Episode 12 - Girls Vs. Suits
20 January 2010
Review
Synopsis: A hot bartender (Stacy Keibler) starts work at MacLaren’s and Barney is determined to seduce her. The only problem is she hates suits. Meanwhile Ted dates a college student whose roommate is his future wife (the mother).
The Good: There is plenty to enjoy here on a basic level. Ted getting so close to meeting the mother keeps that story bubbling away in the background. Certainly the use of the yellow umbrella is a nice bit of continuity. The umbrella appeared as a clue two years ago (301) and Ted picked it up at a club soon after (312). Now by accident he has returned it to its rightful owner which of course will confuse her completely and hopefully lead to their meeting in a fun way.
As for Barney, he is a master of old fashioned sit com acting. By that I mean he exaggerates and plays up his emotions to the back row rather than going for subtlety. But because his character’s intentions are so consistent there is nothing implausible enough about his behaviour to turn you off the character. So here he goes through his whole range: arrogant, smarmy, braggadocios then needy, tears, both real and fake before even bursting into song. The song is fun and a nice scene to hook a casual viewer on the show’s major asset. i.e. Barney.
The Bad: Of course both main plots have so little depth that it is hard to enjoy them. How I Met Your Mother just isn’t that funny a show and so it needs entertaining plots to keep things interesting.
It was a real waste of Rachel Bilson to have her play just the roommate and have no real character to speak of. Ted threatening to break college rules to get to know her would have seemed more plausible if she had shown more personality besides being insecure. And although the trivia about the mother sounds intriguing, it doesn’t actually get us any closer to knowing who she is, so is essentially irrelevant.
As for Barney and his suits and his musical number. In a way this episode was a monument to the fact that Barney is the only thing this show has. Bays and Thomas (the creators and producers) whether by accident or design came up with a winning comedy formula in Barney. But they have leant so heavily on him that the show is almost built around him now. And he isn’t a real character so the show has become less real and therefore less good. By that I just mean less able to capture our emotions or make us laugh because the plots have become sillier and more irrelevant.
Comic Highlight: Lily and Marshall arguing over whether the bar maid was hot was actually the most real and most subtle part of the episode. Marshall wasn’t attracted to her but Lily assumed he was just sucking up to her which was a natural response. She mockingly calls him gay to which he amusingly and affectionately responds “Hell yeah I’m gay. Gay for you.”
How I rate your episode: How I Met Your Mother was compared to Friends when it debuted. It was a lazy comparison as the show had a lot more in common with Coupling. But in one respect it has become like Friends and that is in the exaggerated gimmicky way the jokes have drifted. Barney’s dance number is similar to Ross and Monica’s ludicrous routine (610) although not nearly as funny because it wasn’t real. A neat analogy for the whole show.
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