How I Met Your Mother – Where to go with Lily?

How I Met Your Mother kills me sometimes. In fact, it kills me most the time. I continue to love the show, even if it is not for the same reasons I started watching. I have a little rule that I always give new shows with actors or writers that I really like a chance (specifically when I wouldn’t watch otherwise, as would have been the case here), and I started watching HIMYM specifically because of Alyson Hannigan. Unfortunately, though, for quite some time now, it seems like Lily has been the weak link the show.

Let me explain: I’m not saying that is a reflection on Hannigan, of whom I’m still a big fan. I just think that Lily has been just floundering out there on her own, for over a season now. When she’s featured, the jokes don’t work (I’m looking at you “Last Cigarette Ever”). Even, though, when she’s just a part of the ensemble, it is like the writers have lost touch with the voice of the character and are just throwing stuff on the wall to see if it sticks. It’s a shame because, as anyone who’s ever watched an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer would say, Hannigan can bring the funny. I hope that they are able to find that voice again, because it is one of several reason that some fans are beginning to gravitate away from the show.

On a more positive note, nobody pouts as well as Barney does, though. His little crybaby session with Marshall and Ted when he couldn’t tell the story the way he wanted it to end was great. Though, to be honest, if anyone could make the whole “I was mugged on the way to the Space Shuttle launch pad” story work, you know it would definitely be Barney Stinson.

Marshall (and thus Jason Segel) really plays the camp very well. Between the banana in the back and the whole banana/string bit, he played up the whole story up quite well. And, to make punching his wife in the face funny and not, you know, wrong, takes some talent.

Notes & Quotes

• “Ted, are you acting out the last scene of Sleepless in Seattle with little dolls?”
  “How long have you been out here?”
  “Ten Minutes.”
  “Yes, just the last scene.”
• “Monkey’s are mugging people now? It really is a jungle out there.”
• “Because I saw what the monkey was doing with it and I didn’t really want it after that.”
• Monkey muggings have been more prominent since they learned to tie the fishing line to the banana … Just sayin’.
• “Journalists lie all the time. I’m sorry, but I’ll believe Jack Palance is dead when I see the body.”
• There’s just something about Ted and his building under the sheet that was a little disturbing, no?

Clacked by Ivey West
on Apr 12, 2010 @ 22:21 EST5EDT