The How I Met Your Mother Blog

I got an email today that surprised me.

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OK guys, I have a confession to make. I don’t get what the big deal is about Victoria. I liked her well enough when she was on the show but I always kind of thought the show was making fun of her, laughing at her more than with her. Well, laughing at her and Ted actually.

Every week in the comments people sing her praises to the highest mountains. She obviously struck a chord with some of you. Care to elaborate?

I want to make it clear, I’m not a Victoria hater, but when she was on the show it really just made me like Robin more and really pull for Ted to make the move he ended up making in “Come On”. What did I miss?

Tell me why I’m wrong and what makes her so awesome.

How I Met Your Mother (specifically, Barney) has brought back the catchphrase, we all know this and love the show for it. Now we can see them all, rapid fire. Whoever put this video together is a genius and hats off to them for their effort. It’s nine minutes of pure HIMYM awesomeness.

UPDATE: In got taken off YouTube pretty quickly but I snagged it beforehand so I’ve hosted it here myself. Click the image above to view.

How I Met Your Mother Season 4 debuts in just a couple weeks. Based on the buzz surrounding the show at the close of last year brought on by high profile guest stars like Britney Spears and Sarah Chalke, I think that HIMYM is sitting on the bubble, and not the one where it might get cancelled, like it usually is. I think it’s set to pop this year in a big way. Season 4 will be the break-out season where HIMYM goes from underground critical darling to mainstream success. I already hear the change in the air—so many people have told me they’re getting into the show and catching up on the first seasons. That’s great news.

I know that some people, however, won’t have time or just don’t want to watch three seasons of a show. Being that How I Met Your Mother is considerably more serialized than your average sitcom, I thought it’d be nice to offer some background for those just joining the ranks of How I Met Your Mother fans.

Legendary reader Kevin helped me out with this project. What follows are his brief summaries of seasons 1-3. Think of this as a cheat-sheet, a read-along, or a “previously on How I Met Your Mother”. There’s even a handy truncated playlist of episodes for those of us who want just the gist.

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This is a weekly column where the episodes from seasons one, two, and three will go head to head in a humor cage match. This week, the episode fourteen’s.

Season 1: Zip, Zip, Zip

After agreeing to take things slowly and not have sex for a month, Ted and Victoria decide that they have waited long enough.

This is one of my favorite episodes from Season 1. We get to see Marshall and Lily stuck in the bathroom while Ted puts the moves on Victoria (“They’ve been out there for 45 minutes. We could’ve had sex three times by now.” “Try five!” *High five*) and Robin fills in as Barney’s bro for a night on the town.

I love all the Marshall and Lily moments in this episode, it was a great way to focus on them without totally ignoring Ted. Cooler trivia: the B&B that Marshall and Lily had planned to go to was in The Berkshires which is a small community in North-Western MA. It also happens to be my hometown. Having grown up there, I’m not sure being stuck in a bathroom is much worse.

The Barney B-plot was almost the best in the episode, him and Robin have a great chemistry. This was the first time we saw cool, bro-Robin. She loves cigars and scotch, suits up, plays laser tag, and even makes a great wingman. Of course when she wanted to play Battleship Barney took that as a metaphor and started to birthday suit up. When she shot him down it was revealed to Barney that Robin had feelings for Ted, something we learned the week before.

This episode showed the chemistry between Marshall and Lily as well as Robin and Barney. These are combos we don’t get to see too often since the format of the show usually pairs at least one of the four with Ted. This episode is a milestone as it set in motion all of the Barney + Robin theories that are still swirling today.

Season 2: Monday Night Football

When a funeral conflicts with the Super Bowl, the gang vows to avoid hearing the score and watch it together on Monday. This proves difficult, as Marshall is threatened with the score by a boy in Lily’s class, while doing the news puts Robin in danger of finding out who won.

This episode was supposed to air right after the super bowl. The CBS switched it with something else. It was a shame because this is a great stand-alone episode. It doesn’t really deal with any of the serialized plots in the show but has enough laughs that it might have brought in new viewers. There are some great jokes (Ted’s sensory depravator 2000 is great) and an appearance by Emmitt Smith.

The premise of this episode was that a funeral for someone the gang didn’t really know kept them from watching the Super Bowl as it ran live. At the funeral, Barney sweatsuited up (regular suits are for joyous occasions.) Joe Nieves also had some good lines as Carl the Bartender which, looking back, makes me ask again where is Joe Nieves?

Season 3: The Bracket

Barney’s efforts to hook up with women are being thwarted by a mysterious woman from his past. Barney and the gang must sift though his many past flings in an attempt to find out who she is.

This episode was great, as Barney episodes always are. Check out the recap last week for all the details. After No Tomorrow and Ten Sessions, it was nice to get away from the main Ted storyline and have a few good laughs at Barney’s expense this week.

Advantage

I love “The Bracket” and “Monday Night Football” has a lot of laughs, but “Zip, Zip, Zip” wins. It had a lot of character development, and gave us some unforgettable moments. It was also a nice switch-up having Ted out of the picture so Marshall and Lily could spend a night in the bathroom while Barney and Robin bro’d out.

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Previous Season vs. Season Showdowns

• Episode 1
• Episode 5
• Episode 6
• Episode 7
• Episode 8
• Episode 9
• Episode 10
• Episode 12
• Episode 13

I’ve removed the scorecard for now. I’m going to go back and make sure the tallies are correct for each episode and hopefully get the earlier ones posted that are not up at the moment.