The Slutty Pumpkin Returns to HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER

The problem with revealing the identity of the Slutty Pumpkin now is we as an audience have had six years to build her up in our imaginations. No celebrity guest could live up to our own versions of the character, and even if by some twist of fate you got exactly whom you were hoping for, the character was never going to be the mother. And because it’s a sequel to a classic episode of How I Met Your Mother, there’s a lot of pressure to live up to that original episode. In a way, “The Slutty Pumpkin Returns” was destined to fail when compared to that first season episode. But if you compare it to what show has evolved in to since then, it’s quite a triumph.

A lot of what the seventh season is all about is making those connections back in to our characters’ past, specifically Ted’s. We already had one episode that brought back his first long-term girlfriend in the series, Victoria. It was touching episode that reminded us why Ted is such a good guy. He’s a romantic at heart. Romantic Ted was the guy who went to the same lame Halloween party every year in hopes of reuniting with the Slutty Pumpkin (Katie Holmes), a girl he hit it off with but tragically lost her number. However, instead of being getting more of that romantic Ted like we got in “Ducky Tie”, we get the opposite. He quickly realizes they’re not compatible, but his own struggle with romanticism holds him back from breaking up with her. He wants to like her so bad, but he really can’t stand her. Those awkward moments as Ted expressed his discomfort in voice over were pretty entertaining. This is the Ted we have come to embrace. Awkward, clueless Ted.

The story as a whole was pretty run-of-the-mill and sitcomy. It didn’t veer off in any unforeseen direction. I was a little surprised, and quite pleased, when Slutty Pumpkin revealed she felt the exact same way as Ted, right down to the voice over, but again that wasn’t entirely unpredictable. It just didn’t seem likely the girl Ted originally met would have been as loco as she seemed to be. Ted has higher standards than that.

The biggest laughs came from the B and C stories. Marshall and Lily have to decide whether they want to move to the suburbs or not while Robin stumbles upon the revelation that Barney is 1/8^th Canadian. The Marshall/Lily story worked by tying it in to Lily’s pregnancy and having their roles reversed because of it. Historically Marshall has always been pro suburbs while Lily prefers the city, but because her hormones are causing her judgment and comprehension to slip she becomes hell-bent on raising their child far away from the city. As thrilled as Marshall would be to let Lily get her crazy pregnant lady wish, he knows she’s not thinking clearly and won’t let her make such a rash decision just yet. The humor here comes from Lily constantly mixing up words, putting things where they don’t belong and becoming attached to inanimate objects. My favorite was when she realized she put the ice cube tray in her purse and began to sob because those poor ice cubes melted.

Being a Canadian, I got a massive kick out of the Barney/Robin storyline. I’m no snob, I can take a joke about Canada, and HIMYM has done plenty. I always beam with pride whenever Robin’s heritage gets brought up, and it was great to see Robin torturing Barney over being part Canadian as well. But as funny as Robin’s remarks became, nothing topped Barney splitting in to two versions of himself; one a boxer wearing American flag shorts and the other a Mounty. The American Barney proceeds to punch the Canadian Barney over and over, and in traditional Canadian fashion Canadian Barney never stops being intolerably nice.

“The Slutty Pumpkin Returns” could never live up to the legend, but it never really made an attempt. Turning the situation in to a giant joke was probably the only way things could have turned out half decent. And on the plus side, the other storylines had more than enough laughs to keep me entertained. A solid episode that I can’t wait to watch again.