Forgive me, but there will be a fair amount of writings about How I Met Your Mother [HIMYM] on this blog. Why? Because in its second season, this show really found some interesting legs -- it started playing with narrative structure, many of the jokes seemed fresh and really entertaining (S02E09 presented us with both the Slap Bet and Robin's totally unexpected and awesome dark secret from her past), and even the way some recurring jokes played out throughout the season (most notably, of course, the Slap Bet) felt new. It finally felt like someone had reinvented the sitcom for people of my generation -- those of us who were tired of all the sitcom tropes but still found comfort in the format. Those of us who might have been raised with I Love Lucy reruns, but had our narrative expectations reset by Pulp Fiction. Then the writer's strike happened. And something happened to HIMYM. It lost that life and energy and started reverting to old sitcom norms. The characters would sometimes seem like fan-fiction versions of their former selves. You could feel the desperation in the writers' room to come up with new "Barneyisms" every week (that could then be spun off into CBS's cottage industry of books and other crap). Basically, the show lost its mojo and it's sad to now watch the characters trundle through the inanity they have to endure before the inevitable permanent couplings take hold and the show has no reason to live.
However, I still watch. Occasionally, an episode will still give me good solid laughs -- Episode 2 of this season, "Double Date", had some fun narrative tricks with Ted's rerun blind date and Alyson Hannigan was finally again given something fun to do rather than nag everyone else into a boring adulthood (kudos, writer Matt Kuhn). But now, more often than not, episodes have me yelling at the television like...
S05E05 -- "Duel Citizenship"
(writer - Chuck Tatham)
Story
Ted hears that a restaurant that was a college tradition for him and Marshall is closing down, so they plan one last epic road trip to Chicago... But then Marshall invites Lily and their increasingly tight bond threatens Marshall and Ted's friendship.
B-STORY -- Upon being charged with assault, Robin must decide whether she wants to become an American citizen and renounce all the Candian-ness that she holds dear.
Not a terrible idea, though it does seem a bit late in the game for Marshall and Lily to all of a sudden somehow become more insular (how long have they been together?) As for the B story, not a terrible plan, though it does open a door for a lot of lazy Canada jokes.
STORY GRADE -- B-
Structure
Perhaps it's unfair to judge an episode of a show by the quality of its previous episodes, but screw it, that's exactly what I'm going to do. Structurally, the show holds together fine with the intercutting between the two stories, which both end up making (somewhat) unexpected location changes at the end of the second act. There's no real problem with the show, much like there's no real problem with a kid eating a piece of Wonder Bread they've balled up in their hand. It's safe, expected, and boring.
At its peak, HIMYM was employing all kinds of interesting narrative structures, from the backwards-told events of S02E15 "Lucky Penny" to the Rashomon-style of S02E03 "Brunch". This show is still capable of some fun in that area, as evidenced by the aforementioned "Double Date" split-screen time-warp fun earlier this season. However, now I feel like, more often that not, the writers of this show tend to slap a flashback or two into an episode and call that gold.
Now, I'm certainly not opposed to flashbacks. This show has had some fun flashback-heavy episodes (Marshall's Fiat comes to mind, obviously, given the context here) and with friendships this long and deep, flashbacks are somewhat of a necessity to get us into their world. That's not even going into the fact that the entire show is a flashback, but I digress.
The point is -- the flashbacks need to illustrate things that would not be as much fun to hear about. So hey, why not show us the flashbacks without laying out what's going to be in them first? Each of the Marshall/Ted flashbacks gave us almost no information that we didn't have before seeing them. Stupid.
Also, the use of flashback to show why Lily didn't answer the phone -- it was supposed to feel like this big reveal, but honestly, we didn't really care since it didn't add anything. Lily was asleep. Or got pampered to sleep. Whatever. Who cares?
P.S. The cornmeal callback was lame.
STRUCTURE GRADE -- C-
Characters
Obviously, since the characters are long-established, we'll be judging on consistency and growth and yadda yadda.
TED - Working his job as the single straight man (as opposed to "joke man"), Ted doesn't have that much to do here, but stays pretty consistent with his past and grows a little. B
MARSHALL - This week, Marshall becomes a "Sitcom Idiot". By which I mean, he becomes totally oblivious to what's going on around him just to further the episode plot. There is no way in my mind Marshall would not understand that his actions would be bad for he and Ted. That's not to say someone wouldn't necessarily do these things, but they would probably feel the need to apologize for them a little or at least give some warning. The defense "but the episode is about him getting so close to Lily that he forgets these things" doesn't work for me as, hey, Marshall and Lily have been together since Ebay was launched. Do you remember a time before Ebay? You don't. We're done here. D
LILY - Oh my god Lily's writing has become so awful. It was literally shocking when she was into her doppleganger stripper a few episodes ago because she has become such a bitchy unpleasant character who's forcing everyone to grow up boring. Also, hey, she's a girl! All girls like retarded audiobooks about dogs, love that imbecile Elisabeth Hasslebeck, and have to pee all the time! SO TRUE! (And no, I am not letting you off the hook for her insane out-of-character Zoe Bell impression in the button scene.) Alyson Hannigan is funny. Lily used to be funny. FIGURE THIS SHIT OUT, HIMYM WRITING STAFF. F
ROBIN - Robin has a pretty nice struggle with her identity here, and Smulders has a good time with it. However, I refuse to believe smart people of their age would have not immediately thought of dual citizenship. That wouldn't preclude her from having the identity crisis, it just seems like she got a slight case of Marshall's Sitcom Idiocy before he skipped town. B+
BARNEY - Man, Barney's so much less fun in a relationship. Whatever. You guys boxed yourselves in on that one. Regardless, he's kind of fun in instructor mode and some of that stuff is good. However, STOP. MAKING. PEOPLE. RETARDED. Barney knows Canada is not across the Atlantic. Barney knows about dual citizenship. Barney CLEARLY knows what the fuck it means when a couple has gone from an "I to a 'we'". WE ALL DO. YOU DO NOT NEED TO OVEREXPLAIN IT TO US. Simply have him say "They have? I hadn't noticed?" and then Ted gives examples. Barney is clearly a very smart man. STOP IT. D+
WALK-ONS - The pizza guy was relatively funny. However, the Canadians were mostly stereotypes in a boring stupid way and the Crumpet Manor hostess's "sitting on benches" line was completely unacceptable. D-
OVERALL CHARACTER GRADE -- D+
Jokes
Obviously, I'm not going to give a run-down of every joke on the show, but I will seperate out a couple.
Best Joke of the Episode
Robin's Ernest/Jeff Foxworthy defense and Barney's response was really great, actually. Well done.
Worst Joke of the Episode
The extended "Sparky" audiobook jokes. I understand the joke was that it was supposed to go on too long. And yet, there is few things more comedically painful than a joke that's not very good to begin with that is then stretched out forever. Especially when it sells itself out at the end like a man comparing his beloved dog's demise to a Gallagher show. Well done!
The funniest stuff clearly comes from Barney and Robin (I also enjoyed the Toronto reveal moment), though a lot of the Canada jokes are just way too "heard that a million times before". The funniest part of the Marshall/Lilly/Ted plotline is probably the bizarre morphing effect of the two of them into one hideous creature. However, the punctuation of that morph would have been much funnier if the Tantrum gag hadn't been so immediately beaten to death.
Overall, the main problem with the jokes this episode was that they underestimated the audience. If you overexplain gags ("from I to 'we'"), they are ruined. If you beat gags to death (Tantrum, Sparky), they are ruined. If you overplay the gags beyond an absurd level (Robin inside the Hoser Hut, Barney with actual Canadians, Lily's "bitches", the suggested singles activities at Crumpet Manor (overplayed name, btw)), they are ruined. If I wanted to watch gags like those, I'd watch the rest of CBS's lineup.
JOKES GRADE -- D+
Series Continuity
Series-long continuity is not always that important in sitcoms, but due to the nature of this particular show (what with it ostensibly being one long drawn-out story from a dad to his kids), it's pretty important. Not to mention rewarding -- a well-timed callback to something from 2 seasons ago can be very satisfying for the long-term audience. However, the flip side is that when the continuity gets screwed up, the audience will not be happy.
For example, you remembered "I would walk 5000 miles" playing in Marshall's car (hard to forget), but had Lily playing Slug Bug instead of Zich Dog? Nobody caught that?
CONTINUITY GRADE -- C
OVERALL THOUGHTS
Disappointing throughout, with a few bright spot jokes here and there. Stop assuming that the audience is dumb and wants to see characters as dumb as you think they are. I know you can still do good work, HIMYM staff, but this one was shoddy at best.
STORY: B-
STRUCTURE: C-
CHARACTER: D+
JOKES: D+
CONTINUITY: C
OVERALL GRADE: C-
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