Whether or not you liked tonight’s episode of How I Met Your Mother, you’ve got to appreciate the cleverness that went into sustaining the Lethal Weapon metaphor throughout the Barney storyline.
McKracken, laser tag owner, played Murtaugh to Barney’s Riggs. Barney’s erratic behavior caused him to lose his badge and get another chance. Barney screws up once again and gets banned for life. He doesn’t just cross the crazy line like Riggs, though — Barney also seems indestructible. Through injury, infection and every other action-stopping impediment, Barney perseveres.
Meanwhile, we have Ted playing a little Murtaugh of his own, because he’s just too old for the “stuff” on the Murtaugh list. Barney plays the wild Riggs to the hilt, admitting in the end that he’s just too old for the “stuff” on the Murtaugh list too.
Keith was so disappointed that they didn’t bleep out the “shit,” rather than replace it with “stuff;” he thought it needed to be the real word to work. I had to listen to him whine … er, observe, throughout the episode that Bays and Thomas should have had Bob Saget voice-over with the word “stuff.” Keith finally got his wish at the end when McKracken quoted Murtaugh, so everyone was happy.
Very few other things worth mentioning:
Clacked by Debbie McDuffee
on Mar 31, 2009 @ 11:01 EST5EDT
Hehe… too bad they had to change everything to “stuff”. I mean “South Park” managed to even keep count and this gets self-censored because it’s on an hour earlier? *sigh* I loved Lethal Weapon until #4, that mind reading sequence on the pier… blegh…
And I can’t stand anything Lilly and Marshal related anymore. It’s annoying. How screwed up do you have to be to keep score at a kindergartener’s basketball game? *sigh* And the telepathic conversation, the guitar playing… it’s just “Aw come on WTF who cares” to me all the time. But good to know that together with the total failure as a teacher Lily is she gets the total failure of a PE coach as a husband. Perfect team.
About Robin: another reference to something Canadian nobody knows? This week the website URL was missing and without the extra content it just seemed meh… (on TVS Joel asked for the McElroy & LaFleur movie poster which would’ve made the joke funny I guess but this way – no)
I’m sad to say that I laughed my ass off during 2 1/2 men yesterday – HIMYM not so much compared to that. If it weren’t for Barney (again) this show would be nothing.
By the way Alyson Hannigan delivered her baby (check whedonesque)
I liked the episode….
However, I thought that McKracken was channeling the Captain to Ted and Barney’s Riggs and Murtaugh (respectively).
Many of the characters have had the telepathic conversations before… I think the first was Ted/Marshall (But, I lent my DVDs to someone who will now never return them, so I’ll never know).
I found the Marshall/Lily fight over how they’ll raise their children funny/interesting, because I remember the having the same fight before, but I (we) were smart enough to have that conversation before marriage (That, and many other things, led to a still single Dorv). But Lily throwing the chair at Marshall was funny.
I also thought Teen Wolf was funny, because it was SOOOO Marshall. This is the guy that believes in the gentle creature of the Loch Ness, and a healthy love of 80’s movies. Worked for me.
*POST AUTHOR*
You know, we were on the fence about that — the McKracken thing — but when he did the Murtaugh quote at the end, we thought he was a bit of Murtaugh too.
You are right — Teenwolf was soooo Marshall!
Yeah, if it didn’t work with Marshall’s personality, the joke would have fell flat for me big time. I kinda have this irrational hatred towards the Teen Wolf movies.
There is nothing irrational about that hatred my friend. The Teen Wolf movies are a blight on cinema from the 80s.
But I do agree, it works in this instance because of it being Marshall.
Seriously? Teen Wolf is a blight on cinema from the 80’s? I completely disagree. Remove the words from the 80’s and it works much better.
I’m really beginning to like you, tracey :)
I do believe the first Telepathic Conversation was between Ted and Marshall during Mary the Paralegal when Robin came in with her date.
I knew you’d set me straight ;)
Check it out i uploaded the clip!
I thought it was okay that they said “stuff”, since Ted kind of highlighted the “stuff” when he was “talking to his kids” in the voiceover.
It’s just like that time they were smoking a sandwich for the whole episode.
Yeah but his kids aren’t five years old. I understand the MJ omit but not saying “shit” in front of your teenage kids is just silly. And we all know that it isn’t because of the kids but because of when this episode aired on CBS and the FCC and that is just weeing me off ;-)