Monsters of Television

“It’s Robin Sparkles 3, ya’ll!”

I was just as excited to hear these words as Ted and company were.

Callbacks are something that How I Met Your Mother does extremely well. The show features some of the best recurring jokes and characters such as “Challenge Accepted”, Robin Sparkles and Slap Bet, the latter two making reappearances in this episode. It’s not just the humor that makes HIMYM the best comedy on TV right now, it’s the emotional resonances, the lessons learned. The Full House moments if you will. Coincidental because Bob Saget is the voice of Future Ted.

“Glitter” isn’t just an episode about Robin Sparkles and porn and space travel, it’s an episode about friendship and growing apart. And math.

The long awaited return of Robin Sparkles could not have been better. We’d seen her hit and we’d seen her decline and so what other direction was there to take it to then porn? Ok so not really porn, but a hyper-sexualized, innuendo filled romp through space.  Along with Alan Thicke (and don’t forget the robot) we meet Jessica Glitter (Nicole Scherzinger of Danity Kane, B*Witched, Pussycat Dolls), keytarist and best friend to Robin Sparkles. Together they use math to solve mysteries as they travel through space and talk about their beavers. Space Teens is a show that desperately needs to exist.

As with previous Robin Sparkles episodes, while Sparkles is the source of most humor and intrigue, it’s also the catalyst for the emotional beats of the episode. “Slap Bet” is an episode about secrets, “Sandcastles in the Sand” is an episode about old loves, “Glitter” is an episode about friendship and growing apart. Robin and Jessica grew apart once Jessica had a baby, spelling certain disaster for Robin and Lily’s friendship as Lily is trying to conceive.

It turned out that it wasn’t Robin who “dumped” Jessica, Jessica became too consumed with parenthood that she grew apart from her BFF. A sad lesson to learn, but it happens. Often times certain aspects of our lives (work, relationships, children) have to take precedence over others. It’s called being an adult. Not having those things is apparently cause for pity as we learn from the Ted/Punchy storyline. Punchy has a fiance and a backyard (2 important components to adulthood) and feels bad that Ted is single, hence his impromptu bro trip to New York. He faked regression for the sake of cheering up his friend. It’s those moments that make the show great. Of course it’s funny, of course the characters are great, but it’s heartwarming and educational in a life lesson sort of way.

But as I said, the comedy is still there. While it’s tough to beat the inappropriately sexual antics of Space Teens, Barney had a fantastic episode, especially with his monologue of reality show sendoff slogans. Some (I’m looking at you, Noel) haven’t thought highly of this episode or this season as a whole so far, but looking at “Glitter” I say HIMYM continues to stay on its A-game.

FINAL THOUGHTS

• Nice Slap Bet callback.
• I’m going to try and use Lebron to gain sympathy.
• Aww. Marshall didn’t get the serial killer joke.