I’ve been a fan of “How I Met Your Mother” for a long time. It’s been the only show I’ve liked on CBS for years and I’m usually one of its biggest supporters. But what the hell is going on with this season?
The show was granted two more seasons at the end of last year. My understanding was this would allow for more direct storytelling about Ted finally meeting the mother. However, the first two episodes appear to set up a season long arc focusing on who will Barney marry? I know we’ve been told Ted meets the Mother at this wedding, but we probably won’t see that until the season finale (and that’s not even guaranteed). So for those most interested in getting a peak at the mom, this season of HIMYM has essentially turned into a NBA game where you only really need to watch the final two minutes of the 4th Quarter.
Luckily for me, I am not resigned to only caring about whom the Mother is and hopefully will enjoy this season’s batch of episodes. At least I thought that before watching the debacle last night as the episode focused on two things: Barney wanting to feel one of his best friend’s wife’s boobs and Ted trying to break up an impending marriage. Um, WHAT?
Let’s start with Ted. It’s been written many times before by other writers that Ted does some exceedingly unlikeable things for a character who is supposed to be the “hero”. He’s kind of a douchebag in how pretentious he is and often doesn’t seem like someone you’d want to spend time with. Those personality defects are almost forgivable and you could still kind of root for him to find the relationship he so badly wants. Then last season he breaks up Zoey and the Captain’s marriage and last night he tries to get Victoria to not get engaged to Claus. How are those actions of someone who values the love between two people so highly? Instead the writers have made Ted a homewrecker who only cares about how people relate to his quest for love, not how he affects their lives or future. Why would I want to see how he finally finds the woman of his dreams when he’s acting like this in the process?
Victoria also says at the end of the episode her and Ted’s relationship didn’t work out because of Robin. Now, we’ve been down this road MULTIPLE times before. Robin is not the Mother, so honestly I don’t care about her in regards to Ted. Again, they’ve set this season up to be about Barney and Robin and will she be the bride. It seems like shoehorning Ted into this equation is just a way to make the main character (who sucks because they write him that way) still a big part of the show. Plus, as CW and I just discussed, if the ending was foreshadowing to the group splitting up because of Robin then I might just stop watching right now. I watch this show because I like seeing these people interact with one another, if that stops, what keeps me tuning in?
Finally, while I enjoyed the idea of Barney’s mind games with Marshall and Lilly, the terms of the bet were ridiculously creepy and weird. Barney is a sexual deviant, we all know this. However, there’s always been the idea (at least to me) that some things were off limits. I find it difficult to believe the same guy who flew to San Francisco to tell Lilly to return to New York and Marshall would then years later try and touch her boobs. This just seems way over the line and I don’t see how a normal group of friends (which we are supposed to believe these people are) could ever be the same if something like that happened. And if we are supposed to believe Barney is so committed to changing for Nora, why is he making bets about touching another woman’s boobs? I find it difficult to believe she’d be cool with that.
I’m not going to stop watching HIMYM anytime soon, but this season just seems all over the place. The writers were given two more years to tighten things up and right now it seems to me they’re doing the exact opposite.
(Also, I am fully aware of the irony of a blogger whose pseudonym comes from a “Lost” character bitching about a show taking too long to answer a question while also going off in another directions.)
-Dr. Jack