It's becoming ever clearer to me that this show should have given us the big finish and wrapped after season 7. They're inventing ways to invent ways to generate unwarranted drama and prolong the narrative, at this point.
And in this episode, ted tells a story about a time where he told a story about another time where he tells a story and he tells a story in that story
Review by Andrew BloomVIP 9BlockedParent2016-08-11T02:19:48Z
Ah man, HIMYM, how many times have you pulled some big moment out of your ass at the end of the episode and saved yourself from the absolute doldrums. This one was headed for "meh" or worse in my book, but you put together a well-edited montage, hint toward the grand finale, and throw in some "Funeral" by Band of Horses, and I am a complete sucker. That ending, replete with Klaus's trite but sweet speech about an overwhelming feeling for someone, is nice, but doesn't cover up the flaws of the rest of the episode enough to make it good.
Where to begin? Well, Ted wanting Victoria to leave a note is in character, and a nice consolation to him being an accomplice to someone else being left at the altar even knowing how much that hurts someone else. There's even some laughs as he's coaching Victoria on how to write it. But most of the sneaking around goes pretty broad, especially the East German bridesmaid guard, and the conflict is something of a dud. Klaus is funnier than I remembered (his not being sure what German words Ted knew or didn't know was a nice bit), especially considering I remembered thinking he was kind of annoying, but for the most part this was a wacky caper dropped into something a little more serious and heartfelt and the tonal clash didn't mesh well.
The shtick that Marshal and Lily were so exhausted from child-rearing that they couldn't understand what anyone was saying and were basically zombies was too broad as well. We're getting to some pretty hacky humor about parenting here, without any of the show's clever insights.
But the worst is the Robin and Barney stuff rearing its ugly head again. Even if you buy them having this strong attraction to one another, which I don't, the contrived plot twist of Robin suddenly having yet another boyfriend who you just provides another convenient obstacle, and Barney not having told Quinn that they used to date and it being this huge thing, screams of romantic drama for the sake of romantic drama. We know where this is heading (even if the opening gives us some reason to doubt), but it's just not believable, or at least not sold well enough, that Barney and Robin are carrying torches for one another, and that storage locker full of mementos from the time they were dating is trying too hard to make up for what the show can't sell in the way it writes the two characters to try to make them make sense together and convey that they have actual feelings for one another. If anything, the show is actually being like Ted here -- offering big gestures rather than actual substance. Sometimes, like the big moments in the end of episode montage set to affecting indie rock, that gets you pretty far, but it's a bandaid, not a cure. Let's hope it's not as much of a trudge to the finale as I remember.