Tuesday 19 April 2011

How I Met Your Mother - S6 E21 - Hopeless

Barney attempts to connect with his father while Robin encounters an old crush.


Spoilers after the jump.

It's pretty awesome that a throwaway gag like Ted's red cowboy boots can be revived in a way that makes sense, such is the quality of this show. The comparison Robin makes regarding them is not very fair though. It's implied that he only bought them because a pretty salesgirl told him they would look good on him but considering all subsequent dialogue with Robin about the boots, it's likely he actually thought they had some sexual allure about them. It's not quite the same as carrying a torch for some random guy for four years. She always had a little trouble accepting Ted as a partner even through all he did for her and that seems to be back here, so dismayed is she at having to pretend to be his girlfriend. Random Guy kinda seems weird but if he can come in and prevent Robin and Barney hooking back up as was hinted at in this episode, I'm all for him. Let's not go back down that horribly misguided path.

The other storyline was well crafted as usual. I complained of last week's 30 Rock relying on cheating the audience with Pete's storyline, but here, everything you need to figure out what's really happening with Jerome is referenced in the opening flashback. Trying to show Barney that "Crazy Jerry" wasn't so fun seemed like a bad idea to the audience at least who have watched Barney for years and knew it would backfire, but Jerome of course doesn't; he is just beginning to scratch the surface on what makes him tick but at least they're making progress now. I wonder if Jerome's student was able to drive home OK? It seems they woke her up in the middle of the night, though she was an old lady so maybe she went to sleep real early anyway...

How awesome was the "band" playing the opening intro song? I would submit that it "Ledengary". Marshall's alternate "job" writing rock operas sounds like a reference to his character in Forgetting Sarah Marshall where his masterpiece was a rock opera about Dracula. Lily's attractiveness is a bit of an informed ability for me - I haven't found Alyson Hannigan attractive since season 3 of Buffy. I know some people who would call me a blasphemer for that. This was a lot of fun, with the Ted/Robin interaction it had the feel of an episode from an earlier season when the show was at the peak of its powers.


"How I Met Your Mother" airs Mondays on CBS at 8:00 pm EST.

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