Episode Title: "The Locket"/"Coming Back"
Episode Grade: B+
How I Met Your Mother has always been a show torn by different instincts. It is, of course, a CBS sitcom, and an important one for the network; it's been a tent pole show for CBS, and one that, as the Monday primetime opener, really launches the week's programming. That position carries with it certain duties, and the format its own tropes. As such, HIMYM can never veer too far from the standard sitcom atmosphere and plots.
But there's always been another side to How I Met Your Mother, a side with ambition and heart and an intense yearning that takes the show to places other sitcoms never care to visit. This sometimes shows in "gimmick" episodes in which Carter Bays and Craig Thomas play with narrative techniques such as scrambled timelines or an unreliable narrator.
More often, however, what distinguishes How I Met Your Mother is the emotion animating each episode. How I Met Your Mother is a show about love, about the heights to which it can elevate us and the depths to which it can drive us. That means a lot of swelling music and gushing admissions of love, yes; "Come On," season's one finale, is a truly extraordinary romantic comedy, an episode that achieves remarkable heights of true sentimentality.
But the show's central conceit also means that, in many ways, How I Met Your Mother is a show about failure and heartbreak. There's only one mother, only one successful relationship, and while Ted's revolving door of women is often played for laughs, the show isn't afraid to explore the effect all of this romantic futility has on its main character.
There is an undercurrent of sadness in the show, a frustration that anyone who's ever wondered at the persistence and ubiquity of loneliness can understand. It's a sadness that, remarkably, pairs well with the hope and yearning I wrote about above. The sense that all of this heartbreak will be in some way redeemed by the end of the series is the true appeal of the show, and it's that a little too neat and tidy for real life, well, who ever suggested that our art must always adhere to strict realism?
So How I Met Your Mother begins its last season, and it's an important one. Finale seasons are always crucial, of course, especially when we know they're coming ahead of time. It's our last exposure to the show, and everyone wants to go out on a high note.
But this final season, which began tonight with back-to-back episodes, is even more important for How I Met Your Mother's legacy. It will go a long way toward determining how we remember the show: an above-average sitcom with some nice moments and a lengthy decline phase, or genuinely one of the best comedies of its time.
Much of the show's decline these last two or three seasons has been overstated; season seven's "Symphony of Illumination" is one of the show's greatest episodes, and its exploration of despair and friendship is nearly unmatched in the recent history of sitcoms. But for all that, the decline has been real; the humor broader, the laugh track louder, the mugging for the camera more intense. How I Met Your Mother has been a pleasant enough show to watch these last few years, but it's largely been coasting on our stored affection for these characters.
This ninth and final season, then, is vital, and it represents the culmination of what the show has been working toward since (God save us) 2005. When your show is entitled "How I Met Your Mother," the season in which that actually happens takes on an out-sized importance.
It's heartening then that these first two episodes are so strong.
I want to begin at the end, with two Teds. One of them is sitting alone at the bar in the Farhampton Inn, doing a crossword puzzle while he waits for Robin and Barney's wedding. The other Ted is sitting at the same table, a year later, talking to his wife.
It's a scene that, in its juxtaposition of loneliness and unabashed sentimentality, could very well serve as a mission statement for the show itself. It is a moment of true, unalloyed hope, and a scene that's written with unwavering confidence.
Probably the most encouraging aspect of these two episodes is Cristin Milioti, who plays the still-unnamed future wife and mother. This is a difficult role. There are nine years of expectations weighing on it, and so the decision to cast a relative unknown like Milioti was probably wise.
She handles her part with aplomb. Lily, driven to Milioti's train both by Ted's insane road trip behavior and the kind of coincidences that fuel sitcoms, is actually the first to meet the mother, who's in the band playing at Robin and Barney's wedding. This is a good start for Milioti, who is given some funny lines, a good sense of humor and that kind of likably quirky personality that only seems to exist on network television.
There's only so much going on in these two episodes. Barney and Robin are afraid they share a Canadian cousin, Mitch, but then find out that he's only Robin's cousin by adoption (his actual parents were eaten by sled dogs). Marshall stresses out upon discovering that his mom posted a Facebook photo that revealed his decision to accept a judgeship and gets kicked off his plane back to New York (alongside guest star Sherri Shepherd). Lily desperately wants to view the photo so she can see her son, but doesn't want to be tormented by Mrs. Erickson's passive aggressive photographic sniping.
It's all set up, basically, moving plot pieces into place so that they're in the proper position for the more important moments later in the season. Marshall ends up renting a car with Shepherd, which gives the writers an excuse to keep him away from the wedding for most of the season and give him wacky adventures with a sassy black woman. Ted's voiceover indicates that he'll end up causing a fuss by making one last run at Robin later in the season.
But it's pleasant set up, and the final scene of "Coming Back" is as beautiful and touching as the show's last season deserves. There will undoubtedly be some rough spots during this season; the decision to turn Barney and Robin's wedding into a year-long affair effectively guaranteed that. But I fully expect enough laughs and tears to make the whole thing worthwhile.
Notes
- I didn't get at this much in the body of the review, but these two episodes are quite funny. More amusing than laugh out loud hilarious, but they consistently elicited a chuckle.
- Lily groans when Ted pulls out his leather driving gloves, but he makes the unassailable point that "in 99.9 percent of crashes, the driver wasn't wearing gloves."
- Ted has a massive travel binder of all the interesting sights between New York City and Farhampton. One section? "Mennonite Windmills," which drives Lily to the nearest train.
- How do we know the mother is a good fit for Ted? She also owns a pair of driving gloves, and Ted reminds his kids about the seven-hour side trip she made them take on the way to Disney World so the family could see the goat who could blow smoke rings.
- "Lady Tedweena Slowsby."
- Barney isn't worried about the potential incest with Robin, because King Joffrey's parents were related, and he turned out to be "a fair and wise ruler."
- Lily fondly remembers Marshall's calves, which "launched a thousand lady boners."
- There's a great running gag at the hotel, where Lily pays a bartender $100 to keep a drink in her hands at all times. He calls it "the Kennedy package."
- The Stinsons were cursed by a gypsy woman in 19th century to perpetual horniness. Oh, and the performance of awesome guitar solos.
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