Episode 11 - Little Minnesota
13 January 2009
Review
Synopsis: Ted’s sister Heather is moving to New York and needs Ted to co-sign the lease on an apartment. He is reluctant to do so because he thinks she is still as irresponsible as she was when she is younger. Heather and Barney pretend to have sex to prove that Ted is prejudging her. Meanwhile Marshall takes Robin to the bar he goes to when he’s feeling down, but she fits in a bit too well with the Minnesotan-theme.
The Good: Ted seems more comfortable when he is acting responsible and judgemental. It certainly fits with his character’s desire to be married and have a family. If Heather becomes a permanent character that will hopefully lead to some interesting new group dynamics. Barney can be funny.
The Bad: The writers of How I Met Your Mother don’t understand how sit com’s work. Or they are just incompetent. These are two relatively simple plots and they manage to mess both up.
First we have Heather arriving and the story is meant to show her having grown and matured and convincing Ted of that fact. But as a new character we also need to get to know her personality. On both counts this story fails. The writers needlessly give Barney and Lily important roles in the story which rob of Heather of any time to establish any kind of character. The story of her proving that she has changed gets largely ignored. The writers also go overboard in establishing how irresponsible she was with the flashback showing that she once sold Ted’s television and couch. That’s a criminal act which would make it very difficult for Ted to ever trust her again. We have no evidence beyond her refusing to buy a new bag of whether she really has changed or not.
The big twist that is meant to make up for the lack of character development is that she and Barney faked having sex to fool Ted. Umm. I don’t get it. Lily tells Ted that she saw them having sex and he understandably gets mad about it. The revelation that they faked it is supposed to somehow punish Ted. But how? How does that make him look foolish? Its not as if he jumped to a conclusion, they deliberately made him believe it. I suppose being taken in isn’t fun but its hardly apt revenge for Ted’s perfectly understandable lack of trust. It’s a typical messy bit of writing trying to make a point with a flashy bit of storytelling rather than genuine character development.
Over in Marshall’s bar the writers re-enact a plot from Frasier (510) where Daphne takes Frasier to her British bar only to become annoyed when he starts going there all the time. In the end of course they makeup and admit where they went wrong. The conclusion of the plot is fine here as Marshall and Robin makeup and he mocks her with a Robin Sparkles number (nice reference to 209). But in the meantime the plot fails to have any resonance. In Frasier there is a sense of time passing, reference is made to how often Frasier is visiting the bar and Daphne’s growing frustration. Here we just go from finding the bar to the next scene when Robin has stolen Marshall’s football story. There is no sense of time passing at all and it is classic inauthentic How I Met Your Mother.
The bar itself and its Canadian equivalent are also pretty fake. It’s so unconvincing to see a bar where everyone really does know your name or where non-Minnesotans are refused service. The Canadian jokes are weak as usual with Robin inexplicably breaking into oots when it serves the plot. Canadians are afraid of the dark? I don’t find it convincing that tough burly football lovers would consider that much of a joke.
On a separate note entirely, she may be badly written but Lily can’t act. We’ve sat through her butcher one traditional sit com quip after another but seeing her try to keep the big secret from Ted is painful. Obviously no character should be made to look so pathetically lacking in self control but her acting is as unconvincing as it has ever been.
Barney claiming he kissed Ted’s mum is a throwaway line which again ruins the authenticity of the story. Ted was furious that Barney might have slept with his sister, so why would he not get angry at this claim? That line should never have been included in this story.
Comic Highlight: Barney brings a special chair to Ted’s apartment just so that he can swivel round dramatically when Heather walks in. It’s one of those nice silly Barney moments which are plausible because of the amount of his money he has and the lengths he goes to in other areas of his life. As he heads to the kitchen with Ted he tells the others “No one touch the chair! It’s a rental.”
How I rate your episode: There’s not a lot wrong with this on paper. Marshall comforts Robin because she is out of work and they share a North North American background. Ted’s sister comes to town and Barney helps her prove to Ted that they can be trusted. But the execution is so poor and the jokes so formulaic that it’s irritating to sit through.
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