Episode 5 - Duel Citizenship
27 October 2009
Review
Synopsis: Robin gets into a bar fight and faces deportation. Barney helps her prepare for an American citizenship test but she begins to question her identity. Ted and Marshall learn that their favourite road trip destination is closing and they decide to drive there one last time. But Marshall brings Lily much to Ted’s disappointment.
The Good: The couple of shots of Ted and Marshall back on their old road trips were good. They looked like they were genuinely having fun and there was nice continuity of having the Proclaimers playing in the Fiero (217).
The Bad: Otherwise this was another turd of an episode. It’s not that difficult to write plots which actually examine where a character is at emotionally. How I Met Your Mother used to do these episodes just fine. Now the deeply unconvincing nature of everything they do rots any story they try to tell.
Not for a moment does it feel like Robin is in any real jeopardy of being deported. While not as useless as the last time this issue was addressed (414), the story just doesn’t go anywhere. In the end her dull statement that she will get duel citizenship just makes you wonder why this was a story at all when the solution was so simple.
But on the way to that flat conclusion we have Barney lecturing her about what it is to be American. The liberal spiel he uses to mock the worst stereotypes about Americans doesn’t sound exactly like Barney. This is a man who spends his whole time being patriotic and mocking Canada and other countries for not being like America. His grandstanding speech in Tim Horton’s also felt deeply unnecessary. The underlying purpose of the speech was for him to point out his feelings about Robin but why he needed to stand on the chair I don’t know. It just felt like another attempt to make the show more interesting without being thought through. Then a bunch of Canadians beat him up really badly. I know it’s only a sit com but that just shouldn’t happen without a sense of real consequence. And still he and Robin don’t look like they have actual feelings for one another. There’s no chemistry or overt affection, their relationship hasn’t sunk into their acting yet.
Meanwhile Ted gets pissy with Marshall for inviting Lily on their road trip. The problem at the core of this story is that we never knew Marshall and Ted as best friends. The entire length of the show Marshall and Lily have been the most couply couple on TV. Worse than that, we know that back in college Marshall and Lily were together soon after meeting. So you have to ask – shouldn’t Ted be used to this by now? Couldn’t he have just asked Lily not to come? The tension in the friendship just felt manufactured as a result.
Of course none of it was as bad as the Tantrum jokes. Introducing a fake product so that you can have your characters behave in completely implausible ways is about as cheap and desperate as sit com writing can get. They actually show a mouse blowing up just from drinking Tantrum, it has no basis in reality. The writers have a very limited idea of how to be funny and so they resort to the worst of all sit com ideas far too often. And again with the couples jokes! Yes a bed and breakfast where the only singles activity is sitting on a bench. That would never happen in real life, it’s so unbearably annoying to sit through.
Comic Highlight: Barney pulls back Robin’s hotel window curtains. He is hoping it will reveal the Toronto skyline but instead it faces only a brick wall. It was a nice plausible joke which fitted Barney’s character.
How I rate your episode: A waste of time.
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