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How I Met Your Mother: Monday Night Football
by Joel Keller, posted Feb 5th 2007 9:32PM
(S02E14) Sometimes a show can't help but pull a plot from Sitcomville. That's what happens when you have to crank out 22 episodes per year (speaking of that... can you believe there are only eight episodes left? March and April are going to be pretty harsh). But it's what the show does with that standard-grade plot that shows the audience how strong the writing is overall. That's what we saw tonight with an episode that was likely designed to air right after last night's Super Bowl, before CBS got the bright idea to air Criminal Minds instead.The mission: get to Monday evening without finding out anything about the Super Bowl. Pretty mundane, huh? Seen it all before, right? But it was all still pretty damn funny, wasn't it?
Let's get the Best Barneyism out of the way. Gotta love his continuing gambling problem... "That's like telling Superman he's got a flying problem. But it's not a problem if you're awesome at it." The funny thing was, it all started with a dollar bet with Marshall, three years ago. Seeing Barney cuff himself to Ted's radiator -- "Swallow this key. You eat salads; it'll be out by game time." -- and then slide his way right out of it was one of the best parts of the episode, as was his 8 minute, 32 second pee.
Since this episode didn't really have much in the way of plot, let's just list the best moments:
- Marshall's time out was as funny as Barney's "great escape". That whole kiddie blackmail sequence was good, mainly because we all know that, despite the fact that Marshall's almost 30, he still has a lot of kid in him. The blackmailer was pretty good at turning the screws, too: he demands 10 bucks to not reveal the game's score, and when Marshall asks if he's serious, the kid goes, "It just went up to 8." But Marshall's got the kid back, didn't he?
- Oh, and we already knew that his favorite animal was The Loch Ness Monster...
- Does everyone say a prayer to the TiVo gods to ensure proper recording?
- Does anyone remember if they previously showed the guy whose funeral prevented the gang from watching the game live?
- Emmitt Smith is a better dancer than actor, apparently. But he did have a good line: "The game was last night? once you win 2 or 3 of those things it's kind of like... eh."
- Notice Lily's hair in those Super Bowl flashbacks? Red! And it looks like her actual hair. It's so easy to forget those details when doing flashbacks, but Bays and Thomas remember them. It's small, but it helps. It's also cool that everyone got up when Janet Jackson came on; I think 60% of the people watching that Super Bowl did that.
- The sequence where Robin tries to avoid throwing her newscast to sports was a little long, but was worth it just to see them cut to the weather guy as he ate a donut.
- And, of course, we can't forget Ted's "Sensory Deprivator 5000." It was the only thing that worked, even when Ted had to go back and get dipping sauce for the wings.
- Of course, was the overall message, that hanging with friends is better than not knowing who won the Super Bowl. Well, duh. But it was consistent with the tone of the show.
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