Yes, Limit Your Search To Men With Mustaches

Here are my reviews of last night’s How I Met Your Mother, Shameless, and House. The How I Met Your Mother review also contains an extended theory of where I think the show is going. It’s very scientific, and could be the most important piece of writing in a generation.

Oh and stay tuned tomorrow, as I’m going to post my (Brian) top 5 movies of the year. It should be fun.

Spoilers...

How I Met Your Mother – “Garbage Island” (B)

The Ted/Zoey relationship has only been around a few episodes now, and while I really enjoyed their humble beginnings, the writer’s haven’t really been able to figure out what to do with them yet. We’ve had two episodes in a row now that were more about the morality of Ted dating a recent divorcee than they were about the two of them being a couple.

This week it was Ted finding out that he stole Zoey from the Captain, rather than the two of them breaking up naturally. I can understand Ted feeling like the bad guy in this situation, and I enjoyed his final scene with Zoey, but his scenes with the captain weren’t particularly funny. There are only so many old English maritime jokes I can handle, and I’m pretty sure that’s all the Captain knows how to do. Well that and scare the crap out of Ted.

More interesting was Ted’s conversation with Wendy the waitress at the end of the episode. I’ve always liked Wendy – her appearances in the bar have always been funny – so I’m a little perturbed by her ending scene with Ted. If the last time she saw Ted was when he was with Zoey, does that mean we won’t be seeing Wendy the waitress anymore? I really hope the answer to that question is no, but it really did seem like they were writing her off a bit here.

Marshall’s story this week was a little better than Ted’s, but it wasn’t nearly as good as what we’ve been seeing from him over the past few episodes. Last week they had him coping with the loss of his father by regressing him back to a high school student. Well this week they had him on a quest to save the environment, leaving Lilly in the lurch when it came to matters of the bedroom. They’ve done the Lilly needs sex storyline before on this show, so the jokes from this aspect of the storyline weren’t exactly fresh. And as much as I’ve liked Marshall’s storyline over the past few episodes, they need to start moving forward with it or risk becoming stale. Still, I thought Lilly’s final scene with him in the dumpster was sweet, and I’m very interested in seeing whether Marshall moves on from Goliath National Bank considering we know that Lilly will be pregnant fairly soon.

The other storyline this week followed up on Barney’s new found crush on Robin’s co-worker Nora. Even though the story didn’t really progress past where we left off last week, I still thought that this was the funniest part of the episode. Robin and Barney have good chemistry with each other and their back and forth banter here was really strong. I loved Barney’s new found ability to tell exactly how long it’s been since a girl has had sex, and his subsequent eyeing of Robin was one of the highlights of the episode for me.

Alright, now let’s go back to Ted’s conversation with future Wendy. These days it seems like every time I mention this show to anybody all I hear is “when are they gonna show us the mother?”  Well Ted and Wendy’s conversation in this episode teased us with the identity of the mother again, which sparked a few theories/questions in my head. Not so much about who the mother will be but more about how the rest of the show will play out.

Okay, stick with me. So we know now that Zoey isn’t the mother, not a real shocker but it’s officially been confirmed. We were also reminded this week that Ted meets his wife at the wedding shown in the season premiere. We don’t know who’s wedding yet though. Now if you recall, a few seasons ago Ted alluded to a yellow umbrella story, which I took at the time to be the story of how he originally met the mother (he had the umbrella when he met Tony and Stella, but I’m hoping that’s not the story he was referring to as that would be a major cop out). Well if he meets her at this wedding they’ve been talking about, then what is this yellow umbrella story all about?

My guess is that they’re going to reveal the mother before the end of the series (I’ve read they have to do at least two more seasons because of their syndication deal). Now this could be done in two ways. First, they could reveal her outright, and she and Ted’s relationship could become a regular part of the show. The umbrella story would then be either how he proposes to her, or the two of them finally making up after some sort of falling out.

The other way they could do it though, which is actually my preference, is they do the wedding at the end of the season and instead of outright showing us the mother, they provide us with multiple candidates of who the mother could be. So Ted goes to the wedding, meets a few girls and we spend our time figuring out which girl it will be. Sort of like we’ve been doing all along, except this time we know at least one of them is the mother. The umbrella scene would then be the reveal of which girl he ended up choosing.

Whether I’m right or wrong about either of those two theories, I think revealing the mother early is a good move for this show. You can tell that Ted’s character is getting harder and harder to write for simply because it’s getting more difficult for the audience to become invested in relationships they know are doomed to fail. Revealing the mother, or at least who she could potentially be, would go a long way in remedying this, and more importantly would give Ted’s character the shot in the arm he needs.

Phew, that was a lot. What do you think they’ll do with the mother? Nerd out with me in the comments.

Shameless – “Frank Gallagher: Loving Husband, Devoted Father” (B+)

No, the title of this episode does not refer to Frank turning his life around.

Frank fakes his own death in this week’s Shameless, not exactly a shocking turn of events considering all the other scams he has going on. It’s all in an effort to get the two thugs he owes $6000 to off of his back. One of things I’ve really come to enjoy about this show is the Gallagher’s and their elaborate plans. Watching them throw an impromptu funeral for Frank this week was downright hilarious, from Carl stealing flowers to Kev and Lip stealing a Hearse. And then when the time came for the funeral itself, the whole family played it perfectly. My personal favourite moment was watching them all suddenly burst into tears at the mention of the word suicide. Hilarious.

Also this week, Fiona took a vacation from the family by spending a night in a hotel with Steve. Her initial reluctance produced a nice little scene between Steve and Kev that I really liked, where Kev tells Steve to stop asking her what she needs and just tell her.

KEV: When she says fuck you, it means I like you.

That conversation proved itself very important later in the episode, with Steve responding to Fiona’s “fuck you” with an “I love you”. It was a great way to develop their relationship, and it was nice step back from the usual heaviness between these two.

And with Fiona taking the night off, Sheila looked after Liam. It was actually a nice little story for Sheila, who seemed to absolutely adore the task of looking after Liam. More importantly though, she ventured outside for the first time in the history of the show. I’m hoping a baby step like that will help her start venturing further out into the world. Her story ended however, with her emptying her birth control into the toilet, so that may not be the direction the writers are taking her character.

Ian’s story this week was a little more on the bizarre side. He and Kash finally get caught in the act, but instead of Kash’s wife divorcing him, she decides to let the relationship continue with a few conditions. Even more bizarre though was Ian’s scene with Mandy’s brother Mickey. When he goes to Mickey’s house to retrieve the gun he stole, they get into an altercation that ends with them sleeping with each other. I’m not going to lie, I did not see that coming. This might be good for Ian though, as his relationship with Kash is somewhat uncomfortable considering their difference in age (and the fact that Kash is now buying him gifts, creepy). It also may cause some interesting tension between Mickey and his sister, who obviously likes Ian.

Last but not least, I just want to touch on Kev and Veronica’s decision to take in a foster child. I personally can’t wait to see this storyline play out as these two are consistently the funniest part of this show. And if Kev’s conversation with Lip is any indication, we can look forward to more of the same with this storyline.

LIP: Half of those foster kids are messed up.
KEV: (as he’s stealing a hearse) Exactly – that’s why they need a positive influence.

House – “Two Stories” (A-)

I really enjoyed this episode. They didn’t spend too much time of the medical side of things but that was fine with me, because what they gave us instead worked, and worked well. Of course this was the sequel to the phenomenal season 1 episode “Three Stories”, an episode that has to be among one of the greatest episodes of House of all time, so some of the ground work was already there.

While this episode may not have reached the lofty heights of its predecessor that doesn’t mean it wasn’t a fun watch. Pairing House with a group of school children was absolutely brilliant. The simplicity of the children was a perfect match for House and some of the backwards logic he uses, and his discussion with them was just downright hilarious. Throw in House’s usual offering of crude remarks and inappropriateness and you had a wonderful framing device in which to tell this week’s story.

The real strength of these episodes told through House’s eyes is that we get to peer into his weird demented mind. Now like I said, this can be pretty hilarious, but even more interesting are the details that House manages to gloss over in his retelling of the story. The way he would avoid talking about certain subjects with the young girl and boy revealed what he was uncomfortable talking about, a side we don’t often get to see with House.

And of course it was his retelling of the story under the critical eyes of those two young children that made him realize he had been taking Cuddy for granted. The scene where he finally talks to the principle of the school was a very big step in the development of his character. Saying that he “needs” Cuddy is very unlike House, and plays into the larger theme this season of House trying to break free of his old habits and finally embrace some sort of happiness.