A quick review of tonight's “How I Met Your Mother” coming up just as soon as we work on the fat guy table…
We are running out of time, “HIMYM” and us, and while much of this final season has made me eager to get to the end already, “Gary Blauman” was a reminder both of the amount of business that still has to be dealt with in the remaining 60-odd minutes (plus commercials) of television. In the present, we still have to deal with the actual wedding, and before it Robin's pre-established bout of cold feet, and Ted and the Mother have to actually have their first meeting (and only after she first meets Robin). And in the future, we have to deal with whatever major developments are still to come for Ted, the Mother and the gang, including finding out whether “the Mother is dying in 2024” is a head fake, a terrible decision, or something else.
With all that to do, I wondered why the show might devote an entire episode this late in the run to an extremely minor recurring character like GNB employee Gary Blauman, who's notable only for being played by Cobie Smulders' husband Taran Killam. But Blauman was an excuse for three more important things: 1)One more trip down memory lane to different periods of the show's run, 2)A glimpse of Ted and the Mother's first date, only days after the wedding, where he would tell her this story, and 3)Gary's exit from the wedding inspiring Future Ted to fill us in on the futures of so many of the show's more memorable guests.
Of those, #1 wasn't as effective as some of the season's other faux-clip shows, but I did enjoy the guys' indignation over Blauman eating the Accidental Curly, and mockery of Lily's suggestion that a full order of curly fries would be the same. #2 & #3, however? Perfect. I didn't even know that I needed closure on most of those people, and yet the glimpses of Ranjit enjoying a life of luxury, Scooter ending up with Lily's doppelganger, Jeanette and Kevin moving to Poughkeepsie together, etc., was really sweet and even touching, even though some of these people were absolute cartoons (Blah-Blah, whose name turns out to be Carol) or reminders of previous dark periods of the show (Zoey).
And Ted and the Mother's date was, like every other bit of Radnor/Milioti business this season, so overflowing with chemistry and life that the only downside is that the show didn't give us many, many more flashforwards like it.
What did everybody else think? Did you enjoy Billy Zabka's insistence on being recognized for the proper “Karate Kid” signature move? Were there particular guest stars you wish had appeared in the concluding sequence? Do you agree with the Mother that the Wednesday after her boyfriend proposed to her on Saturday – and the Wednesday after Ted finally let go of his feelings for Robin on Sunday morning – is much too soon for that first date?