Tangled Up In Wires

How I Met Your Mother generally does two things very well: coming up with rules/concepts and handling celebrity guests very well. For rules/concepts, we’ve seen things like Slap Bet, The Bro Code, The Window, and, most recently, Rabbit or Duck work well in helping the overall mythology of the show. As for celebrity guests, they took guest turns from Brittney Spears, Mandy Moore, and Enrique Iglesias and managed to integrate them ably into the story. So in theory, “Hooked” should have worked well, with the gang coming up with the concept of Hooking, keeping someone into you enough to keep them doing nice things for you, and a guest appearance from Carrie Underwood as a girl Hooking Ted.

But it didn’t. “Hooked ended up being the weakest episode of the season for HIMYM and was incredibly disappointing coming out of the Olympic break. It had some bright spots, but overall, it wasn’t really the cohesive or funny. The story is thus: Ted falls for Tiffany (Carrie Underwood), who has a boyfriend but strings him along anyway for cake and foot massages. The gang tries to show him that not only does Tiffany have him Hooked, but he himself has a girl on the hook, Henrietta, a girl madly in love with Ted. Predictably, Ted keeps going after Tiffany, going so far as attending an out of town wedding with her, only to realize that she was Hooked by her jerky boyfriend. So Ted bolts, goes to tell Henrietta he doesn’t want to be with her, and in the process accidentally proposes. It was one of the funnier moments of the episode to see her open the door to Ted picking an engagement ring up off the floor.

Meanwhile, Marshall was using Barney’s teacup pig (his bait to lure women to his apartment) to get Lilly to practice getting Scooter (!) off the hook. It took a lot of work, and once Lilly finally did it, Marshall fell for Scooter’s puppy dog eyes and negated all her progress. Barney went nuts with Tiffany’s co-workers, “pharma girls,” which according the Barney, is the hottest profession in the world right now. His explanation of the history of the hottest professions was hilarious in the typical Barney fashion, and provided a highlight for the episode. Robin was around a little bit, having a cameraman on her Hook, doing her laundry for her.

I really think the big problem with “Hooked” was a weak story and too many mediocre jokes crammed in. It wasn’t the fault of Carrie Underwood, who did fairly well with what the writers gave her. It felt like an episode going for goofy jokes the whole way, and even the gags that worked (Barney’s previous baits, Marshall as a teenager, Barney flipping the bowl of nuts) were coupled with gags that didn’t work (the teacup pig, Scooter’s puppy dog eyes, Henrietta’s parents).

I think with every show, there’s a tendency to want to call the episodes that won you over as a fan better than new or current episodes, so I’m hoping that I’m just watching HIMYM in a different light than I did with seasons one and two, but I’ve been a little unsatisfied so far this season. I realize HIMYM isn’t Lost, and the mythology of the mother shouldn’t be the centerpiece of the show, but it’d be nice to go back to having a guiding theme to the season. Season One had Ted going after Robin, Season Two was about their relationship, but after that, it’s been a string of shorter plots that have caused the show to veer towards typical CBS sitcom territory. Like I said, I’m not asking for a highly serial show, but rather something that has a decided direction and knows where it’s going as opposed to trying to put different spins on frequently used devices. So there’s my rant. J. Lo is on next week, so we’ll see how that goes. Until then, I’ll rewatch the part with Teenage Marshall, always the funniest part of the episode.

Michael’s Score: 54

Tangled Up In Wires Grade: C