TV Review: How I Met Your Mother 8x04: "Who Wants to Be a Godparent?"

DA- After realizing that death is all around them, Lily and Marshall go to create a will but are unsure of who the godparents for Marvin should be. After speeding through arguments about each other parents (and allowing only a one second discussion about Lily’s dad) the rest of the gang wants to be considered too. Gifts start pouring in including giant teddy bears and even a stroller with a boob cam (any guess who created the latter?) Finally they decide there is only one way it can be decided; a cheesy 1970s game show! But first a word from our sponsors…

Robin, Ted, and Barney participate in “what-if” scenarios of parenting issues like delivering the news about their demise or the birds and the bees talk. Flashes are shown of how each would handle each situation. One flash not shown? How they would explain how their father met their mother because as we all know that is not a simple or short story! While each may be hilarious, Lily and Marshall are unsure they understand what it is like to be a parent. However they all retort that they are unsure they know how to be friends anymore.

This is due to the fact Lily and Marshall put in a rule that they could not be bothered with their problems unless it was an 8 or higher. While they say they do not have time to deal with their problems, they are going to name one of them as a godparent and they do not even know their lives anymore. They revoke the rule because everything they do is an 8 or higher to them.

Now going into this I thought Barney had a clear advantage. I mean he once thought Bob Barker was his dad and was very successful on The Price is Right in one of their best episodes ever. However in the end to no real surprise all three become godparents and Barney still tries using his boob stroller in the bar. Slightly predictable but still a solid episode that plays with the unique formula and situations this show has been known for.

Episode Grade: B+

Episode MVP: Barney Stinson (Neil Patrick Harris) for zinging Ted every round about his parenting skills.

Original Airdate: 10/15/12

TV Review: How I Met Your Mother 8x03: "Nannies"

DA- Oh why wasn’t this episode called Bangtoberfest? What’s Bangtoberfest you ask? Instead of not being the name for this episode it is an event Barney decides to throw for himself where he will learn to get over Quinn by of course banging some girls in the month of October. Even though the gang tells him he is not ready for any new relationships, with $7000 spent in merchandising and a T-shirt cannon Bangtoberfest and this episode is happening!

Besides Barney’s bangs there are two main stories this episode. The first involves Ted and Robin competing to show which couple is clicking between Robin and Nick vs. Ted and Victoria. Despite already signing for Nick’s package, Victoria keeps tampons at Ted’s apartment, so advantage Mosby! As for Marshall and Lily they need a nanny and will not choose their dad who recently came to live with them after his house burned down. Where is Mrs. Featherbottom when you need her? After interviewing many weirdos they finally find one that works and is in their price range. The only thing standing in their way is of course…bangtoberfest!

Barney, who was running low on creative pickup lines, decided to start holding nanny interviews to help raise Edgar as his new move. I would introduce you to him but he is currently asleep and he also doesn’t exist. Marshall and Lily’s perfect nanny decided to go work with Barney before she ran away from him disgusted by this ruse. Despite Marshall jumping for joy by having Hot Wheels in Barney’s apartment, this angers Marshall and Lily who just need someone to watch little Marvin on Lily’s first day back to work.

Even though Barney is a womanizing con, he is no monster. He pays the large salary required for their top nanny choice but perhaps money was never the issue. Lily has a hard time letting little Marvin go. However Marshall does not care because the transaction included his Hot Wheels so all is well in the world of Mr. Erikson.

Unfortunately for Barney all the nannies come together to attack him in the street and put a pacifier up a hole he cares not to mention. As for Robin and Ted, both agree that their relationships are not perfect (Nick is a sensitive guy that cries over football and Victoria is just a plain slob). They both agree to make them work but as we all know (and as Mr. Saget reminds us) neither will last.

In the end Lily cannot let Marvin go and decides just to stay and nap with him. The only problem is that she wakes up to find a stuffed monkey in her hands! After a brief moment of panic and a break in the fourth wall, Lily’s dad, as it turns out, decided to take care of little Marvin for the day. (After first replacing him in Lily’s arm by a sub and later the monkey once he got hungry).

Lily is then reminded that he was once a stay at home dad before his gambling addiction and that he is capable of raising a child. He will even run into a burning house for a child photo album (and for potato salad of course). While he may have been missing in the past he is here now and that is what counts.

One person that I am surprised to still see around at the end is the nanny Barney bought for Lily and Marshall. To perhaps get every bang for his buck, Barney after first hiring her to help coach him in his creative pickup lines, sleeps with her. Not just once but five times! Talk about a deal!

While we all know this will not be Barney’s wife, could this new character be the woman we all have been waiting for? Is she perhaps Ted’s wife and thus the mother?! Only time will tell…but I’m seventy-five percent sure she isn’t.

Episode Grade: B+

Episode MVP: Mickey Aldrin (Chris Elliot) who always delivers in every performance. 

Original Airdate: 10/8/12

TV Review: How I Met Your Mother 8x02: "The Pre-Nup"

DA- After last week’s solid season opener the HIMYM gang created a small crack in our relationship with a so-so episode about autumn breakups. After skipping past the “summer of love” I wish we could have fast-forward just a little bit more to a juicier story or set of adventures.

This week Arthur Hobbs played by Bob Odenkirk convinces Barney to do a pre-nup before marrying Quinn because he may end up like him and god forbid have full custody of their kids! While Barney isn’t too interested with his possible real life kids he wants to make sure Ann, Sarah, and Molly stay with him for years to come (that is what he named Quinn’s lady parts). In case you are wondering, which I am sure you all were, Marshall calls Lily’s Snap, Crackle, and Pop. As for what I call my manhood…well that is a subject for another post.

In this pre-nup there are “suggestions” for their marriage so Barney stays interested in Quinn. These include paying him $2000 for every pound she gains and her responsibility of creating 10-12 new sexual positions a year. Even after Arthur crossed out Barney’s clauses about wives two through eight, Quinn was still very angry with Barney. However these problems did not stick with their relationship alone. Before all the couples went to bed the guys tell their respected girl that Barney had a point to want to change certain aspects of their relationship and that they wish they could. The girls in unison all ask “like what?” In a perfect yet cheesy act out we are told one of the four three couples will break up but which one will it be…

All the couples had their recent problems to fight about this week. Lily is freaked out that Marshall is too rough with Marvin but that is how he grew up. Robin is turned on and distracted by herself on television when fooling around with Nick. However Victoria is angry with Ted for going back on his word for letting her ex-fiancé live naked in their apartment with his pet ferrets. Let me repeat this so you can understand her complaint. Victoria’s naked ex-fiancé that she just left at the altar is living with them in the same apartment and Ted wants him out. Hopefully you can tell whose side I am on for this one.

However Quinn is not going to go down without a fight. She has a pre-nup for Barney too which includes a shock collar on Barney’s “snap, crackle, and pop” (if you catch my drift) and full custody of his suits. (She is just going to sit around and watch them go out of style).

The rest of the gang comes to support their same gender friend. They all fight but Saul Goodman as always comes to the rescue! Arthur tells them to say their true feelings because fighting for who has the power in the relationship is nothing to fight for when you are in love.

In no big surprise it is Quinn and Barney in the end that decide to put their relationship to rest because of trust issues. But again that should not be any surprise or shock to us. It was going to end sometime this season. We just saw last week that Robin and Barney are the ones that will end up together (without any need for a pre-nup I may add). Now that this all out in the open perhaps we can start on Barney’s last relationship before the big marriage. As long as the show does not stall even more with another Nora or Quinn before he ends up with Robin I’ll be happy and living a TV season of love.

Episode Grade: B-

Episode MVP: Thomas Lennon (for letting his ferrets all hang out as Klaus)

Original Airdate: 10/1/12

TV Review: How I Met Your Mother 8x01: "Farhampton"

 

DA- Big things happened last night in the season premiere of How I Met Your Mother. Barney and Robin worry that they can not go through with their marriage ceremony, Marshall and Lily spill the beans about how Barney once dated Robin to Quinn, and Ted finally runs into the titular mother- well sort of.

 

The episode begins with Ted sitting at a train station in Farhampton again telling a love story to anyone willing to listen. (Let’s see how many seasons this story within a story lasts). Flashback to Robin and Barney's marriage ceremony. He explains to Robin her hesitation over the wedding by using his own story about Victoria’s wedding to explain this situation. Cue the flashback within a flashback!

 

Ted being the "gentleman" that he is tells Victoria he must leave a note before she can leave her fiancé at the altar since it is "common courtesy." Ted of all people should know this because he remembers how depressed he got when it was him left at the altar a few years back. While he tries to sneak the note in for Victoria, Barney tells the gang not to tell Quinn about him and Robin dating in the past. Barney has already erased the evidence on his end but it was of course tired, delirious, and new parents Marshall and Lily to spill the beans immediately after almost spilling the beans seconds before. (They caught the baby monitor but forgot that five minutes before that they invited Quinn into the room!) Quinn worries that they still have feelings for each other and after explaining the last seven seasons in 52 seconds and how that can not possibly be true, Quinn still tells Barney it’s over.

 

However to make a long story short (something Ted and the show never does) Barney and Robin convince Quinn that they are over each other with the help of seeing Robin's new boyfriend Nick and his “situation.”(His abs guys! Get your minds out of the gutters!) While Quinn is convinced it may not be that clear anymore for Robin and Barney. Barney hands Robin a key to the storage unit probably adjacent to Walter White’s meth money to where all their relationship memories are stored. As she beings to cry Barney is in a cab with Quinn starring out the window probably thinking of a special someone. Who is he thinking of? Quinn? Robin? Bob Barker? Only time will tell.

 

In a last act twist we find out that Klaus (Victoria's fiancé) is also running away at the altar because she is not “the one” or whatever the German translation of that is. This reverts current Ted into season one Ted asking himself is Victoria really “the one" for him. Klaus reminds him you never know where or when it will happen but at some point it eventually will. Finally good old Mr. Saget comes in at the end to reveal while Ted does not yet know when he does know where. On a rainy night at this same station a young woman with a yellow umbrella and guitar will exit a cab and Ted will finally meet his wife. As for whether this meeting is this May, next May, or May 2024 the showrunners are still leading us down the same road we started eight years before. While we still do not know how long this journey may be (the showrunners are under the assumption this is the last season) we are one step closer in wrapping up one of the longest yet funniest love stories on television.

 

Episode Grade: B+

Episode MVP: Neil Patrick Harris (mostly for reciting the entire series in under a minute)

Original Airdate: 9/24/12