Thursday, February 28, 2013

The Funny Stuff: HIMYM(2/25)

Well, that was disappointing.  Tonight, we get recycled plots, and a man-child masquerading as Marshall.
Let’s jump right in, shall we?
 
Lily and Marshall have a big art gallery opening, and Marshal is tres concerned about the lack of food, so he buys a gigantic bag of Skittles(“The last bag your Uncle Marshall would ever buy,” Ted intones ominously).  Marshall then proceeds to sit on several expensive pieces of art, and make terrible puns with artist’s names in the guise of ‘being outgoing.’  This plot was soooo boring.  I don’t even know what to say about it.  And then Marshall dropped his entire bag of Skittles on the floor(one Skittle at a time) during a moment of silence for the artist’s dead grandmother.  Instead of, you know, attempting to assuage the flow of Skittles, Marshall stood there as everyone in the gallery glowered at him for the entire minute it took.  It honestly feels like a character assassination, and for the writers to do that to the best character on the show is just wrong.
 
In other news, Ted and Jeanette are still together, and he put her on his RSVP to Robin and Barney’s wedding invite.  When they break up again(due to a spam e-mail from a girly-sounding spam-bot), Barney decides to help Ted find a new plus one by bringing out the Playbook.
 
“But that was destroyed eight episodes ago,” you may say!  
 
Of course, recycling plot from previous episodes(even if they are from the same season show) is now par for the course, so we get to see playbook antics again, yay.  Barney makes a command center at Ted’s house, and gives Ted an earbud so he can direct all of Ted’s words.  The plays are terrible, as usual, but when Robin comes back and finds the Playbook, Barney has to book it after her to get her back.  The second Barney takes his leave, Jeanette find Ted, and gives him a big...kiss on the lips, so he brings her back to his apartment, intent on getting back together.  It’s too bad, then, that Barney left the Playbook on Ted’s couch.  
 
Which Jeanette finds.  
 
And immediately begins trashing Ted’s apartment again.  Ted ends up on the sidewalk with the gang, and Jeanette threatening to blow up the Playbook with the fireworks she found.  Barney tells her to do it, and the whole thing goes up in flames, and Ted is ready to settle down for realsies, cause all the other times he’s settled down with a long term girlfriend were not him being an anti-commitmentaphobe.
 
Oh, and Barney got Robin back by telling her he’s a lying liar who lies, but he really REALLY loves her, so it’s cool.
 
This episode was kind of the antithesis of funny.  Even the laugh track wasn’t really into it at all.  Even if there are few laughs, a sitcom can be good if it has character development.  It’s too bad that all of the ‘character development’ this episode consisted either of regression(Marshall) or things that have happened a million times before in an ugly new wrapping(Ted, Robin and Barney).  Lily got the shaft, she had no development whatsoever, and she wasn’t even funny.  I just wish I wasn’t so invested in who the mother was, so I could drop this show like it really deserves to be dropped.
 
I got one funny line for you:
 
Ted, on one of Barney’s ‘one rules’: “Lebanese girls sprint to third base, and then stay there?”

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