How I Met Your Mother: Something Old, Review
This week on HIMYM ... ... Where's the voice over and the clips? .. Written media? What's ... oh. I see.
It’s another “Robin deals with her daddy issues” episode, plus a ‘Lily, Marshall and Ted solving household issues’ in a weird ménage a trois of B storylines.
The episode starts out with high school Robin on a trip to NYC with her dad burying a locket in Central Park that she would “dig up” when she returned to New York and married the man of her dreams to be her something old. Fast forward to adult Robin with her distracted father bonding with Barney on the phone. Robin asks him to help dig it up. Then she allows her father to swan off to play laser tag with “his son” Barney, saying “it’s not a big deal”.
Subtext: It is a big deal.
Meanwhile Marshall and Lily are having trouble packing the items they need. So Ted comes by as the “packing expert” (his claim to fame: a Europe trip where he packed everything in his fanny pack). Ted takes the arbitrater position of what goes to Italy and what goes to “The Triangle” of their sidewalk for passerby to take.
Barney and Robin’s dad continue to bond by beating pre-teens at laser tag. That’s literally the length that cut-to took.
Then it’s back to Lily and Marshall and Ted and packing. Ted’s system is interesting, meaning it’s mostly him telling them to keep sentimental crap that involves memories with him, and throwing out everything else. Ted having relationship boundry issues again? Yep.
Barney and Robin’s dad shooting more lasers at kids. They have a fight on who should take point. Barney calls Robin’s dad stubborn. Robin’s dad says get used to it, you’re marrying Robin. Barney says, Robin’s not nearly as stubborn as you. Then we flash to Robin digging lots of holes in the park like a crazy lady. She’s not crazy. She’s… sanity challenged.
Marshall and Lily decide Ted is being a nuisance and distract him by sending him out to get fanny packs. Nicely played, married people. Nicely played.
Back with laser tag, Barney and Robin’s dad recruit small armies of laser tag children to war against each other. It’s slightly amusing.
Ted realizes Marshall and Lily tricked him in the packing scheme. He runs back to find them putting a bean bag chair he insisted they take into The Triangle. He decides to do a bean bag protest on the chair and decides to screw a big interview to continue the protest.
Yep. Like that’s realistic.
Robin takes a break from digging to call Barney for help. He’s in the midst of laser war. He asks if it’s important. She says it’s not.
Subtext: It totally is.
Ted FINALLY gets to the point of his weird emotional attachment issues and explains if Lily and Marshall can throw out this bean bag chair full of TLM memories, then they can throw him out as a friend too. Lily and Marshall assure it won’t happe. Ted has his moment with the chair. He steps away. It disappears into the triangle. Then Robin calls Ted and asks him for help. He asks if it’s important. She says no. Again.
Subtext: YES.
Yes, because straight-forward Robin would be THAT passive aggressive. Wait, this is daddy issues Robin. Yep. She would.
Robin continues to dig and guess who shows up and reads the “it’s stupid” tone right. Not Barney or her father (who continue extreme laser tag war). Naturally, it’s Ted, who’s doing throwing his future away for Robin again.
Do I smell a Ted wrench being thrown into Barney and Robin’s happily ever after?
Ugh, I really hope not, because this is so overdone.
Robin tells Ted her worries that Barney is too similar to her father and ok, HE DIDN’T SHOW UP. They dig together. And… Robin finds the necklace she buried. Two seconds after she finds it, she confesses her concerns about marrying Barney. Is he ready for this? Is she ready for this? Does the universe think they should get married—apparently, since she found the locket, yes, it should—then she opens the case AND IT IS EMPTY!
Dah dah duuuuuummmm in predictable dah dah duuuuummm moment in predictable episode.
Barney and Robin’s dad come face to face in their war, then join teams to vanquish their children armies. Ted gets a text from Marshall and Lily with the bean bag! He tells them to get rid of it. They do and then have weird gorilla costume stuff.
Ted tries to calm Robin down about the missing locket and the universe. Then it rains to further convince her that it’s all a sign that the universe is telling her not to marry Barney. Ted then tells Robin that THERE ARE NO SIGNS IN THE UNIVERSE!
Whaaaaaat!???
Epiphany Ted finally has realized that he doesn’t need (and she shouldn’t need) the universe to tell them what they really want. They should just know, deep down. They hold hands. They lock eyes. It’s a moment.
Tired sigh uh-oh JUST STOP THIS STUPID TED-ROBIN-BARNEY TRIANGLE already!
The episode ends on that moment. Next week will probably be more lame of the sameness with predictable wrenches being thrown into relationships.
Oh HIMYM. You are making me regret, once again, that CBS renewed you, yet again, for another season. Yet again.
This show needs to end. He needs to meet the mother. Even my TiVo is tired of it. It’s been cutting off the episodes a few minutes from the end for the past few weeks.
Or maybe I just need to get a new cable box.
Den Of Geek Score: 2.5 Out Of 5 Stars
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