How I Met Your Mother: Arrivederci, Fiero

(S02E17) I recently had to part with a car; in fact, I just got all my belongings out of it and took off the plates earlier today. There's always a little bit of a pang of sadness that occurs when you leave the vehicle you've depended on for a number of years for the last time. Of course, as you go through your life and the number of cars you own increase, that sense of attachment gets less and less.But it still stinks to give the car over to the salvage yard or its next owner.

But your first car? One you've taken from 78,000 miles to 199,999.2 miles? That's tough. And funny. At least when it's a Fiero. And when the situation is in the hands of the HIMYM writers.

The fact that Marshall was able to get almost 200,000 miles out of a Fiero is a miracle, especially because the car had a habit of catching on fire a lot. Anyway, the main running thread of this episode is how many friendships were formed and strengthened inside that Fiero. But most of that bonding happened because of Marshall's stringent "no food or drink inside the Fiero... even groceries" rule.

Granted, if a dozen lidless coffees got dumped in my naked lap due to my dingleberry brothers, I'd be traumatized, too. But not so traumatized that I wouldn't put groceries in the damn thing. By the way, notice that pimply teenage Marshall has a deeper voice than adult Marshall? Maybe it was the braces.

Pretentious freshman Ted seems to have an eerie resemblance to author Malcolm Gladwell. But I can see Ted being that way as a freshman... "My parents live in Ohio; I live in the moment." Puh-lease. I wonder if anyone since 1921 has used the term "spectacles," though, even ones that were being snotty on purpose. Still, he and Marshall bonded during the 100k fiasco (or as Marshall puts it, the "Fieroasco"), so Ted couldn't be all that bad.

More fun:

• Robin just gets more awesome as the weeks go by. She loves cigars, knows how to clean up a food mess like she's cleaning a crime scene, and can make up phony Thai dish names by just putting together random syllables with D's and K's in them. I think I'm in love.
• I'm sure most best friends have bonded by spooning for warmth after taking "the road less traveled." I'm sure that's how it happened to Kerouac.
• Barney's lack of driving skills and subsequent 10mph terror was a little over the top for me for some reason. I can see how a city guy like Barn wouldn't know how to drive, but the fact that he was so afraid of going at those "breakneck speeds?" Dunno. Doesn't seem like Barney to me.
• Because of that, my Best Barneyism of the week is all the small reactions he had: after he heard the 100k story, he said that Ted and Marshall became best friends "with benefits, apparently." I also liked how he feigned incompetence to get out of Lily's floating origami folding factory.
• By the way, how many friends come hang out with you at the mechanic's? Yes, I realize that they're all making like they're in a hospital, waiting for a loved one to come out of surgery, but I don't even know when that ever happens, either. Only on TV, I guess.
• If I had to listen to The Proclaimers warble "I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)" over and over for fifteen years, I'd probably rip that cassingle with my teeth if I had to. But I do get the idea of getting tired of it, then loving it, then getting tired of it again. "It'll come back around," was what Marshall told Ted on their 100k ride. Like I said, I know what he means, as I have that same relationship with Devo's version of "Working in the Coal Mine." Don't ask me how that happened.
• Funny how Marshall started the 100k ride all nonchalant about Lily then vowed to marry her one day if he and Ted made it through the night. Will we see the wedding? Still not sure.
• I knew they were going to try to push the car that extra 0.8 of a mile to get it to 200k. I also knew that they wouldn't accomplish it.
• Will Marshall get another car? He was only holding on to it to make him feel like he wasn't a sell-out. But he lives in New York. You don't really need a car there. If he does, will it be a he, a she, or another "trannie car," as Robin Lily put it?
  

Anyway, it was a funny little one-topic episode. Nothing in this episode had to do with slaps, Ted and Robin, or even Marshal and Lily. It was about five friends and their experiences in one cheesy American car from the eighties. Substitute a DeSoto for the Fiero, and it could have been an episode of Happy Days. Again, it's a case where good writing transcends any traditional sitcom conventions the writers may use. And, at the end of the day, good writing is what will ultimately bring back the sitcom, won't it?

Only five more episodes left. God, doesn't it still feel like the season just started?