"For Every Thing There Is A Season." So reads a sign outside the church that opens the newest season of How I Met Your Mother, and I doubt (and seriously hope) that was the opening shot by accident. Last season was seriously flawed, to the point that I have read about even the creators apologizing and promising great things from Season Six. What last season lacked was master-plot, and this episode delivers on Carter and Craig's promise that Season Six would deepen the mythology of the show and give us another piece of the puzzle. Before we get to that, though, there's the episode we have in the moments that aren't flash forward.
This episode pretty much takes place withing MacLaren's, and gives us a chance to catch up on the progress the characters have made since last season--which is none. Marshall and Lily are still trying to conceive, Robin is still upset about Don, Barney is still Barney, and Ted is grading papers, probably because the only development he had last season was becoming a professor. "Big Days" for all the big talk of the narration and the big promise of the flash forward, is pretty much a place-holder of an episode, trying to draw us back in with the hint of what's to come, but leaving us for the moment pretty much exactly where we were.
Ted sees a pretty woman at the bar, and when Cindy shows up, begins to think she may be the one for him. Barney called dibs, which leads to a debate that would probably have been transcendant in Seasons One or Two, but here feels like only a shadow of the brilliant HIMYM that was. Marshall and Lily fight over Marshall's propensity for telling everyone about their efforts to conceive, and it feels like just another worn and tired old sitcom trope being wheeled out because Marshall and Lily are trying to have a baby. And Robin is in a funk, mostly do Barney can mock her and then be wowed by her easy return to being super hot. None of this is the transcendant episode of How I Met Your Mother I hoped for, but none of it is all that terrible either.
In fact, "Big Days" is consistently entertaining and humorous in a way that far too many episodes last season were not. Clearly Cindy's friend is not the mother (and in fact turns out to be Cindy's future wife), but we all knew that from the start. I have to hand it to the writers, though. The flash forward tonight was the stuff to give me goosebumps. It was the stuff made to remind any wayward fan that this show has not forgotten the mythology, and that it still has some excellent moments up its sleeve. At the episode's opening, we are lead to believe that Ted is at his wedding. Yet the end of the episode reveals that in fact he is nervous about giving his best man toast at another wedding. And that wedding is where he meets the mother. When it starts to rain, and Ted mentions that he forgot his umbrella, I recall everything that keeps me coming back to this show. "Big Days" isn't a great episode, but it does what it needed to. It reminded me of what I love about How I Met Your Mother, and got me excited for the season ahead.
Grade: B
Notes:
-"This is what church has been missing. Dude you fixed church!" "You're welcome God."
-Marshall and Lily like make out music for foreplay, but banjo music for when they actually do it.
-"This, what you're doing now, I'm getting a derection."
-"Don't touch me dude. Its been two weeks."
-I liked the sign at Marshall's office reading, "Good luck Marshall. get your wife Pregnant!"
-"Pickles would have helped that sandwich."
-I have to agree with Ted and Barney. The high six is pretty lame.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment