Episode 7 - Dowisetrepla
12 January 2009
Review
Synopsis: Marshall and Lily decide to look for their own apartment. They end up wanting to buy one in the district of Dowisetrepla. Lily knows her credit card debt will prevent them from getting a good mortgage and tried to hide it from Marshall. Barney uses the apartment to seduce a girl without her knowing where he lives.
The Good: The storytelling gimmick this week is for a character to say something sensible before a freeze frame where older Ted says “is what they should have said” before we see the foolish thing that they actually came out with. It’s a clever device because it allows us to see the contrast between Lily and Marshall’s emotional state and what rationally they should have done. This allows us to sympathise with them and not get too annoyed by their bad decision making. We also see them both fantasising about their future life with their children. It allows for some nice character humour and further reinforces that they are letting their desire to have a happy marriage cloud their judgement.
Ted playing detective is another device to tell part of the story while keeping us in suspense about what happened. This is a clever scene because it avoids us seeing an unpleasant argument, gives the other characters some screen time and allows Robin and Barney to make a few jokes.
We get some nice comedy thrown in throughout the show. Barney talking about his date’s breasts, Marshall freaking out about peanut butter, Wendy the waitress getting hit by a champagne cork and Robin’s reactions to Lily’s shopping addiction.
Finally the Barney plot is very tightly scripted. He covers every commitment cliché he can as he deceives Meg into believing he is in love with her. His delivery is perfect as ever, looking plausible enough to make his lies convincing while being disingenuous enough to make them funny.
The Bad: However, how are we supposed to feel watching Barney’s deception? The male jerk character is a staple of sitcoms. But for that character to be funny their actions need to have some counter balance. As in some kind of justification for their behaviour because it is difficult to laugh at women being constantly deceived or mistreated. Barney’s counter balance is usually that his friends all condemn his bad behaviour and we do sometimes see him be punished for the things he does.
In this story though he lies and lies to this girl, seemingly for his own amusement. The scene where he sends Meg to the shower while coolly walking out is clearly played for laughs and yet what are we laughing at. It is a clever idea, Barney plays it well but ultimately it’s a bit uncomfortable to try and find humour in the face of such cruelty. The writers do try and make Meg seem a little crazy by having her be ludicrously overzealous about commitment. If it’s an attempt to make this scene more surreal and silly to take the sting out of it, it didn’t really work.
I am far from familiar about how New York City realtors operate. But I am sure they don’t hand out keys to prospective buyers when the owners still live in the property.
This episode is full of fun. It tells lots of good jokes in clever ways as it shares the telling of the story of the house purchase between the five characters. But it’s still not really funny. There are no big laughs in sight. As good as the show can get it doesn’t approach the kind of laughter that a good sit com should have.
Comic Highlight: A clever use of the freeze frame voice over. Marshall orders the comically large bottle of champagne and then says to Ted “Wait! That cork is the size of a softball and you’re pointing it directly at Wendy the waitress’ face.” Older Ted steps in with “Is what he should have said.” The screen goes black and we hear a very pained scream.
Conclusion: This is one of the busiest episodes of How I Met Your Mother that I can remember. Loads of narrative jumps and different settings make this an action packed show. It makes for a strong episode as they cover a lot of ground with jokes ever present. But here at its best, the show is lacking laughs to make it a really good sitcom. It seems to be a flaw it can’t overcome.
Feedback
Add your comments on this episode below. They may be included in the weekly podcasts.
’)