Brow Beat: Slate's Culture Blog

The How I Met Your Mother Shame Index: Episode 2

In last week's inaugural How I Met Your Mother Shame Index, I tried to capture the powerful feeling of disappointment the sitcom can inspire in even its most committed fans. More often than not, the show is great fun, but when it misses the mark, it can miss widely, inspiring feelings of embarrassment: I made an appointment for this television? Last night's episode was full of such misses.

Shameful:

—The central conceit: That in 2009, Ted is unwittingly repeating a blind date he went on in 2002. A healthy willingness to suspend disbelief is required to appreciate HIMYM, but this strained credulity too far. At first, Ted and Jen don't remember each other at all. But once they realize they've been on this date before, a series of very specific details come right back to them. Plus, we know of several women that Ted has dated for long stretches between '02 and '09—Robin, Stella, Victoria. How many one-and-done dates has he really been on during that time frame? Barney would have forgotten this woman during his cab ride home, but not Ted.

—The cheap moral of the repeat blind date: Ted realizes he wants to hold out for a woman who does find his shellfish joke funny. Making us all a little less interested in finding out who the mother is.

—Ted and Jane watching two rotund people have sex from Ted's rooftop—a blatant rip-off of the old Ugly Naked Guy routine from Friends.

—The strip club that Barney takes Marshall to. This is CBS, not HBO, but even by network standards this joint was unconvincing. It was lit like a dentist's office.

—The gang's doppelgänger. Close call: This had the feel of a great HIMYM bit, but it didn't quite deliver. Making Robin butch wasn't a wild enough leap—she's already got a butch, hockey-loving side. Stripper Lily could have been amusing, but wasn't: The closing bit, in which Alyson Hannigan tries out an Eastern European accent, was embarrassing for everyone. Mustache Marshall—aka Senor Justicia—was admittedly kind of great.

Awesome:

—2002 Ted's goatee. HIMYM has always done an impressive job of using hair and/or facial hair to mock its characters' former selves. Though this is also a gag that was perfected by Friends.

—Barney's use of the (annual) "Origins of Chewbacca" exhibit to lure Marshall—and previously Ted—on adventures.

—Marshall's inability to fantasize about women other than Lily unless he first imagines that she has succumbed to a chronic disease. This was the rare instance when dragging the joke out made it more funny, not less. When Lily referred to "that busty delivery girl from that one time" it was amusing; when the priest at her funeral repeated it, it was hilarious.

Is it too early to worry that the Barney and Robin relationship is going to do harm to HIMYM? There was a conspicuous drop in awesome Barney moments this episode. Let's hope it was a fluke.

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Introducing the How I Met You Mother Shame Index

How I Met Your Mother, which entered its fifth season last night on CBS, resembles Friends in its outlines. Both sitcoms follow a group of young men and women coming of age in New York City. But there's also something similar in the experience of being a fan of the two shows—namely, a suspicion that it might be cooler not to be a fan. There's no shame in admitting that you spent a night watching Seinfeld reruns—Ooh, which ones? goes the response. With Friends, a certain sheepishness attaches. What did you do last night? Um, caught this great episode of Friends on TBS, where Ross and Rachel ... Never mind.

Being a fan of HIMYM is a bit like that, and not without reason. While the show boasts one of the best characters on any current sitcom—Neil Patrick Harris' rightly celebrated Barney Stinson—it also features one of the most frustrating: Josh Radnor's Ted Mosby, whose painfully earnest pursuit of true love can bog down an otherwise rip-roaring episode full of ribald wordplay and hysterical gags. At its best, the show is funny and heartwarming; at its worst, plain sappy. To help fans decide whether to don their MacLaren's T-shirts or keep their love undercover like Barney and Robin, Brow Beat is inaugurating a new feature, The HIMYM Shame Index. Each week, we'll enumerate the latest episode's great moments and its embarrassing ones and decide whether Mother has made us proud.

Shameful:

—Robin's use of the tired phrase "slow your roll."

—The endless talk about "the talk."

—The episode's persistent use of Vampire Weekend's "Oxford Comma"; HIMYM's creators seem to have a soft spot for indie rock, and while in the past they've been known to underscore a broken heart (Ted's, natch) with an apt Pavement track, this felt like a reach for hipness.

—Ted's lame dream sequence. Really, the forgot-to-wear-pants thing? You're better than that, HIMYM.

Awesome:

—Marshall chiding Lily for not using her "indoor ‘woo!' " Adorable.

—Barney and Robin's use of flugelhorn as a code word for when things have gone too far in bed or, later, in their fledgling relationship.

—Barney's disdain for brunch.

—"T-Dog, you're in the wrong room bro." And just about the whole scene in the economics classroom—HIMYM is at its best when it's playing Ted's earnestness for laughs. His uncertainty about how to spell professor was particularly amusing.

—Marshall's unilateral declaration of Tuxedo Night. "Didn't we meet on a yacht?"

All in all, more to be proud about than ashamed of in this episode, plus some very good signs for the rest of the season: The Robin and Barney plotline shows promise, and Cobie Smulders and Alyson Hannigan are no longer hiding obvious pregnancies behind flouncy tops and preposterously large handbags.

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