The Bad Guy

Tonight's How I Met Your Mother was like most college-based comedies: pretty funny start, but before you know it the it's almost over and you have barely laughed.  In all the episode was not the worst they've ever done but certainly nowhere near the best.

I thought we were in for a good episode with the first scene after the credits.  The great Peanuts reference with Barney only hear "wah-wah-wah" whenever a woman tells him she doesn't want drinks (or anyone giving him advice) was great use of Barney's more cartoonish side that NPH plays so well.  And unlike a lot of the outlandish Barney gags they have used recently this one did not seem forced at all. 

I also really like Wendy taking a shot at Ted's inability to tell a meeting story in a timely manner.  However, it did draw my attention to the fact we don't seem to be much closer to meeting the mother and we're wasting our time with Zoey, a relationship that doesn't seem valuable in regards to advancing the plot of the show (even Victoria was relevant in that she made Robin realize she liked Ted).  And since the chemistry between Josh Radnor and Jennifer Morrison just isn't there it also didn't sit well that they admitted that Zoey was not the mother, which we pretty much knew, and that we have a messy break-up coming up (which probably won't work because I was not too invested in the relationship from the start unlike the break-up with Robin or Stella).

After this great start all the only a few things we left that I really liked.  The first was the Barney-Robin-Nora plot.  The writers scripted, and NPH played, Barney's reaction to actually liking a girl perfectly.  Like the "wah-wah's" the Barney's adamant denial and childish attempts to prove to Robin he doesn't like Nora were organic and entertaining.  I also like how they are moving Barney back toward a relationship.  Barney on the prowl is great (cue Predator sounds) but if Nora turns out to be a true girlfriend it will be a nice change of pace.  I am very interested to see how Barney would handle a relationship that isn't with Robin, who is almost a female analogue. 

Like the episode as a whole I thought the Captain-Ted plot started strongly.  I loved the throwback joke of angry eyes, smiling mouth.  I was also intrigued by the irony that he was so upset about Zoey leaving the Captain for the man the Captain was finding solace in.  However I quickly was turned off by the whole good guy in Ted's version, bad guy in someone else's.  They did that last season with the "Wedding Bride" episode. 

The Marshall-Lilly plot was pretty weak.  It was kind of funny that Lilly couldn't keep her hands off Marshall while he was on his diatribe in the bar, but the Lilly is a nympho joke can only be done so many times.  I realize Marshall is at a very tough time in his life: he just lost his dad and he and Lilly are trying to have a baby, but his renewed interest in the NRDC seems out of nowhere.  Only a few episodes ago he told Lilly he really liked working at GNB and wanted to work there for a long time.  I can imagine that losing your dad suddenly and at a relatively young age can be earth-shattering, but the writers did not do a great job of conveying that being the underlying cause for the sudden 180.  And also, the Marshall as the bad guy didn't work at all; it was forced in there to try to tie 2 of the 3 plots together.

Other thoughts:

- No idea why we had to see Wendy the Waitress in 10 years to get this story.
-  It was really bizarre seeing the part of the bar where the camera usually is.  I thought they gave up on that early on.  They used it well if they were trying highlight that things weren't normal with Barney though.  All in all, keep that to the minimum though, the show has an unusually large amount of sets for a sit-com so variety is there; don't mess with the stock scenes.
- As I said earlier: We've known Zoey isn't the mother, the writers have now made it official.  Please stop teasing us with the real meeting: do it soon or put it out of our minds.