WELL, I GUESS IT WAS GOOD SEEING CHRIS KATTAN TEMPORARILY EMPLOYED: I suppose there might be something interesting in seeing people react to their being depicted in fiction, but I'll bet you any two random people at the Jamaican Jerk Hut could've come up with a better way to do it than what we saw in tonight's HIMYM. It's been a bad season, with no real momentum towards finding YM, no interesting emotional arcs, not even a great catchphrase I can remember.
Still, one thing almost redeemed the episode: the use of one of my favorite musical cues in recent cinema. I speak, of course, of the Running Through Heathrow music at the end of Love Actually. Other than that, I'm sure the writers were proud of their work in the in-front-of-the-screen scene, but that was just a dreadfully uninteresting half-hour of television.
The use of the Love Actually song made me smile as well. However I'm surprised the reference wasn't mentioned in many recaps
ReplyDeleteI give them credit for the clever baggage sight gag and some smart callbacks (Robin/Ted's "Major Baggage" thing), but this season has just generally misfired all around (though the "smoking" episode was clever). It's like they've been running in place with the characters, afraid to develop them in some way because the logical next steps (Marshall and Lily having a baby, Robin getting into a serious relationship that we see on screen, Ted finding YM) all alter the fabric of the show substantially and they're afraid of doing that.
ReplyDeleteI actually considered this one of my favorite episodes in an admittedly disappointing season. The only problems I had with it were 1) When you make the movie-inside-the-show that awful, why make the case that it's one of the top grossing movies in world history? and 2) the final scene was kinda a copout with Ted running as soon as she saw her baggage. I was hoping we might have Judy Greer stick around for a while. But it was fun to pause the screen during that one scene and see everyone's baggage (still hopes ska band will take off, cubs fan, all the "Slept With Barneys").
ReplyDeleteChris Kattan is a regular cast member of ABC's "The Middle".
ReplyDeleteI too loved the baggage people had (as a Chicagoan, cubs fan made me laugh pretty hard), and I too was kind of pissed that the end scene was just as you put it StvMg a copout. It very much cheapened the episode whether or not Judy Greer was going to stick around or totally not work out. It wasn't even funny.
ReplyDeleteThe disconnect between what we saw of the film and its supposed greatness was as bad as the supposed hilarity of the sketches from Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. I suppose that part of this is that Ted is an unreliable narrator and no one else saw the film as being so hacky. The best metaphors that the show uses apply to everyone's stories. Here, the wacky Marshall as too nice plot was a stretch to connect with the baggage metaphor. And Barney seems like he would have much more to say about baggage. Great tag, though. But it seems like the baggage metaphor could have been broken out into its own episode, and the Wedding Bride idea was a good enough of an idea that it could have carried the entire episode.
ReplyDeleteAlso, reports are suggesting that HIMYM may be on the move next season, with them trying to launch two new sitcoms on Monday--so CBS apparently has some faith in it.
ReplyDeletePretty much. They might just want to pick an end date and have one year where Marshall and Lily have the inevitable kid, Robin moves on, Barney continues to be Barney, and Ted meets the mother, and then the show ends.
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