Episode 19 - Everything Must Go
12 January 2009
Review
Synopsis: Lily and Marshall have to pay a contractor fifteen hundred dollars to get their slanted floor fixed. Lily suggests she sell some of her paintings while Marshall prefers to sell her expensive clothes. Barney discovers that Abby (Britney Spears) was the girl telling women not to date him. She still loves Ted and together they try to prove how lame he is.
The Good: Lily and Marshall stories tend to be feel good ones. If you like predictable happy endings then I suppose you might like this.
The Bad: Everything else. There just isn’t a way that these writers can make Marshall and Lily funny. Their story is predictable, you know she won’t be a complete failure and you know they will be happy together at the end.
So their attempts to make this funny involve the following: Lily believing that Marshall asked her to prostitute herself which comes out all wrong in tone because she would never have believed that. Them finding a website about a guy making his wife wear a garbage bag which is silly and in no way funny. A very flippant scene with a heroin addict who threatens to mug Lily which is a bad idea even if it was at all humorous and finally birds hating Lily’s paintings. Yes indeed, animals reacting to art, which makes no sense because they wouldn’t recognise a painting from the wall itself. Logic wouldn’t even matter if any of this was funny.
Meanwhile Britney Spears is back to play a silly character. Abby doesn’t resemble a real person and so her obsession with Ted just doesn’t strike any chord of humour. It just looks like desperate writing and her constant praise of Ted while pretending to hate him is so obvious that it feels like viewers intelligence is being insulted.
Finally there are Ted’s red cowboy boots which again aren’t funny. There is nothing inherently funny about wearing them and Ted sincerely believes they look good so there is no real laugh to be had at him. It’s not as if he is being arrogant or pretentious by wearing them, they are just unconventional.
Comic Highlight: Barney and Abby are in a taxi together and begin sharing their grievances about Ted:
B: Ted. What an idiot. With his stupid “meaningful relationship” with Stella.
A: Ted.
B: Ted.
A: I hate Ted.
B: I hate Ted more.
A: Are you as turned on as I am?
B: Probably not quite as much.
Barney’s delivery is pretty good.
How I rate your episode: I don’t think How I Met Your Mother got much of a boost from having Britney back on the show. At least the ratings for this episode were not nearly as high as her last visit (313) and that is probably for the best because this is bad television. Abby is such an unreal character that she is out of place in the show. The episode is dull, predictable and devoid of humour anyway, so there is nothing to held carry her story either.
Feedback
Add your comments on this episode below. They may be included in the weekly podcasts.
’)