How I Met Your Mother Season 9 (1 Viewer)

[Adam Lenhardt]

The problem is that the show is called "How I Met Your Mother", not "After I Met Your Mother". I think it was always going to end at that Long Island Rail Road stop in the rain. At least with the flash forwards, we get glimpses of their relationship.

 

[Stan]

I dont think they pushed it too much. They easily could have gone one more season. I just think it's a bad idea that they are spending the whole season on that marriage. The mother should have met Ted at the end of last season and this season should have been about their relationship afterward.

Hate to bring up FRIENDS here but for comparison, I think the best season was when Monica and Chandler started to date and they explored their relationship. It was so fun and fresh, especially when they tried to keep it a secret from the others.

Call me Mr. Cynical, but I also bailed on Friends about that time. The show just started to lose it's chemistry, the fun was disappearing, the enjoyable snarkiness was vanishing.
Am glad to know Courtney Cox is coming back next month in new episodes of Cougar Town on TBS. That's a show that still has its spark and just keeps on going.

 

[DaveF]

The problem is that the show is called "How I Met Your Mother", not "After I Met Your Mother". I think it was always going to end at that Long Island Rail Road stop in the rain. At least with the flash forwards, we get glimpses of their relationship.

By that reasoning, "The New Girl" should have been one episode and done. Despite not being titled "192", "24" had 8 seasons.A show should not refuse to improve because of its title.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

By that reasoning, "The New Girl" should have been one episode and done.Despite not being titled "192", "24" had 8 seasons.A show should not refuse to improve because of its title.

"The New Girl's" title hasn't fit since the pilot, since "Coach" got called back to "Happy Endings." But since every season of "24" covered a 24-hour period, that title continued to make perfect sense.I wouldn't want to lose the wedding story, but I would have been fine with them telling it over the last eight or so episodes of last season, ending last season with the scene on the train platform, and then have this as a sort of epilogue season entitled "After I Met Your Mother".That being said, such a series would likely suffer from many of the problems we're experiencing now. As it is, I'm glad the Mother's being kept out of the mediocrity of the filler episodes.

 

[Chip_HT]

I don't understand this season. Why is Segal AWOL? Why is the mother not part of the show?

Segal's not AWOL. Just because he's not with the main cast in the "present day" part of the story doesn't mean he's not working. He's had just as much material with the road trip, plus we've had a couple episodes that were mostly flashback where he was fully interacting with the rest of the cast.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

I loved how they tied the different storylines together tonight. The way they pulled off the Mother being impressed by Ted and buying him a drink without ever actually meeting him is right up there with the best of the show's interwoven storytelling. I also like how we see little bits of all of the gang in the Mother; since the show's really the story of these five friends, it's more satisfying getting to the end knowing that this journey taught him what to look for.The Darrin storyline was a bit too broad for this episode to be a total home run, but it was the best one in a while.

 

[SamT]

Yes it had good moments this episode. Maybe the best of this season? It's for all these good things that I give it a rating of 4/10.

 

[Jason_V]

Marshmellow is finally where he needs to be. The mother has met another of the group. And I really liked Darrin, for better or worse. Especially the punch in the end.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

After the Olympics, the remainder of the final season will air uninterrupted leading up to a one-hour series finale on March 31.

 

[Jason_V]

That's one way to keep momentum, I guess. The uninterrupted episode airings at things we're seeing more and more on broadcast TV. It'll be weird, though, to have the finale in March.

 

[David Norman]

Weird -- I guess I'm old enough to remember when that was SOP. Sad that now this is considered to be special

 

[DaveF]

I really liked this episode. It brought the gang together, tied the Mother into the storyline and interacting with main characters. It was doing everything right.

 

[DaveF]

A fantastically crazy throw-away episode! Pulling in a recurring gag. Taking HIMYM's invented stories to a whole new level. And the best slap-mo ever!

 

[Walter Kittel]

I always love the 'slap' episodes and this one does a great job of being all about the slap. The Kill Bill stuff was a lot of fun. Slapped his heart out.

- Walter.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Fun, but one of the dumber episodes the show's done. I did like Marshall not being a total buffoon, though, playing on Barney's inability to resist involved self-mythologizing no matter how unbelievable.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

This past episode is apparently taking a lot of heat in some quarters for being racist against the Chinese because of the cultural appropriation in the kung fu movie style flashbacks.

 

[Charlie Campisi]

This past episode is apparently taking a lot of heat in some quarters for being racist against the Chinese because of the cultural appropriation in the kung fu movie style flashbacks.

Wow. I wouldn't have believed it, but here's a link to a Yahoo article covering the apologies by the creators.

http://tv.yahoo.com/blogs/tv-news/-how-i-met-your-mother-racism-creators-apologize-for-kung-fu-slapsgiving-episode-221953004.html

I'm pretty sensitive to most racial topics and have a more sensitive trigger than most and I don't see it. I'm also 1/8 Chinese-American and have a Korean wife. I saw it and thought Kill Bill and kung fu movies. I don't see how you imitate that genre without some sort of food reference and accent. Skin color is a bit more troublesome, but for me, it didn't cross any lines. Can you do a parody show without it being an insult? For me, you can.

 

[Citizen87645]

I haven't been watching this season in order to watch it all in one go once it's all over. I guess I'll have to watch this latest episode, though I'm not sure if I would be totally objective after reading through some of the complaints. For some highlights of what offended people: http://www.buzzfeed.com/mbvd/32-powerful-tweets-that-takedown-yellowface-on-how-i-met-you So just going off of that, I'm kind of in the middle on this one (as I am most of the time when the Asian (usually activist) community gets up in arms about something). But generally speaking, I think it was a bad idea to put Ted, Lily and Robin in Asian costumes, makeup and wigs. Not because it's wrong to ever do that, but because there are guaranteed to be people offended by it. I'm presuming they weren't looking to offend their viewers as it's not that kind of boundary pushing show, so it's a "smack my head" moment when a group is that clueless about a sensitive area and the idea makes it all the way to public consumption. Again, it's not that I think a non-Asian should never be dressed as an Asian (I like to know the context), and there should be some kind of zero tolerance policy around it, it's that the writers and cast didn't seem to have an awareness that their execution would bother some people. Or they did, didn't think it would matter, and went ahead with it anyway. Could they have done a parody of a kung fu movie without the Asian hair, makeup and wardrobe on non-Asian actors? Yes, I think most viewers would have caught the genre references without needing those physical cues. It was a broad approach to something that could have been done more cleverly. That said, having married a Chinese-Malaysian, it's been interesting seeing my reaction, as a Chinese-American, to things like this vs. hers, which is not informed by the history of race issues and political correctness in this country. I'm pretty sure she would have laughed at the episode and not really thought twice about it, because she would just see it as dumb and juvenile humor and ultimately meaningless; inconsequential when it comes to affecting how she sees herself and her culture. Whereas I might feel uncomfortable, because I've been more or less taught to question the intentions of those involved (and sometimes for good reason). It's a complicated issue, obviously, and one not so easily defined, despite what Twitter trending may suggest. I think for as many people outright offended by the HIMYM episode, there are as many who see it as a non-issue or sit somewhere in between. But those people aren't necessarily the loudest voices in the room.

 

[SamT]

Funny, this episode was so bad that I didn't have the time to think about anything racist in it. It was just offending to any human being. I give it 1/10. I never thought they could go lower than what they did in this season but they did it. It looks like they are detached and have no idea of what's funny or what's great to have for your final season.

 

[Yee-Ming]

FWIW, I'm 100% ethnic Chinese, and I simply thought it was a silly (as in somewhat funny yet a little dumb, rather than outright stupid) episode, and wasn't particularly offended. At the least, Robin, Lily and Ted didn't speak with faux Chinese accents -- which would have been offensive -- and kung fu is a genre that always gets parodied, for better or worse.

As to the complaint about yellowface, the point was to have Robin, Lily and Ted in those roles, so the argument that Asian actors should have been cast doesn't hold up. Casting Asian actors instead of a Caucasian in make-up is a valid complaint if the role in question is truly an Asian character, hence the mention of Mickey Rourke back in the day (Breakfast At Tiffany's), or for that matter, what I always consider the ultimate travesty, David Carradine instead of Bruce Lee in Kung Fu.