MagneticMediaFed

Cooper, Mosby, Kelly

I was out having dinner tonight when I received a series of panicked phone calls from a good friend. The first of which has no baring on this conversation, but for those interested apparently Blade Runner is showing Tuesday night at the Ziegfeld here in Manhattan. The second call, however, told me — rather, screamed at me — that Winnie Cooper was on How I Met Your Mother and that she was still, in fact, hot (she’s also, apparently, a math genius). The last of the calls, which were all made in a period of about 7 minutes, said the following:

Dude! Now f–king Kim Kelly is on How I Met Your Mother! Winnie Cooper and Kim Kelly both on the same episode looking incredibly attractive. This is truly a moment for the ages. I’m only five minutes in but it’s totally blowing my mind. You need to get home as soon as you can and watch this, then I can comment on your blog about it. It’ll be awesome!

Well, sir, the ball is in your court (more after the jump…).

First of all, the belt isn’t a metaphor, and that is awesome. It’s accepted, dare I say predictable that Ted and Barney would have a contest to see which one of them would be the first to “ride the tricycle” but the notion that “the belt” received by the victor in this competition is an actual belt, is what sets aside HIMYM from basically every other comedy on television. This certainly wasn’t one of the series’ best episodes (for reasons I’ll get to below), but it definitely had the most laughs of any series this fall.

A lot of this magic I give to the episode’s completely manic pacing. They brilliantly captured Ted’s mindset as he went through the night with two girls on his arms constantly checking in with his friends on how the next move should be played. Equally great was the fact that Lily, the one girl not vying for Ted’s affection, was as into his possible success as both Marshall and Barney. Hell, Ted’s a great guy, who wouldn’t want him to succeed?

As far as I’m concerned, most fascinating was that apparently the key to crazy sexual experimentation lies in a Wilco CD — and I have all of them, so I’m totally ready! Though curiously enough by the episode’s end (where Ted may or may not have sealed the deal) the soundtrack started playing “Passenger Side” off Wilco’s AM, a song about drunk driving. Hardly a tune that one would expect to get two sorority gals in the mood, but then again that Jeff Tweedy certainly is the charmer.

And while we’re on the subject of popular music, my favorite line of the episode was when Marshall said, “It’s so petty, it’s like you’re… Tom Petty!” That’s funny.

Of course what kept “Third Wheel” from approaching “Slap Bet” levels of hilarity, it was the fact that the Robin storyline was completely disjointed. It played like an afterthought, and while it had a certain level of charm and realism (honestly, if I were a lady, leg-shaving would frequently be on the bottom on my list of hygiene rituals) it never felt like part of the episode and raised questions about Robin’s role in the future of the series. In short, she and Ted have to find a way to be friends, which as we all know, is kind of an impossible task. Though without their friendship her only relation to the series is through Lily and it’s hard to have an ensemble where one of the cast members is only tangentially related to the main group.

I’m hoping that coming weeks will get a little deeper in the Ted/Robin post-relationship relationship and that this week was merely a pit-stop for some funny, but the series really hinges on the ability of all of these people to get along and to share storylines.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 9th, 2007 at 2:13 pm and is filed under CBS, How I Met Your Mother. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.