Sing Along with HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER (Update)

Hey everyone, it’s Jen. I’m determined to talk about last night’s HIMYM no matter how exhausted I am. I’m working on less than 2hrs of sleep and if you worked where I do, you’d understand why even when you finally escape the company holiday party, it’s really only the beginning of the festivities.

Someone finally heard my faint cries for some Marshall and Robin bonding. I’ve been waiting for this coupling long before Robin wanted a piece of that during last week’s episode. There has been a lot of her interacting with Ted, Barney and Lily separately, but not so much with Marshall. We’ve seen in past episodes that there is a friendship but we’ve never really seen how strong it is. Marshall and Robin having their own home (and world) away from home was a great way for them to bond. It also felt like a slight tip of the hat that as we all get older, separate from our families and build our own families and traditions, we still appreciate where we come from and hold it dear. Just because you can’t be at your childhood home for the holidays, doesn’t mean your childhood home is far from your heart. Aahh, am I getting sentimental due to all the holiday-themed episodes at this time of year?

I loved Robin’s love for the real men at the Minnesota-themed bar. No hair products, no manicures, that New York men are 10% female and then cut to Barney. Is this the writers’ way of showing us that while Barney may have feelings for Robin, she doesn’t share the same ones for him? Or is this her backwards talk? She says she dislikes or disagrees with something but ends up partaking in the end. Eh, I’m getting myself confused on the whole Robarn front. ‘Til next year, my friends, we got nothing in this episode.

I did take notice that the stereotypical attire for men from Minnesota happens to be either a Vikings jersey or flannel shirts from Al Borland’s closet. While I don’t mind a tiny little jab using stereotypes, I didn’t get what was so funny about Canadians being afraid of the dark. Really? That’s what they are going with to make fun of them? [Side note: Upon further thought, “Are You Afraid of the Dark?” was a Canadian show, maybe that’s the joke…eh…still not that funny to me. But yea for JoAnna Garcia being on that show. Love her!]

All and all a cute episode, but nothing spectacular. While there was a lot of heart and a few great parts, this isn’t my favorite of neither the season nor one of my favorite holiday episodes of this series. A couple of cute gags here and there do not a great episode make. The Heather Mosby part of the storyline ran sort of boring for me. It felt too obvious that she and Barney didn’t sleep together. Maybe that’s just me because I watch a heck of a lot of TV but I saw that as soon as Lily was walking in. Lily being a blabbermouth also didn’t ring entirely true to me. While she can’t keep many secrets from Marshall and they have a tendency to tell each other every little detail of their day, she does have the ability to withhold information from her friends, for instance her credit card debt and currently Barney’s infatuation of Robin. For her all the sudden to not be able to keep one thing a secret just felt a little like forced comedy for me. A means to an end for the writers that didn’t really stand true to the character. Between Heather and Ted, it was the standard “responsible older sibling/wild child little sibling” formula with a “Very Brady Christmas” bow tied at the end. No surprises there, nothing that sparked anything to get me enthused about Heather’s supposedly impending move to NYC or what I assume is that Ted now has two apartments.

I was excited initially about Barney meeting Heather, due to his holiday jingles (hilarious!) and the swiveling in his rented chair, brandy snifter in hand. There was so much promise with the Barney/Heather storyline but I felt that with Lily blabbermouth and Ted treating Heather like a child, it took away from potentially funnier scenarios that could have happened between Ted’s sister and Ted’s 2nd best friend.

My kudos goes to the two musical portions of the episode and the shirtless NPH moment. Marshall’s heartfelt talk to Robin on the stairs is also a highlight for me. Marshall has a way with words and meaning though they did let her go off to live in Japan for a minute.

What were your highlights from this episode? Did you finally get “Let’s Go to the Mall” out of your head only for them to put it straight back in there?

Our HIMYM aficionado Jen can’t believe that the year 2008 is nearing its close. I hope everyone has a yamaclaus to wear, enjoys a wonderful holiday season and gets at least one of the TV on DVD sets on your wish list. Fingers crossed on the SFU series set under my tree!

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Feel better, Jen!!