isn’t funny, and I felt like introducing poor Mike and Henrietta to each other because neither of them deserve the treatment they got from our self-centered main characters. Nope….
It was that ridiculous Lunch Lady Scooter misunderstanding that sent me into a fit of giggles … and again while I was typing this up. Why it struck me so funny is a mystery, because I find Lily and Marshall so annoying as a couple that their scenes usually have me wanting to gouge out my eyeballs. Actually, I do know why: it was unexpected, and lately, How I Met Your Mother has been predictably stale. How refreshing that a scene was written so cleverly that I didn’t see it coming. Not only was the misunderstanding part funny, but Marshall’s response to Lily did me in: “Did you jump on that thang, give it a ride? Really, if it were me I’d be riding that Scooter all day long until I broke that thang in half.”
I welcome the element of surprise and hope HIMYM brings it on more often and this season goes out with a bang.
Other thoughts:
What made you laugh the most in tonight’s episode of How I Met Your Mother?
Clacked by Debbie McDuffee
on Mar 01, 2010 @ 21:35 EST5EDT
I sort of agree about this season. While I’m still enjoying the show, I feel like its become more of a traditional sitcom in a sense. Sure, there are elements like the “non-linear storytelling” that make it stand above the rest, but it seems like they’re focusing more on the comedic elements and less on the dramatic elements.
I think back to the closing scene of the first season with Ted and Marshall sitting on the doorstep in the rain. It was scenes like this that really made the show feel grounded in reality, even when there were all sorts of silly things happening around it. While there have been some funny episodes this season, it seems there is more of an emphasis on “this week’s guest star” and basically the different elements you mentioned in the first paragraph.
Ratt? Are you talking about the ‘rap’ poster that Marshall mentioned?
It was definitely rap because Lily said she was into Wu Tang Clan.
*POST AUTHOR*
HA! I guess he must have said, “rap.” Keith and I both heard “Ratt” which would have been equally as funny!