Episode 4 - The Sexless Innkeeper
19 October 2009
Review
Synopsis: Ted tries to prove that tweed will turn women on. Marshall and Lily try really hard to make Robin and Barney their new best couple friends. Robin and Barney “dump” them for being weird but soon regret it. When Marshall and Lily make friends with a new couple Barney and Robin realise what they are missing.
The Good: Once again the tone of the episode is about a bunch of friends who care about one another and that is difficult to knock.
The Bad: This isn’t the worst episode of How I Met Your Mother. It’s deliberately cheesy in a way which draws my anger away because it’s clear that the writers are attempting a big saccharine parody rather than a serious story. Certainly the story is well paced and never becomes boring.
It does however showcase all the worst habits of How I Met Your Mother, one after another after another. First is of course characters behaving irrationally. It’s my biggest beef with this show and it is so annoying exactly because the characters are far more convincing than many a half assed sit com of yesteryear. We all know that sit com characters inevitably reveal hidden talents, secrets and embarrassing passions as the years go by because the writers need new characteristics which can drive funny plots. I think we can all accept this logic.
But those new characteristics should at least fit into a characters established traits. Why is it that Lily can be entirely rational and logical when dealing with her job or with other people’s problems but acts irrationally around other couples? Yes she wants badly to have a couple who will become close friends with her and Marshall. But the more hysterical the two of them act and the less they seem capable of reading other peoples discomfort, the less real those scenes become. All sit coms do it but How I Met Your Mother has a habit of piling the irrational behaviour on and on and on until there’s no credibility left in the scene.
This all might not be so annoying if it weren’t for three facts. The first and most irritating is that these are not strangers, they are Barney and Robin. Two of their closest friends who they see on a daily basis. The four of them have an established dynamic and for Marshall and Lily to be so oblivious to how they come across doesn’t make sense. For example, surely Marshall would have already told them his Sammy Hagar story many times already? The second issue is why Robin and Barney don’t already know about this needy behaviour. Surely Robin saw some of it when she was Ted’s girlfriend? Let alone just hearing about it when they all hang out at the bar. The final issue I had with the abnormal behaviour is that Marshall and Lily avoided a couple behaving exactly like this a couple of years ago (311).
Bottom line is that we are expected to believe that a couple of rational people will suddenly behave completely irrationally despite the fact that they have seen this behaviour before in others and they are dealing with close friends who know them well. Of course none of it is believable. I suspect the producers defence of this would rest on it being a fun parody of how relationships work out in movies but the parody being this is two couples rather than two people.
I would argue that the parody goes too far in undermining the sense of reality. But more than that I would just say it isn’t funny. Barney and Robin arrive at a restaurant for dinner and are shamed into leaving because they are just a couple and not two couples. It’s such a cute joke that it’s ridiculous. Yes it adds to the silly montage of Robin and Barney’s loneliness but it would never happen. Is this is a spoof film or a sit com? You can’t expect us to care about Ted’s life as if it were real when you throw in things which aren’t meant to be real.
Another of the writers’ pet ideas is the use of gimmicks. Websites, videos, historical flashbacks have all been used as a crutch to create humour and I have found almost all of them contrived and so desperate for laughter that they fall flat. Here we get the sexless innkeeper poem and Marshall’s endless montage videos. The poem feels like the writers couldn’t think of a way to make the idea funny on its own so they dressed it up with silly rhymes to try and squeeze out a giggle. Similarly Marshall’s videos are so in your face. Look! Look! Look how over the top he is, look how desperate he is for attention. Look how inappropriate all his pictures are. Look what bad judgement he has. Look! Look! I just begin asking myself who is supposed to be taking pictures of Marshall being assaulted by cat lovers.
Comic Highlight: Probably Ted’s surprise at Barney wearing sweatpants. “Maybe” Barney retorts “but they’re Armani.”
How I rate your episode: I understand the idea behind parody humour. Let’s do an episode about two couples acting like two people do in romantic comedies. We’ll finish with the big emotional scene in the rain; people will laugh at the very idea. But this isn’t a sketch show, it’s a sit com. We are supposed to care about their relationships and career paths; why else do stories about those things? As a result this just irritated me and I don’t think the producers realise how desperate for laughs they appear.
Feedback
Add your comments on this episode below. They may be included in the weekly podcasts.
’)