You may recall that last week I said that I was stepping back from regular “How I Met Your Mother” reviews, but that I would likely post talkbacks here each week, and that I would weigh in at some length if the episode warranted it. Well, even though I know “Platonish” was written and produced some time in the past, it does feel a bit like it was specifically designed to shake me from my resolve. For spoiler’s sake, a few brief thoughts on why coming up just as soon as I am not allowd to writ th lttr E…
So “Platonish” took place almost entirely away from the Farhampton Inn, during an earlier period in the gang’s adventures (Carter Bays said it was between last season’s “Splitsville” and “The Stamp Tramp”), it had a fun game for the regulars to play (the ladies giving Barney challenges rather than letting him self-assign), it featured a whole lot of Marshall interacting with another regular castmember, and it gave us a healthy serving of the Mother. It was, in other words, pretty much everything I was hoping this final season would be, rather than what it had mostly been to this point.
Now, the Bryan Cranston cameo was non-great (like Marshall’s adventures in the Hummer, it seemed designed to use up the least amount of Cranston’s time possible while still giving CBS something to put in a promo), the writers are perhaps laying things on too thick with the Mother and all her perfection (and perfect compatibility with Ted), and the less the show dwells on Ted’s lingering feelings for Robin at this late stage – which continues to undermine the best part of the proposal episode – the better. But had we gotten more episodes like this earlier in the season, rather than haunted hotel rooms and scrambled egg contests and other nonsense I’ve since blocked from my mind, I’d still be chugging along. Then again, this is longer than some of my write-ups for this season, so I guess Bays, Thomas and company have sucked me back in for at least one week. Due to the high level of Ted/Robin pining, I’d call it more good-ish than good, but that’s still a vast improvement.
More like this, please. Less like everything else. I won’t mind breaking my vow more regularly in that case.
What did everybody else think?