Tuesday, February 7, 2012

A Man On Fire Solves All Problems

Last night, How I Met Your Mother finally had another episode, S07E15.  Usually, this is one of the shows that I count on for a good laugh or at least a good quote.  I didn't really have either with this one.  The episode was broken up into 3 intersecting stories, each story broken up according to the three rooms of Lily and Marshall's house.

I think the best of the 3 stories was the one that involved a little fight between Ted and Marshall's boss (played by Martin Short).  Barney had fingered Ted as the one who had eaten the majority of some vegan spring rolls.  Well, the little boss was not having that and was all up in Ted's neck (so short!) about his audacity to eat one of the few dishes at the party he could have eaten.  Until this episode I didn't know Marshall's boss was so uptight.  He seemed like a pretty easy-going fellow before.  Anyway, Lily came in to do damage control, preventing a fight that would have probably made the episode great if it had occurred.  I mean, Josh Radnor vs Martin Short??  I don't care who would win, but it would have had me rolling on the floor.  Thanks, Lily, for ruining a potential gold.  Perhaps the two will butt heads again in another episode and we'll see their fists flying at each other's general direction (I doubt either is a good fighter).

It's pretty sad when Barney doesn't take up the slack when a HIMYM episode isn't bringing the funny as hard as it could.  He was mostly running around from room to room, drinking wine and worrying about his penis getting chopped off.  Somehow that didn't even get a grin out of me.  I will say that in the end, when Barney decides to sleep with the psycho lady and tries to escape, I liked that between a choice of spending the rest of his life with a lady like her or walking through of house of 1000s of bees, he chose the bees.  I should also mention that he had to do this walk naked.  I suppose we should expect nothing less from "The Barnacle."

The only surprise I had in the episode was not the fact that when Marshall's boss gets the stick out of his ass after running through the house with a beekeepers suit on fire, this event also led to Ted realizing that Robin's kick-ass attitude is a boon, not something she needs to correct (yay--everyone's problems are solved by a ridiculous event!)  No, what did surprise me was that Marshall quit his job so easily.  I don't remember him complaining much before about getting his dream job with an environmental law firm.  Now, with him about to have a baby, he just quits his job because his boss is acting like a hard ass?  Really, Marshall?  Just because you have a free house now, you don't need to worry so much about income?   I don't think Lily's teacher salary is going to pay for all of the immunizations and baby care equipment.  Luckily, we don't have to worry about that because Marshall's boss gave him his job back after a good roll in the snow.

I've been waiting for another HIMYM and this is what I got.  I'm disappointed.  I don't know how many episodes we have left before Lily will have the baby (not anticipating that episode), so I would like them to make use of the time they have left before the cast dynamic makes another significant shift.  I don't necessarily want to see another chapter of Ted's quest to find true love, but there needs to be some better Barney action next time.  So far, we have seen the decline of this show since Lily and Marshall moved out of the city.  Let's not continue that trend, OK?

No comments:

Post a Comment