The Funny Stuff: CBS/FOX 2 for 1

Since I failed at getting the CBS Monday comedies out yesterday, enjoy a Monday/Tuesday roundup!

How I Met Your Mother

This episode was odd.  It had lots of elements that make a episode of HIMYM great, and yet…

Barney and Quinn are in full wedding planning mode, and Barney had decided he needs a pre-nup.  Of course, Barney being Barney, the pre-nup is two plus feet tall, with ridiculous things like a weight gain fine, and mandatory plastic surgery, among other things. 

Quinn immediately goes to vent to Robin and Lily, and Barney to Ted and Marshall, and all four couples that night talk about the ‘relationship renegotiation’ that the pre-nup apparently means.  Silly me, thinking the pre-nup meant Barney is a jerk.

Anyway, Ted had the multi-screen stories, and the ‘whoosh,’ and silly asides in his voice-over that one associates with a great episode, but like I said before, not so much.

The girls decide to team up and bring Barney a pre-nup of their own, and it is just as ridiculous.  All four of the couples are there, and they all start fighting, until Barney’s coworker manages to fix everything…except with Barney.  He and Quinn realize that if they feel they need that huge document to make their relationship work, maybe it’s not going to work at all.  They decide to break up instead, so we say buh-bye to Quinn, and another tease for Barney and Robin’s wedding.

This was a frustrating exercise in character regression.  These are adults who have, even in the show’s universe, moved past this BS, and to see the characters act so out of character in service of an asinine plot was kind of stupid.   There were some good laughs, and  the structure was reminiscent of classic HIMYM, but it missed so hard, they weren’t even in the right timezone.  I love this show, but it really needs to move things forward, for realsies.

2 Broke Girls

This show is utterly ridiculous.  It actually had a decent A-plot this week, but it was completely bogged 

down by the b-plot and the stereotypes. 

Max and Caroline are obsessing over the Martha Stewart card from last season’s finale, and they decide to go to her office to try and talk to her.  Caroline manages to break her lucky pearl necklace, FINALLY.  That thing was so fug.  Anyway, the beads fell into the cupcake batch, and the girls decided not to fish them all out before baking for some reason?  They’re strange.  By the time they make it to the Martha Stewart building, they find there is a cupcake ATM, and they have a minor freakout, but Caroline convinces Max not to spraypaint it. 

In an effort to get to Martha’s office, they attempt to bribe the receptionist, and she  breaks a tooth on an errant pearl.  The girls make a break for it, but not before Caroline attempts(poorly) to spraypaint the cupcake machine.  Later, at the diner, they get an e-mail from Martha, saying she hasn’t forgotten about them.

In stupid racist subplot news, Oleg and Sophie are exclusive, after Oleg calls what I can only assume is a hooker, because they are about the only people that would associate with that vile human being voluntarily.   And don’t even get me started on the ridiculousness of Han this week.

I watch this show because it is a trainwreck, and because Kat Dennings and Beth Behrs really do have good chemistry.  I just wish the stereotypes and asinine b-plots would die in a fire.

Raising Hope

This show is seriously adorable.  The Chance family consists of Matriarch Virginia, her husband Burt, their son Jimmy, his daughter, the titular Hope, and Maw Maw as played by Cloris Leachman.

Hope is the product of a one night stand with a serial killer, and after she is put to death, Jimmy goes about raising the daughter he never expected to have.  He has a girl that he crushes on, Sabrina, and a crappy job at a supermarket, along with a quirky group of coworkers and friends, including Gooch from Scrubs, so that’s fun.

Anyway, to start the season, Jimmy and Sabrina are dating, and are currently at her grandmother’s memorial service, along with his whole family.  We learn right along with them that Sabrina’s grandmother has left her the house, because her mother is a terrible person or something, but Sabrina has to be married to move in.

That prompts Jimmy to pop the question, and Sabrina said yes, but almost immediately pulls back because she didn’t feel the way she thought and expected she would.  She does want to get married, she just doesn’t want their hand to be forced by her grandmother.

Jimmy takes the opportunity to interrogate Gooch, aka Shelly, who is Sabrina’s childhood friend.   Apparently, Sabrina has many opposing visions of how she wanted to be asked, including sky writing, and on a white horse.  Jimmy gets to planning, and Virginia brings her to Jimmy when he is ready.  She confided in Virginia that she is worried about the lack of feeling, and Virginia advises her to fake it.

She does when Jimmy gives her a mashup of all her childhood dream proposals, and it is amazingly over the top, and yet naïve Jimmy falls for the faking hook, line and sinker.  As they are watching a video celebrating their engagement, Jimmy realizes that he totally made out with Sabrina’s mother, seven years prior, pre-plastic surgery.

He has a crisis of conscience, but finally decides to tell Sabrina.  In his speech to her, he manages to hit all the feels she wanted, and now they are both 100% fully on board in the engagement, and it is super cute.

This show is made by the same guy that made My Name is Earl, and is really shows with the surrealist nature of the plots and reactions, without falling into the trap of making the characters unbelievable or writing themselves into a hole.  If you’re not already watching this show, you should start.