I really is nice to give a person a hug. We really should hug more. :hugging:
While the whole intervention thing throughout the show consists of a comedic nature, it was a stupid decision on Ted's part or whoever stole Marshall's charts and graphs in this episode. As Marshall said, he needs them for work. That was most likely the whole reason he even started having various ones made in regards to things that had nothing to do with his work.
7.5/10. I'm a sucker for a well-structured episode, and the way this one works, by setting up a frame story of the events that led Ted to bump into Stella, with him retracing those steps and recounting the events that led him there, is perfect in how it builds both anticipation and organic storytelling. Admittedly, if I didn't know that the whole implication that he was going to run into The Mother rather than Stella was a fakeout, I might have been more perturbed about it (and I don't remember how I felt about that choice when I first watched the episode), but everything from the rabbit holes that led Ted to his stops along the way to that crosswalk, to the fanciful montage of him running and hugging everyone tangentially involved was great.
As for the stories themselves, they were a little more hit and miss. Robin throwing up after having bad bagels had a couple of cute lines, ("I bought the cutest purse today") but didn't do too much for me. Marshall's chart addiction was the funniest of the three, with some cute one off gags like his pie-chart of favorite bars and bar graph of favorite pies, and the intervention was a great place to go with it.
I have more mixed feelings about Barney's story. It's nice to see the show acknowledge that his whole pickup artist schtick is kind of gross, but the entire storyline feels like another weak retcon meant to add yet another spackled-on layer to his mythos and find some magical solution to how, despite the fact that he's been a sleaze-hound since the show began, he's suddenly ready for a mature relationship with Robin and won't be compelled to keep up his womanizing. That whole element of it feels cheap and threatens to bring down that part of the episode, even if NPH--pro that he is--is able to wring the comedy from Barney being oblivious to everyone's ideas that his "achievement" isn't the awesomest thing to ever awesome.
But overall, I like the structure of the episode, I like the comedy for the most part, and even if some of the tangent stories are better than others, I appreciate the idea that there's lots of little things that add up to the big events in your life. I don't believe in fate or destiny or ideas like that, but I do believe in the idea that small choices can have unexpectedly big consequences down the line, and this was a nice encapsulation of that, with some lyrical dialogue to drive the point home to boot.
Shout by MeiBlockedParent2017-08-25T01:38:09Z
"The great moments of your life won't necessarily be the things you do, they'll also be the things that happen to you. Now, I'm not saying you can't take action to affect the outcome of your life, you have to take action, and you will. But never forget that on any day, you can step out the front door and your whole life can change forever. You see, the universe has a plan kids, and that plan is always in motion. A butterfly flaps its wings, and it starts to rain. It's a scary thought but it's also kind of wonderful. All these little parts of the machine constantly working, making sure that you end up exactly where you're supposed to be, exactly when you're supposed to be there. The right place at the right time."