How I Met Your Mother "The Pre-Nup" Review

Oral storytelling is truly ancient. Stories aren't passed from mouth to mouth as they were millions of years ago. Stories are committed to paper, whether it's a book, screenplay, caption comic, or comic strip. Authors write and then re-write and re-write their story. TV writers stress over breaking a story every two weeks. They micromanage every detail of a script until it's deemed good enough; if not, someone embarks on a page one rewrite. How I Met Your Mother is like any other TV series. Craig Thomas and Carter Bays, and their writers, sit around a room, break stories, and break off to write a draft, then revise the draft, and then finish the final draft.

It's interesting to me how the show tells its story through the ancient method of the theme, a series of stories that makeup a tale. The series has been on for nearly a decade, and I never thought about the tradition of storytelling in the show. The characters don't text or call each other. They go to the bar, sit in their booth, and tell the story of their day. Ted Mosby remembered all of the stories his friends told and, in turn, told his children about the lives of he and his friends on the long road towards meeting their mother.

Two of the three acts in "The Pre-Nup" consist of the men and the women, separately, gathering in a booth or an apartment to tell one another about what their significant other just did. Of course, as always, the audience sees the story a character is telling, and it cuts back whenever there's a turn in the story, because the storyteller's tone and delivery are vital to understanding the way in which the story is understood. It's just like meeting up with friends somewhere. Friends share stories about their day or their week or their girlfriend or boyfriend or lack thereof or whatever, and the listeners follow the words but also the change in tone, and the body language of the storyteller, grants them greater understanding of the story, of how the storyteller feels. I thought it was cool.

Anyway, none of the feelings in "The Pre-Nup" are interesting or natural. One important piece of the puzzle is revealed: Future Ted acknowledges the autumn of 2012 was the Autumn of Break-Ups. It's nice to know the writers won't waste too much time with the various relationships. Barney and Quinn are the first couple to end because Quinn has a series on FOX (also created by Bays and Thomas). Barney takes exhaustive measures in a pre-nup, which sends waves throughout the gang. Ted, Marshall, and Nick (is it Nick?) become inspired to change aspects of their respective relationships after hearing about Barney's pre-nup.
The various gripes of the men with their women aren't too significant. The gripes are played for laughs until the third act when laughter is exchanged for sentimentalism.

Barney's character did not develop one tiny bit throughout the engagement to Quinn. The show jumped forward to October 2012 because the couples were happy and in love; therefore, no interesting things happened. Barney's hyper boss never once brought up a pre-nup during the summer months. Barney masks his feelings through elaborate games, schemes, and pre-nups. Barney crafted an elaborate magic trick to propose to Quinn because his development's arrested, and he's unable to act like a human being. His pre-nup for Quinn involves a litany of ridiculous things as advised by his ridiculous lawyer, which includes mandatory lap-dances and morning pillow fights with eight other wives, maintaining visiting privileges with her private parts, among other things in the massive document. After the nonsense of the pre-nup, the truth is revealed: Barney doesn't trust her and he won't shred the document. He won't risk it for her. I suppose Barney's arc for the rest of the series is self-discovery of who he wants to risk everything on, heart and soul and bank account. The woman will be Robin; we just don't know how she became that woman for him.

The other couples exchange in sentimentalism after the silliness of their temporary relationship discord. Lily accused Marshall of playing too loose with the baby, which made Marshall feel inferior as a parent. Lily assured Marshall of his terrific ability to parent. Ted welcomed the German Plot Device into his home because the Plot Device had some bad luck, but he wanted to kick the Plot Device out for a series of stereotypical things the European stereotype engages in, like walking around nude. Victoria feels bad for the Plot Device, but because of how she feels for Ted. Robin and Nick (again, is it Nick?) have problems because Robin gets distracted in bed. Of course, she's distracted by herself on television, so you see she turns herself on, and it's weird. Their issue is resolved by racing out of GHB to copulate, during the news evidently.

The episode wasn't good. Despite my affections for the oral storytelling tradition, the actual stories weren't good. At least it's known the filler relationships will be completely done by sweeps.

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