Monsters of Television

“So why do I feel outside of awesome looking in?”

The problem with “False Positive” is one of story perspective. While I appreciate it when the show neatly divides the episode into segments (it makes note taking  great deal easier), it also calls attention to when a character is given less attention. And in this episode, as is often the case, it’s Ted that gets the short end of the narrative stick.

Now, I’m as tired of writing about this as you are of reading it, but I’m going to give the show the benefit of the doubt that the emotional and symbolic heft that the episode sets up but then spectacularly fails to pay off for Ted will eventually circle back to us later in the season. Because this is his story, for better for worse. In this case, it’s the story of how Ted fixed everyone else’s life without reflecting that he needed to fix his own.

I know that the entire thrust of the show is that happiness is being in a heterosexual, committed relationship and it is Lily and Marshall’s engagement is what spurs Ted onto his quest to find a wife. But that show equates having a child as “doing something” with one’s life is, for me, a little more troubling. Barney and Robin offer counterpoints to the married life mentality, but when faced with the idea of Lily and Marshall being pregnant, they think their lives as things stand are failures.

Now both characters have been through a lot over the past couple of seasons, most noticeably together, and I can understand each of them wanting to changes things in their lives. And, really, that was one of my complaints during the Robin/Barney debacle was that wasn’t enough of a fallout, that they didn’t change enough. Here though, their motivation for change isn’t based on a driving desire to do better, but a desire to keep up with the Ericksens.  And that’s a bit lazy for me, from this show, too.

But it’s Ted that frustrates me the most here. The episode attempts to pay off the It’s A Wonderful Life frame by having Ted be the one who puts everyone’s life, including Punchy’s, back on course. He is the group’s George Bailey, the episode tells us, as if the group didn’t have him, Robin would be a coin flip bimbo, Barney would be wearing an awesome diamond lined suit, and Marshall and Lily wouldn’t be trying to have a kid. So Ted fixes everyone by the episode’s end and goes into the flick alone.

What’s frustrating is that the arc of It’s A Wonderful Life is not only George seeing what the world be like without him, but realizing that his life matters to himself as well. Where is Ted’s realization of his life in this episode? Where is Ted’s running down the streets of Bedford Falls? Why isn’t Ted declaring “I want to live again!” as he fixes everyone’s problems? Where is Ted’s realization that he needs to be pulled from this rut? He’s planning another man’s wedding and agrees to be Robin’s best man at her wedding (which she suddenly wants…?); why isn’t anyone calling him on his hypocritical behavior? Why isn’t Ted, of all people, tedding out about this?

I can only hope that this will eventually pay off for us, and for Ted, somewhere on down the line. But more than anything, I’d like to see Ted’s friends perhaps really help him out instead.

FINAL THOUGHTS

• “I’m the Bill and Melinda Gates of sympathy bangs.”
• “I do wish you were a dude.”
• I complained about wells the show goes to for jokes too often, but telepathic conversations will probably never be one I tire of.
• The group struck me more as a Die Hard for a Christmas move group, not It’s A Wonderful Life. I don’t know who these people are any longer.
• Jaime Weinman points out that “I bet there’s not a single HIMYM writer who doesn’t know at heart that coin-flip bimbo > cable news researcher.” And he’s right. Just look how well things have turned out for Maria Menounos and Natalie Morales.