How I Met Your Mother 200th Episode Review: "How Your Mother Met Me"

In my recent “Rest of 2013” piece, I criticized the writers of How I Met Your Mother for not using The Mother more in the final season.  Introduced in the closing moments of the eighth season finale, The Mother (played by Cristin Milioti) has been a breath of fresh air for the show.  How I Met Your Mother is in its ninth season and like just about every show that makes it to this point, the quality wanes.  The Mother’s appearances have been highlights, but unfortunately there’s the small detail that she and Ted (the ‘I’ of the title) can’t meet in the present part of the timeline until the finale.  While she’s shown up in other character’s storylines and in flashbacks and flash forwards, she’s been largely relegated to the sidelines until the 200^th episode “How Your Mother Met Me”.

The episode plays a bit like what I call a “Zeppo” episode (after the Buffy episode), where the show shifts its focus from the usual characters to supporting characters.  “How Your Mother Met Me” serves to fill us in on what The Mother has been doing for the past eight seasons.  It starts on a surprisingly tragic note, as she learns the man she believed was “the one” has died, and on her 21^st birthday no less.  Nobody at 21 expects something like that to happen, so that traumatic event expectedly echoes throughout her twenties.  Milioti nails the heartbreak, and the pace of the episode keeps it from being maudlin.

Most of the episode plays catch up as we follow The Mother across the major road markers of near misses Ted and she have had over the years.  They manage to cram a lot of call backs from the show in this episode’s 22 minutes; from The Mother being friends with “The Naked Man” Mitch to all the small details about her that Future Ted’s sprinkled throughout the run.  I definitely wish we could’ve seen more in this episode (or better yet, more of it), but for a single episode, they made excellent use of their time.

It culminates with The Mother, having decided to move on alone, singing a haunting rendition of “La Vie En Rose”.  “La Vie En Rose” is a beautiful song, but what makes this scene so potent is Milioti’s performance both as a singer and actress.  It might not be how she would sing it if she were cutting the song for an album, but it makes sense that that’s how The Mother would play it.  All the grief and heartbreak is there (anytime it appears that her voice breaks a little is a master touch), yet there is that sense that deep down The Mother is still a romantic like Ted, who no doubt fell in love with her hearing her sing it over the partition between their adjoining rooms.

Before they introduced The Mother, there was the common belief that the show should have ended the moment Ted and The Mother met.  Ultimately this episode proves just how bad an ending that would’ve been.  If that had happened The Mother would be just an object.  It might as well have been some expensive item Ted saved up for for eight years.  Having us meet The Mother before Ted does was the right thing to do and this episode serves to get us invested in her story so we end up falling in love with her and rooting for her to find that second chance we know is coming.

No doubt casting The Mother was a difficult process.  Finding someone to live up to the hype of eight seasons of TV, not to mention justify the existence of a subpar ninth, could have been a complete disaster with the wrong woman.  Luckily they found the perfect woman for Ted in Milioti and the case made for her here was Emmy worthy.  I understand the frustration some viewers have had in reaction to this episode after sitting through filler episodes (this reinforces my initial complaint that she was underused in the season so far), but this episode could be one that redeems the season.  This episode shows that while the series has seen better days, the heart of the show can be as strong as ever.

Miscellaneous:

-Among the things debunked: the Mother wasn’t the ideal match from the dating service Ted blew off in season one, nor was he the random woman who Ted bumped into during St. Patrick’s Day 2008.

-No confirmation on her name though, so the “Tracy” theory from way back in season one’s “Belly Full of Turkey” (Where Ted tricked his kids into thinking The Mother was a stripper with that name) is still valid.

-Louis is played by Louis Ferrigno Jr., Lou Ferrigno’s son.  Also Linus is played by Robert Belushi, Jim Belushi’s son.

-I may be wrong, but is this the first episode where neither Robin nor Marshall have any lines?

-I don’t know if they intended this, but both episodes divisible by 100 ended in musical numbers, though they couldn’t be more different.  “Girls Vs. Suits” ended with the elaborate song and dance number “Nothing Suits Me Like a Suit”, complete with dozens of backup dancers and Neil Patrick Harris being funny.  This one ends with a stripped down, intimate performance of just a ukulele and Milioti.  I don’t know which one I prefer, but both were fantastic.

The Rest of 2013 TV

In my attempt to get back into regular blogging, here is my first part looking back on the year in TV for 2013.  There was a lot of great stuff out there, but for my first part I’m getting the bad stuff over with first.  Here is my “Rest of 2013” list.  Since I’m not a professional and can pick and choose what I watch, stuff like Hostages and Dads were spared.  This is my list of the disappointments, the over praised and the just plain worst TV I watched in 2013.

Most Overrated: House of Cards – Admittedly, I still haven’t finished the first season (I’ve seen through episode nine), but even still, the remaining episodes would have to be “Ozymandias”/”Rains of Castamere”/”Hitting the Fan” levels of awesome to overcome it.  Had this not had the novelty of being Netflix’s first show, this would’ve been easily forgotten.  Although it was well produced and acted, the writers so wanted this show to be The Sopranos/The Wire or any other antihero show while failing to understand why the great antihero shows are great.  There’s no formidable opponent for Francis Underwood to do battle with, most of the characters are one note and for a show that was released all at once to encourage binge watching it was a slog, especially around the middle of the season when I gave up on it.

Biggest Disappointment: Arrested Development Season Four – Mitch Hurwitz really should have known better.  For a guy who talked endlessly about bringing back the Bluth family for more, this mess of a season had fans wondering what he was even talking about.  From the unwatchable first couple episodes to the excessive runtimes to the lack of any satisfying payoff (because—sigh—this was just setting up the movie that, considering the uphill battle it was to get this made, may never happen), Arrested Development’s latest and possibly final season was a missed opportunity that was highly ambitious but unforgivably sloppy.

Most Frustrating Disappointment: Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. – Remember going into this fall TV season when we all thought Sleepy Hollow was going to be a huge bomb and S.H.I.E.L.D. was going to be the big hit?  Hard to believe Sleepy Hollow turned into watchable fun and S.H.I.E.L.D. was such a dud.  With bland characters and storylines that resemble interchangeable late 90s syndicated action shows, S.H.I.E.L.D. is the first commercial misfire in the Marvel Multimedia Universe and a punch line among even the most ardent comic fans.  The only winner here is Dollhouse, which is no longer the worst show Joss Whedon’s done.  Maybe he should take a break from making Avengers 2 to correct this once sure thing.

Most Expected Disappointment: Community Season Four – We all saw it coming.  After firing show runner Dan Harmon the show continued in a shadow of itself, like something made by people who have only read about the show and tried to replicate it without understanding what made it good (see also: House of Cards).  The show felt flat, the characters meandered and bottom line, it wasn’t funny.  The show’s fifth season had Harmon back and it seems to be getting back on track, even planting seeds of referring to last season as the “gas leak season”.

Stupidest Show: The Following – Good God what a stupid, joyless show.  I gave up on this one after one of the acolytes killed himself by eating gauze with no hands (seriously?  Are you sure you’re not trying to be a sitcom?) and judging from what I heard, it didn’t get much better.  From over relying on characters making dumb choices solely to move to plot along and having random characters turn out to be followers when they found themselves stuck in a corner, The Following exemplified lazy writing.  The talented cast (Kevin Bacon, James Purefoy and Justified’s Natalie Zea) deserve so much better.

Most Derivative: Hemlock Grove – Imagine all the worst parts of True Blood, Walking Dead, Vampire Diaries, American Horror Story and Dexter (down to the theme for Hemlock Grove being a clear rip off of Dexter’s “Blood Theme”) duck taped together and it comes close to this, which I gave up on after only two episodes.  Poorly produced, acted, written and filled with a lot of misogyny, Hemlock Grove was a prime example of Netflix shows that wanted to be a type of show rather than just being it.

Worst Show I Watched the Entire Season Of: True Blood – Hoooo boy.  The show ran out of creative steam three years ago and man is it apparent here.  They literally benched this season’s big bad in the fairy world or whatever for the better part of the season.  However this, on top of the regular problems True Blood has (the irrelevant subplots that add nothing to the show), was overshadowed by that baffling finale.  After wrapping up the main storyline of the season, the show suddenly jumps ahead six months and the writers pretty much say “Who cares?  Let’s just take some nonsensical fan fiction, make it canon and not bother explaining any of it.”  It plays like someone really wanted to get fired.

Honorable Mention: Sons of Anarchy – It had one great episode, but the penultimate season of the FX smash was filled with problems.  It started with a school shooting, which in retrospect was done poorly because they used it purely for shock value then buried anything that would’ve earned the controversial move.  Then we had the runtimes of the episodes, which rivaled Arrested Development’s fourth season in sheer bloat (the season finale ran two hours, an hour and a half of which nothing happened).  Often it just feels like the shocking things were done in desperate search for story, like what happens to a major character in the finale.  There’s only one season left, but I don’t know if I’m up for spending any more time in Charming.

Worst Subplot in an Otherwise Great Show: Theon Greyjoy’s subplot in this season of Game of Thrones – “Theon (Alfie Allen) gets tortured” pretty much sums up what happened to him during the entire third season.  That’s it.  Nearly every episode featured him going through the ringer at the mercy of the psychopath Ramsay Snow (Misfits’ Iwan Rheon).  They stretched a little out a lot a long way and it grew tiring.  We didn’t really learn much about what happened until an info dump in the finale.  I know there are book reasons for why this drags (I won’t get into here for those like me who haven’t read ahead, suffice to say the second book does a better job setting this up than the second season), and this shows the shortcomings of having to adapt a book for TV or film.  For a show with dozens of characters occupying many subplots, this one was the clear weak link in an otherwise stellar season.

Most baffling network decisions: The gutting of G4 and FXX – It really is a shame what happened to G4. They were needlessly left to die, as most of its staff were fired last January to make room for Esquire to take over in April 2013.  Then they pushed Esquire’s launch back for several months, leaving G4 adrift with random repeats and movies.  In a final middle finger to G4, Esquire takes over for Style Network, which is what they should’ve done in the first place.  What were they thinking?  Now G4 is all but dead, taken off from even its parent company Comcast.

Then we have FXX, the new FX offshoot that doesn’t make any sense whatsoever.  What is it supposed to be?  Is it just for comedy?  Then why are Archer and new show Chozen airing on FX?  And why is FXX airing its original programming against FX original programming?  It just lead to really low rated seasons of The League, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia and Totally Biased with W. Kamau Bell, the latter of which was canceled.  Maybe FXX will eventually find a groove, but for now, its existence seems completely unnecessary.

Biggest Failure to Jumpstart a New Show: Any attempt to get Breaking Bad fans to stick around for Low Winter Sun.  Remember when Lost was on and they would always try to put on a similar themed genre show after it?  Also remember how that show would inevitably tank because Lost fans weren’t interesting in anything other than digesting the episode of Lost they just watched?  Low Winter Sun was that for Breaking Bad.  While Breaking Bad had series best ratings, not even teasers placed during Low Winter Sun translated to making it a hit.  It also wasn’t that good from what I heard.

Worst Utilization of a New Character: Cristin Milioti on How I Met Your Mother – Yeah, the condensed timeline of this final season has also been clunky, but Cristin Milioti’s turn as the eponymous mother on the aged CBS sitcom has been a breath of fresh air.  Unfortunately she has not been used nearly enough, often going several episodes without an appearance.  I have to imagine we’ll see more of her in the second half of the final season and maybe get to see more of her and Ted’s relationship in flashforwards, but unfortunately the limitations of the show has kept her from bringing more life into the final season.

Worst Show I Didn’t Watch But Probably Will Eventually: Dexter – From everything I’ve heard the final season of Showtime’s hit was unwatchably bad and the finale that was so bad that it was one of the rare shows that truly is completely ruined by how it ended.  I haven’t seen it yet, but I have seen the treadmill scene and wow…remember when we all thought this was one of the best shows on TV?  Still, part of me is oddly curious when people really blast a show.

Of course even with the clunkers here, there was still a lot of great TV in 2013 which I’ll get into in future posts with my favorite shows and my favorite episodes (from shows that didn’t make my favorite shows list).