How I Met Your
Mother returned to wasting the viewer’s time with “Daisy.” One may point out
that last week’s episode proved everyone’s fear that the entire show had been a
waste of time to watch, invest in, talk about with friends in real life and
with friends online, review weekly, and so on. One should’ve known we’d been
wasting our time four years ago. “Daisy” is the type of HIMYM episode I like
least. A simple ‘mystery’ takes the length of the episode to resolve when it
could’ve happened within a scene an episode or two ago, and the other story
serves as a precursor to the next episode in which that story will be overly
and unnecessarily long.
Lily disappeared
for several hours after fighting with Marshall. She rode in a black car
someplace anonymous and mysterious. The writers didn’t follow her. Marshall
worked out the argument with ghost Lily. She returned and quickly assented to
remaining in New York City for Marshall’s judgeship. I was content with that. I
did not care what changed Lily’s mind. I did not care about not following her
wherever she went. No one cares about what I didn’t care about, and the writers
cared about where Lily went. So, “Daisy” happened. The mystery of where Lily
went in the middle of night is revealed and her decision to stay in New York
was revealed.
“Daisy” is
marked by two of the shortest first and second acts in the series. The second
act break happened two minutes before the clock was a quarter after eight. The
HIMYM writers usually put all the fluff in acts one and two so that the third
act can have cathartic resolution; however, Carter Bays and Craig Thomas troll
the audience using Ted. Marshall angrily heads to the Captain’s place near
Farhamption under the suspicion his wife had sex with him. I suppose Marshall
thought she felt guilty about her infidelity and decided to stay in NYC because
of her guilt. Barney encouraged Marshall’s physically confronting the Captain,
which he does, and the Captain reacts cartoonishly, because he’s a cartoon
character engaged to a bad punchline. Marshall, after punching his wife’s boss
in the mouth, challenges the Captain to a fencing match, still irate by the
thought of what he and Lily did in the middle of the Farhampton night.
Meanwhile, Lily
learns of her husband’s whereabouts and dreads knowing her secret will be
exposed. Ted recalls a series of moments that explains Lily’s strange escape
from the Inn. Her behavior while riding with Ted to Farhampton and her chewing
gum in the lobby suggested to Ted that she began smoking cigarettes. Lily
really dealt with early pregnancy. Her mood in the car was bad because nausea.
The drinks Linus brought her throughout the weekend were the non-alcoholic
kind. Marshall using Marvin and future children against her as a consolation
prize forced her from the room into the nonsensical night. Lily’s decision to
buy a pregnancy test and then take it at the Captain’s house was completely
unnecessary. The mystery, Ted’s explanation of what Lily did, the whirling
montage at the end to show the second child twist had been there all along, was
weakened by this very episode. The pieces of the actual story hurt the point of
the story, which was the twist. Ted took an obnoxiously long time explaining
where Lily went, which seemed like the most overt way of the writers telling
its audience, ‘We’re wasting your time now, and we will always waste your
time—we’re in syndication!’
The next story
to waste our time will be Robin’s wedding day freak-out, which her mother helped
start. Tracy Ullman’s turn as Robin’s very English mother was wonderfully
joyous. Ullman seemed energetic and excited. I laughed when she was on screen.
I never laugh when watching How I Met Your Mother. Robin begins freaking out
because Barney and her father lived the same life before marriage. Robin does
not wish to marry her father. Robin’s mother, after meeting Barney and hugging
him, says, “Oh, he’s nothing like your father.” A one-line resolution to a
neurotic Robin story doesn’t work as a resolution. Her mother helped spur her
attempt to escape through a window a few hours later.
So, yeah, “Daisy” filled in the blanks. The
episode’s time hopped ahead for a tag would make anyone grateful the series won’t
extend beyond March.
No comments:
Post a Comment