How I Met Your Mother – “Landmarks”
“New York is never finished, Theodore.“
This actually worked for me. Too little too late, but it worked.
But I’m nearly there, show.
If “Landmarks” does anything, it just serves as a reminder of every single frustration I’ve had with the show this season. Which, really, when I’m considering abandoning the show entirely, is not a good thing to have happen. Next week’s finale has got to be, well, awesome, really, to keep me on board.
But one good thing did come out of “Landmarks”: The poorly plotted and emotionally dead Ted and Zoey relationship is finally over. At last.
That this DOA relationship is over arrives a too late, especially since the show decided to deinvest us in the relationship so quickly. And then not do anything with it and then…Oh, never mind. You know this spiel, so I’ll spare everyone from having to read it again.
What I did like, however, was that Ted made the decision himself. Sure, it was another crazy Barney as a dressed up historical figure, but it came from a place of Ted’s anxieties about the building and not realizing his dreams, and not from a place about his relationship desires. Indeed, I like that professional ambitions are the reason why he ultimately decided to let the Arcadian fall.
But the rest of the episode was relatively flat. The call-back to “Three Days of Snow” (an episode I really like, by the way),is an example of how this season keeps calling back to old ideas, or entire plots, but never doing anything really interesting with them. It makes me wonder why the constant callbacks this season. One the one hand, they do help define the characters, and I like the idea that in a time of crisis they turn to owning a bar.
But on the other hand, some of these callback the stories associated with them, and it kind of only reminds me of where the show once stood. “Sometimes things have to fall apart to make room for better things,” says Ted at the end of the episode. Dare I hope that the utter collapse of this season means that there are better things on the horizon? I think I’ve been abused enough.
FINAL THOUGHTS
- “There’s a very good chance that Zoey will be the mother of my children.” Why are you lying, show? Why didn’t Future Ted step in and remind us that she’s not?
- “ComeagaingforBigFudge?”
- “He has a lot of keys.”
- “The key to chess is…okay, it’s Angry Birds.”
- “Whoa! Lighting change!”
- So Cristine Rose in a nightie, holding a dreidel and saying, “Mommy has magic lady bits, Ted.” is kind of weird.
- May 10, 2011
- Noel
- Episode Review
- How I Met Your Mother
