HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER: Sigmund Freud Would Love Noretta

I’m having trouble defining How I Met Your Mother’s latest episode. I laughed quite bit during “Noretta”, but at the end of it I felt rather disappointed. How does that work? How could I have chuckled at every other joke and felt genuinely displeased with the episode? After some serious soul searching I figured it out. I hate Nora and Kevin.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise that I don’t like Kevin. I’ve been moaning about him every week since Kal Penn began his arc. But Nora… that came as a surprise even to me. She has a really pretty face, but what else is there to say about her? Barney sees something in her yet I think I missed what that was. Somewhere along the line the show forgot to make Nora likeable beyond her attractiveness. She’s pretty much a blank canvas. At any point in time the writers could turn her into Frankenstein’s bride and it would make sense simply because nothing about her story thus far suggests she isn’t Frankenstein’s bride, you know? And I’ve said my piece on Kevin, so I won’t beat that horse.

On the surface the visual gags in this episode were top notch. The gang realizes that their significant others remind them of one of their parents and they start imagining they see their parents. For example, Lily and Marshall are trying to keep things sexy, but Lily keeps picturing her dad in Marshall’s clothes. Those bits were always funny to me, especially as they became more and more ridiculous, culminating in Chris Elliot and Bill Fagerbakke almost kissing. Hilarious, and a little creepy. Yes, incest was the big theme in “Noretta” and it mostly paid off.

All those funny moments were good but they were ultimately shallow efforts. Barney’s mission to get laid, while it suited his character, didn’t feel right. Barney is a deeper guy than that (at least he’s tying to be), and if Nora really means that much to him surely sex wouldn’t be that big a deal. And while it was funny to see how pathetic Ted has become, I kept wondering, “Didn’t Ted vow to get back to his old ways?” This didn’t feel like old romantic Ted. This was a different Ted than I’ve come to know. It’s not too far off, but Ted usually sticks to his word when he sets out to do something. That character stuff aside, Josh Radnor always brings his A game, even to questionable material and he sells it so well. Ted getting rejected by virtually everyone he knows was the highlight of the episode for me. That and the jumper outside Barney’s balcony.

One-off episodes are good, and I’m sure this is an episode that will fair better when watched a second time, but I start missing the main plot of the season after a while. I’m hoping next week can bring the Romantic Ted story back front and center.  The chances are good as next week is the long awaited return of the Slutty Pumpkin. Let’s hope the writer’s didn’t ruin a classic HIMYM episode in the process. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’ll sipping kahlua and root beer while I watch next week.