The How I Met Your Mother Blog

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 thirteen’s. Sorry it’s late.

Season 1: Drumroll, Please

Ted finds a new woman at the wedding. They want to remember the evening so they don’t exchange last names or numbers; but Ted takes a big fall when he tries to find out her name.

I have a confession to make. I didn’t really like this episode for a long time. I have always been a Robin devotee and therefore never really warmed up to Victoria. After starting this site and talking with other fans of the show, I noticed a trend in this episode being a universal favorite. I’ve gone back and re-watched and I’ve finally come around. It’s a great one.

We get to see Ted at his most smooth and romantic as he woos Victoria (or Buttercup, as she’s only known to us in this episode.) We also have a wonderful counterpoint with Robin admitting her interest in Ted to Lily. In Victoria the episode gives us this wonderful new girl that Ted might actually have a chance with, but then plays with our emotions by forcing us to chose between her and Robin.

The editing on the climatic scene where Ted and Robin immediately, simultaneously realize that she baked the cake is superb and creates one of the biggest, best dramatic moments in the series. On top of all that we get the passionate kiss as Ted enters the bakery and Victoria says “oh, thank god” while “Spit on a Stranger” by Pavement plays.

Also, this episode has one of my favorite jokes in the series. As Ted finishing playing the song on the piano that Victoria was dancing to, they lean in close, she tells him “we’re not going to kiss tonight”, and he hits a dramatic minor chord on the piano. Classic. I also liked that this episode was the first time we saw Robin show some sensitivity and real emotion. Smulders played it well, as a woman who wasn’t used to feeling this way, a way she’d spent her whole life developing shields to avoid. Major character development there.

Season 2: Columns

This isn’t a great picture but it’s from the iTunes free preview and it’s the best I can do for right now. I’m not going to pay for an episode I don’t like

When Ted is constantly insulted by his former boss, who is now working for him on a project, he is told to fire the man, but he finds that a hard thing to do. Meanwhile, Barney offers Lily a lot of money to paint a nude portrait of him.

The discovery of a nude painting of Marshall led to the “new dart” bit which was actually quite funny. Unfortunately this was the B plot. The A plot followed Ted, the new boss in his office, dealing with his old supervisor Hammond Druthers. I hated this plot line. I thought it was cliche, unsophisticated, and very sitcomy. Overall, this is my least favorite HIMYM episode of all time.

Season 3: Ten Sessions

Ted pursues a woman named Stella, but only gets attention from her receptionist Abby.

I think I covered just about everything on this episode in the recap last week. This episode had another monumental moment when we saw the return of romantic Ted and the adorable two minute date. Bonus points for Sarah Chalke’s appearance.

Advantage

This is a close call, but for I think “Ten Sessions” wins it by a nose. It had a great performance by Sarah Chalke, was as funny an episode as we’ve seen (despite what other reviewers say) and, in the real world, was an important week in the show’s run. “Drumroll, Please” is a wonderful, classic episode but knowing what we know now I think there are better Ted/Robin/Victoria episodes (Nothing Good Happens After 3am comes to mind.)

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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

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.

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 twelve’s.

Season 1: The Wedding

Robin accepts Ted’s invite to a friend’s wedding, but thanks to Ted, the couple may never make it down the aisle.

This was the first episode in the Victoria arc—one of the best plot lines the show’s ever had. I liked it, but the ones to follow were superior. This was also the first episode where Robin started to really warm up to the idea of dating Ted. It was at this time that we first met Stuart and Claudia (Matt Boren and Virginia Williams)—when Ted almost inadvertently stopped their marriage. The theme of the episode was how Ted saw himself—how any of us see ourselves: as a single person or someone looking for a relationship. Bonus: the last moment of this episode was our first view of Victoria, smiling that charming smile she has.

Lily got most of the good lines in this episode:

Ted: “We can’t sneak her into the wedding, we’re not ninjas.”
Lily: “I wish we were ninjas.”

Lily: “Jeez, don’t “Ted” out about it.”

Lily: “Claudia is getting married tomorrow and so help me God if I catch you even so much as breathing the same air as her I will take those peanuts you’re trying to pass off as testicles and I will squeeze them so hard until your eyes pop out and then I’ll feed them to you like grapes.”
Barney: “Wait… my eyes? Or my testicles?”
Lily: “One of each!”

Fun trivia: In the scene where Ted runs into Claudia on the street and she’s screaming at someone on the phone about her wedding cake, it’s actually Victoria she’s yelling at even though we haven’t met her yet. Victoria was later revealed to have made the cake.

Season 2: First Time in New York

Robin wants to tell Ted that she loves him, but she can’t tell him. Meanwhile, her sister visits and brings her boyfriend, and Robin doesn’t know how to react when her sister says she’s ready to lose her virginity.

This is one of my personal favorite episodes. The premise is clever and all the flashbacks are hilarious. From Ted’s switcheroo story of a love ‘em and leave ‘em tryst to Robin’s gay first boyfriend to Barney-as-Swayze Dirty Dancing fib I think this was one of the funniest episodes ever. We learned a lot about all of the characters and everyone was involved in the same plot—no lame B plot to cut back and forth between.

Robin’s sister was adorable (she’s gone on to star in Bionic Woman) and her accusations of promiscuity were perfect little-sister embarassment for Robin:

“Oh come on, you’ve slept with like 100 guys.”
“It’s not 100 guys! It’s not 100 guys! I had different levels of affection for each of the very reasonable number of guys.”

This episode also focused on how hard it is for Robin to say “I love you”. To use Barney’s highway metaphor, Robin didn’t want to “get off the freeway, but saying ‘Hmm hmm hmmm’ is like getting into the car pool lane. And what’s in that lane? A big diamond”. Ted, on the other hand, turns out to be an “I love you” slut. By the end, Robin managed to say it. In a lesser show this could have been a corny moment but this is How I Met Your Mother—Ted replies “I’m gay” and it all feels so much more natural and authentic.

Marshall and Lily had their moments too. When Marshall found out that he might not have been the first person Lily slept with—turns out Scooter had splashed around in the shallow end—he didn’t take it well.

Season 3: No Tomorrow

Ted lives like there’s no tomorrow during a St. Patrick’s Day celebration with Barney. Lily and Marshall spend the evening at their new apartment with Robin.

I liked this episode. I think the future of the show will prove that this was a real turning point in Ted’s life. I think he’d been still recovering from his break up with Robin up to this point and maybe realizing how much of a “Low Point” he’d hit will snap him back on track. Say what you will about Marshall’s lecture to him at the end, but it was necessary and Ted’s face showed that it had sunk in.

The weak part for me here was the B plot. It was cute and funny, but I like LAME better when they’re not such a charade-playing cliche married couple. Robin needs something to do too, maybe now that Ted’s back on the wagon she can spend another night as Barney’s bro.

Advantage

This is a close call, but for me “First Time in New York” is just a killer episode. Its’ in my top three of all time and I have to give it the nod. I have a feeling you might disagree so be sure to vote for your choice below.

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Previous Season vs. Season Showdowns

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

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.

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 one’s. It all starts here.

With this weeks’ repeat, I thought this would be a good time to go back and get caught up with the Season vs. Seasons.

Season 1: Pilot

When Ted’s best friend Marshall proposes to his girlfriend, Lily, Ted realizes he’d better get a move on if he hopes to find true love. Ted soon meets Robin in a neighborhood bar, immediately becomes smitten and scores a first date. But when Ted can hardly wait to see her again, his eagerness threatens to scare her away.

I have an affinity for this episode since it’s where it all began, it’s really hard to compare anything else because without this, there’d be no show. When viewed with the series as a whole however, it is arguably different in tone. All pilots suffer from this since we don’t know the characters yet. Marshall was a little more naive and kind of a lovable loser vs. the awesomeness man-child he is now. We met Robin, at the same time Ted was, and the blue French Horn was stolen. I think the episode has some great moments:

• Robin’s seduction of Ted in her apartment
• The Olive theory
• Lily’s eye-patch
• Ranjit!

Season 2: Where Were We?

The gang tries to help Marshall get over Lily, especially when he finds a credit card bill that leads to a hotel in New York City where some of her charges are listed.

This episode is important to me because of how eagerly I anticipated it. I so had looked forward to seeing Ted and Robin as a couple finally, and this didn’t disappoint. The image of Ted laying Robin across his drafting table made me wish I didn’t work at a computer (there’s no real estate here for that type of thing, and it’d end up turning out more like Gael when he wiped Robin’s laptop). I liked the scene with Ted and Robin in the shower too. Good Marshall moment. In fact, I love the hilarity of an off-the-tracks Marshall trying to find himself as an individual throughout the episode. The ending fell apart a little bit for me, but at least we saw George Clinton.

Season 3: Wait for It…

Robin shows up with a date and this motivates Ted to ‘get back out there’. We also learn/learned something major about ‘the Mother’.

Again, I was in eager anticipation for this episode. The premieres are always very emotional, we’ve been kept waiting for so long. This episode was great (we saw it again this past week, or so I’m told, I was hard-at-work Monday night). The Mandy Moore/Enrique Iglesias cameos were good, and not over-the-top. We saw bearded Ted, old-timey inventor Ted, Persian nightclub owner Ted, and tramp-stamp Ted. Overall, a good episode. It also had one of my favorite quotes: “that dark path is my driveway.”

Advantage

I have to give the nod to season one. It’s nostalgic, it’s innocent, it’s the show before it became the show it is today. What do you guys think?

Scorecard

Season 1: 1-0-0
Season 2: 0-1-0
Season 3: 0-1-0

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{democracy:5}

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 ten’s.

Season 1: The Pineapple Incident

After sucking down a quintet of shots at the bar, Ted blacks out. He wakes up the next morning with a sprained ankle, a burned jacket, a phone number written on his arm, a pineapple on his dresser, and an unknown woman face down in his bed. With the help of his friends, Ted attempts to piece together precisely what happened the night before.

This is in the top three best How I Met Your Mother episodes ever. This is the episode I show people if they’ve never seen the show. It was hilarious (Josh Radnor is excellent at playing drunk) and it had the awesome Danica McKellar as Trudy (who we saw again this season). The basis of the episode, that Ted over thinks and should take a night off from being so cerebral, get wasted and see what happens, was believable and executed with genius using what would become the signature flash-back style of the show. Told from the following morning Ted woke up with a girl in his bed, a pineapple in his bedroom, and a phone number on his arm. Turns out that anytime Marshall, Lily, or Barney put him to bed, Ted ended up back at the bar. From Cheap Trick Karaoke to using the women’s restroom, it was a rough night for Ted and a great episode for us.

My favorite line from this episode, if not the whole show: “How hard is it to sneak into the zoo? I need to see some penguins like right now.”

Season 2: Single Stamina

Barney’s gay black brother is in town, but he doesn’t want to tell Barney that he’s getting married because he’ll be losing his only single sidekick.

This was a fun episode. We got to see Wayne Brady catch-phrase and high-five alongside Barney. The ratio of humor/drama was balanced with Barney’s slow acceptance of marriage. I loved Marshall’s envy of girls getting to order fancy drinks and all the scenarios that Barney and James had for picking up guys and girls. It was one of the first flash-forwards also, showing Lily and Marshall married at James and his husband’s wedding a few years later. This scene, showing Ted and Robin dancing together, opened up the opportunity for the two of them to be together a long time (even though now we know that’s not true). Overall, a fun episode.

Season 3: The Yips

When Barney loses his way with women, he hopes a trip to the Victoria’s Secret Fall Fashion Show will help him regain his form.

I liked this episode. It was Barney-centric and hilarious. I agree that something about it felt a little “blah”, maybe because it didn’t really advance the overall plot so much. Read more on my thoughts from the recap earlier this week.

Advantage

The Pineapple Incident is the clear winner. It’s one of the season one episodes that still stands up. It is also the first episode, for many fans, that really sold them on the show. A rare decisive win for season one.

Scorecard

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The photos above are of the female guest stars. I’ll put up episode stills later tonight or over the weekend.

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 nine’s.

Season 1: Belly Full of Turkey

Ted and Robin are surprised to run into Barney when they volunteer at a homeless shelter on Thanksgiving. Lily is on the brink of freaking out when she goes to Thanksgiving dinner at her future in-laws house.

Personally, this episode always felt a little weak to me. The group was split up, no one was in the normal setting, and the B-plot about Ted looking for volunteer work wasn’t strong. It was funny that Barney was serving mandatory community service but just happened to be awesome at it. Also, that mayonnaise salad Lily made was disgusting. I’m sure that this isn’t the episode of the three that will end up being discussed so let’s move on to the main event.

Season 2: Slap Bet

Ted and Barney discusses their viewpoints on knowing things about women. Barney thinks that the more you know the more likely you are to find a deal breaker. Ted wants to know the deal breakers right away, as Robin refuses to go to the mall to cover her secret.

Slap Bet. Wow, when this episode first aired I thought that it would be the one that brought in a bigger audience for the show and, historically, would be when the show ‘made it’. I think that was true, to a point. Casual HIMYM fans always mention this episode in their favorites. It also had the wonderful Robin Sparkles video which was a truly awesome reveal. For me, this episode was special because the week before it aired I had predicted that Robin had been married at some point before meeting the gang. While not technically correct, it was still cool that I was kind of right.

I loved the dialog in this episode. Ted pestering Robin in bed about the various reasons she might not like malls: “Got arrested in a mall? Found out you were Canadian in a mall? Got mauled in a mall? Trapped under a fake boulder at the mall?” and Robin’s answers to Ted’s inquisition of her wedding details. Also, this episode has what might be the funniest “edgy” line of the show. Barney, having been slapped my Marshall says “Your hand is enormous.” Marshall replies “What do you expect? You’ve seen my penis.”

I didn’t think Season 3 had a chance against this episode, that was until I saw Slapsgiving.

Season 3: Slapsgiving

As Marshall and Lily prepare to host their first Thanksgiving as husband and wife, Barney eyes Marshall’s Slap Bet Countdown Clock website with dread.

This was a great episode. We had the payoff for slapbetcountdown.com and got to see slap #3. The Ted and Robin storyline was as good if not better than the Robin Sparkles secret (which I’m sure will receive some contempt from other viewers). Slapsgiving was more dramatic, more mature. The characters are getting older and its showing. This episode, like Slap Bet, ended in a song performed by one of the characters. Side to side, 80′s music video aside, I think “You Just Got Slapped” beats “Let’s Go to the Mall”.

It’s also important to keep in mind that Slapsgiving could not exist without Slap Bet. In that sense, the success of this episode, a year later, gives even more points to Slap Bet and season 2.

Advantage

The poll shows seasons 2 and 3 in a dead heat. I think it’s too close to call so I’m going to go with a tie. It may be like kissing your sister, but isn’t that better than being a teenage pop star in Canada or getting slapped? What do you think?

Scorecard

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