A quick review of tonight's "How I Met Your Mother" coming up just as soon as I picture myself in something Spanish... Because I was on quasi-vacation, I didn't write about last week's episode, which largely sacrificed emotional truth for the sake of elaborately setting up the (admittedly pretty funny) "King Kong" joke at the end of the episode. "Home Wreckers" was the opposite of that, in that it told a good Ted Mosby story but fell flat in most of its attempts to build laughs around his pain.
I liked the gang's enthusiasm for Marshall's invention of the Drunk Or Kid? game far more than the game itself, and any episode that involves a character falling through a ceiling without Future Ted saying he exaggerated for argument's sake is trying too hard. (Conversely, Future Ted saying "There was no guitar" in response to his stepdad's painting was one of the few strong jokes.)
But if "Home Wreckers" wasn't that successful as comedy, I did like its focus on Ted realizing his personal life has essentially been in neutral since the pilot. I figured we were heading towards the revelation that the awful house would one day be the setting for the longest story in the history of ever, but I still smiled at the time-lapse montage of the living room's transformation.
At the same time, finding out how Ted got the house that he and the Mother will live in takes us no closer to him meeting her than our glimpse of her foot in "Girls vs. Suits" did. I don't know that the show needs to get back to the quest full-time, but it does feel like something has been missing this season. And since the Robin/Barney storyline didn't turn into the big romance it seemed like it might be at the end of last season, perhaps some concentrated, more focused Mother time is necessary, and soon.
What did everybody else think?
