Monsters of Television

“I’m just a jerk!”

I can normally get behind the social/dating stuff that the show rolls out fairly easily. Slap Bet. The Hot/Crazy scale. The Bro Code. The Lemon Law. The Platinum Rule. The Naked Man.  But this season has been a bit blah. Like “The Sexless Innkeeper,”  “Hooked” feels like a neat idea, but the concept doesn’t get exploited for enough laughs.

Hooked refers to stringing along someone that you have no intention of being with, but you keep them near you with the “one day” or “just not right now” line. It’s a relatable concept, as I’m sure many people have done this and/or have had it done to them, but the show fails to latch onto how these situations are funny: seeing the past versions of the characters experience the social trope in play.

It’s frustrating because they show hints at it, as we see Marshall in his teenage years, swooning for some girl, only to being totally ignored and buried in snow, the potential past experiences that could be mined for comedy gold. Instead we get that one bit, Ted being cruel to a woman from the university’s library (who looks like Shelley Duvall’s much younger sister) in his attempt to hook up with Carrie Underwood, and the other bit of Lily attempting to finally break things off with Scooter (and Robin leading on Mike the Cameraman).

The episode is, frankly, prime idea for Seinfeld, with its cast of misanthropic characters, and in a show where all the jokes would end up converging at the end, the pay off could be impressive. But on HIMYM, the characters aren’t as vain or self-absorbed as the characters from Seinfeld (except maybe Robin). So while the show acknowledges Ted’s cruelty to library woman by having Future Ted pause the narrative and yell, it never fully works because the show hasn’t earned Ted as being this jerk-like (he can be a bit of a jerk though).

Lily’s attempts to finally let Scooter off the hook is simply weird due to the presence of the teacup pig (is that a thing?), whose adorable stare parallels that of Scooter’s. Eventually the Lily is able to say no to the pig, and thus to Scooter, but the journey to get there is frankly a bit off the mark.

As the episode finished, I realized that the show has its audience on a hook. “We’re not going to show you the mother. But maybe one day…” And thus we keep giving the show foot massages, baking it cakes, and cuddling with it.

FINAL THOUGHTS

• Barney’s discussion of pharmaceutical girls would be funny if Scrubs hadn’t done a similar idea back with Heather Locklear back in the day.
• To that end, I’m sure Barney is a pro at hooking women. I would’ve loved to have seen some of that.
• The show just loves having awkward and pudgy Jason Segel become his teenage self. And I love it, too.
• I flipped over to NBC thinking that Law & Order was about to start, and caught the half-hour break of Chuck. I watched long enough to realize that poor Shaw is on Sarah’s hook (at least up to the point that I watched).
• Scooter remains awesomely creepy.