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Posts tagged as himym

'How I Met Your Mother' Recap: "The Over-Correction"

"The Over-Correction" didn't fulfill its promise almost immediately. After its initial ten seconds of four of our heroes on the phone with one another seemingly hiding out in different tiny spaces, we were all praying to Rufus that a twenty one minute parody of R. Kelly's Trapped in the Closet was about to flicker in front of our faces. Initially I was as disappointed as you were, but after thinking about it for more than a second it became clear that outside of the abstract it would be a terrible idea. (Besides, this show has already had their musical episode.) Nonetheless, you shouldn't tease people like that.

Instead, [...]

'How I Met Your Mother' Recap: "Splitsville"

"Spoiler Alert" was a season three episode of How I Met Your Mother in which Ted Mosby's Girl of the Week was revealed to Ted by Marshall to have a defective character trait that Ted had never noticed before. The fact that she talked too much turned Cathy instantly into someone completely repulsive to our protagonist, and she was never to be heard from again, forced to live her days on whatever island where discarded fictitious boyfriends and girlfriends who got in the way go (Julie from Friends would be Mayor probably). A boyfriend or girlfriend out of nowhere being revealed to have a disturbing flaw like talking too much or having man [...]

'How I Met Your Mother' Recap: "Nannies"

The last time walking STD Barney Stinson had to deal with the end of a long term relationship, the man went HAM in "The Playbook", a season five episode in which the writing staff of How I Met Your Mother took all of the ideas that they came up with on how to hook up with naive, twentysomething ladiez but couldn't use while Barney was with Robin and jammed them in one 22 minute container that reeked of herpes. (The DVD of said episode is locked in a glass case and guarded by the finest of lasers in the lobby of Maxim HQ through the end of time.) In "Nannies", after his engagement [...]

Who Has a Better Secret Past, Don Draper or Robin Scherbatsky?

Duels or “classy show-downs” as they are often called by no one, have been solving hot debates for ages. They're useful for delivering crowds a champion, through often unpredictable means (just ask Alexander Hamilton). Television loves a surprise, so what better way to measure and battle elements of TV than with a duel? Here, we will battle two characters in an imaginary contest of wills. Sometimes a winner will be crowned because of pertinent facts, and sometimes in spite of them.

This week? Don Draper v. Robin Scherbatsky in secret pasts.

Over the years, some people have tried to claim that Mad Men is not a comedy. Oh really? It has sexual [...]

How I Met Your Mother Recap: "Now We're Even"

Real honest to goodness human beings can't go out every single night and do things like eat every item on the menu and bring a horse into a bar because they would eventually drop dead prematurely, or worse, run out of money. Conversely, you can't stay home all the time without getting cabin fever and scaring people on the internet with your encyclopedic knowledge of Bravo Network programming. Television characters on the other hand tend to have to enjoy things outside of their apartments or houses virtually all the time, otherwise we'd quickly get bored with them. Which is why it was ironic that in the beginning of "Now We're [...]

'How I Met Your Mother' Recap: "Lobster Crawl"

Ah yes, the art of seduction. Since the beginning of time, countless magazines have attempted to tell you in different ways to have self-esteem, shower and not be a creep. But seriously: what is the truth?

Cookies. Feed them cookies.

'How I Met Your Mother' Recap: "The Autumn of Break-Ups"

In "The Autumn of Break-Ups," we said goodbye to Victoria and to whatever dignity Barney Stinson and the show had left.

Sorry about being melodramatic up there in the lede, but one day after writing in an Animal Practice post-mortem that having a live monkey get involved in storylines never worked because its 2012, Barney Stinson befriended a dog to be his wingman, and even though the world does not revolve around me and this episode was delayed a week because of Hurricane Sandy, this show is completely trolling me.

'How I Met Your Mother' Recap: "The Pre-Nup"

I was talking to a friend yesterday about spoilers. I had explained that my attempt to marathon season one of Homeland before the second season premiere would have been a lot more enjoyable if I hadn't read about how it had ended a few months before. She countered that she always reads the last page of a book before starting to read it, because of a fear of dropping dead before finding out what happens. I thought this was absolutely insane, and told her as much. Thankfully I quickly remembered – and I sincerely apologize that I keep bringing this show up in these recaps – that before virtually every episode [...]

'How I Met Your Mother' Recap: "The Magician's Code"

Your enjoyment of How I Met Your Mother during its final days (next season will either be the penultimate or the final one depending on business stuff) is dependent on how much you care about the identity of this Mother person. If you're heavily invested in it, watch the show primarily because of it, and think you'll be satisfied with the answer after an eight or more year build up, there's going to be a lot of hurt coming your way. The problem with all mysteries is that the answer can never possibly top what your imagination can conjure up. If you find a door that you never noticed before, anything [...]

How I Met Your Mother Recap: "Trilogy Time"

They say that if you want to make God laugh, tell Him your plans. And strangely, throughout the possibly best and funniest episode of the season, "Trilogy Time" reinforces that old chestnut. Do you think you'll be happily married? Sorry, all the world has for you is being left at the altar by the ditsy woman from Scrubs. You think you're going to be a rich environmental lawyer with five children? No dice — just take the one kid from the Buffy The Vampire Slayer girl and call it an existence. You planning on beding a woman with breasts in the front and in the back? Science has better things to do, [...]

'How I Met Your Mother' Recap: "The Stamp Tramp"

The men of How I Met Your Mother are all nice, law abiding people, but they are definitely all flawed: Ted knows a lot of things about a lot of high brow subjects, but whenever he exhibits his knowledge he is an alienating, insufferable prick about it; Barney's childhood abandonment issues have led to a lifetime of overindulging on female flesh and crude, groan inducing sexual punnery; Marshall gives every human being the benefit of the doubt, even though he is a New York City resident, where it's a minor miracle that he doesn't get mugged every time he leaves the apartment.

Ted and Barney's issues are broader, and [...]

'How I Met Your Mother' Recap: "Who Wants to Be a Godparent?"

Aren't we still in the promised Autumn of Break-Ups on How I Met Your Mother? The month of broken hearts, despair, endless tears, poor dietary choices, looking out the window through the raindrops, Mumford and Sons and more poor dietary choices? Why, with one more episode to go in October did we witness "Who Wants to Be a Godparent?", an episode with a story that could have been told at any time this season? Where is my promised misery?

Instead, we had Marshall and Lily waltzing into MacLaren's, content that for the first time in five months they can hang out with their friends and away from their newborn son [...]

Did You Get It? The Year of Inside Jokes and Season-Long Arcs

In the beginning, sitcoms would almost always feature self-contained 22-minute stories, with there never being a consequence to what anyone did or said that would carry over to the next episode. Johnny slipped on a banana peel. And it was good. Eventually that would change: a character began to be able lose or get a job, and pick up a new love interest and maybe someday marry them, and the tired show would be able to sprout some more material. And that was good. Then the meteoric rise of The Sopranos begat the HBO model of airing shows that didn't have episodes, but installments of an epic story, making banana peels [...]

'How I Met Your Mother' Recap: "Good Crazy"

At the beginning of the series, Barney Stinson was a character that existed to be the womanizing antonym to the nice chum main character Ted Mosby. Eventually the audience decided that Ted was sweet but boring and responded most to the badboy with the heart of something that may or may not be gold. But, the audience was smart and getting older by the episode. They wouldn't tolerate and find Mr. Stinson acting like a perpetually horny 22-year-old funny forever. Tasked with maturing the character without taking away his entertaining juvenile personality, the writing staff placed him in serious relationships, for him to ultimately mess up. In last night's [...]

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