The How I Met Your Mother Blog

Tonight we get a full hour of HIMYM. Check your tivos kids, the new episode airs at 8pm followed by a repeat of The Bracket (timely) at 8:30. As for the new episode, tonight we see:

Marshall and Barney lie to keep Ted from finding out the headquarters he’d been hired to design for GNB has been cancelled.

Come back here after the episode to discuss. I’ll be back tomorrow with the episode stream and my recap. Cheers.

The episode stream is now available and the recap is posted below.[casttv cmuan11]

It’s official, I have to go back to avoiding spoilers. Reading your comments and talking to people took away too many of the reveals from this episode. Maybe if I didn’t know what was coming I’d have enjoyed it more. Going into it knowing what I knew however, I thought it was mediocre with a few funny moments.

What was Good

I like the running joke of how into sex stories Lily is. Her begging Robin to tell was pretty good, bad hiccups and all.

I love all the corporate stuff with GNB, Bilson, etc. They portray it so extreme and I love every bit of it.

As someone in the comments said, it’s always good to see Ted man-up from time to time. I’m talking about hitting Bilson with the chair, the fake phone call in the elevator, and making out with the latino lady. At least he isn’t emo and heartsick all the time.

What was Bad

I thought a lot of the humor fell flat. Marshall doing standup didn’t even get a smile (although his “over his head” motion did make me laugh.) I also thought the entire Robin thing was way drawn out. The funniest part were all the names of the Canadian sex acts but the final payoff and flashback did nothing for me. To illustrate my point: why even have the ‘weird collection’? It didn’t garner any particularly funny jokes in the guessing and the payoff was lackluster too.

It was hard to feel bad for Ted since his designs really are those of a quintessentially narcissistic architect. Additionally, it’s great that he’s decided to star his own firm (which, btw, he will name “Mosbius”, which I think is awesome) but the revelation didn’t hold any weight.

The moral story line—whether or not you should lie to protect your friends—was a good premise but lacked execution. In most episodes the use of dramatic irony, the clairvoyance of Future Ted’s narration, and the overal plot arc contribute to a much warner, more authentic moral message but this one felt a lot more phoned in.

Favorite Moments

• “If I could nail any celebrity it’d be Lily. She’s the star of my heart.”
  “Aww, that’s so cute. For me it’d be Hugh Jackman”
• Of course Barney knows all the Canadian sex acts
• “Find a way to introduce some wood into Bilson’s dark atrium.”
• Barney’s lying skills are pretty legendary
• “Don’t know, don’t want to know, those Newfies are out of control.”
• The Snatch-style team introductions was pretty great

Closing

I don’t mean to say I disliked this episode. It just didn’t stick with me. It won’t be one that I watch over and over. And that’s OK. Just as much as I like episodes like Brunch, First Time in New York, Spoiler Alert, etc for their infinite rewatchability, I appreciate episodes like this that I can watch seldom enough that the jokes I did like feel fresh each repeated viewing.

Oddly, coworkers and friends all felt very strongly in favor of this episode. That’s what leads me to believe I might have enjoyed it more if I didn’t know what was coming. Next week: no spoilers and I won’t read your guys’ comments until after I see the episode.

Stay tuned for my I Love You, Man review. I saw it on Tuesday and it was awesome.