Reviews and More

Last night’s episode of How I Met Your Mother was called “The Bracket”, and it was so good that I’m going to describe it with a phrase that I usually try to avoid at all costs: instant classic. But really, there’s just nothing else to say about it. “The Bracket” is the best of Season 3 thus far, and is very close to “Slap Bet” in terms of best of the series. I think with a few more viewings “The Bracket” might have a shot at surpassing Slap Bet, but we’ll see.

What made episode 3×14 so good? Stay tuned for the recap!

Plot summary (with possible spoilers): “The Bracket” was a Barney-centered ep that provided a much needed-change of pace from the Ted/Stella stuff. Barney realizes that something strange is going on when he has trouble picking up women at some of his usual haunts (the hardware store, pet shop, museum). Something happens in the 20 seconds when he walks away to strengthen his come-on line, and the women end up slapping him and leaving.

The same thing happens when Barney is in MacLaren’s with Lily, but this time, he’s able to get the scoop. A blond woman approached Lily as soon as Barney walked away and warned her that whatever he was telling her was a lie because his ultimate goal was to get into her pants. The blond then disappears before Barney comes back.

Barney pulls out his scrapbook of past conquests to see if Lily can identify the mystery woman from it, but she has no luck. So then Barney gets the brilliant idea of doing a March Madness-like bracket of the top 64 women that he has screwed over in the past to see which one will emerge as the likely saboteur.

The whole gang gathers around to help determine the winners of the various head-to-head matchups in the bracket, and then when they get down to the Final Four, Barney and Lily went to visit each of the women in person to see if they were right. But it turned out that they were on the wrong track.

So Robin suggests a setup in the bar whereby they pretend that Barney is hitting on her. He’ll walk away, the mystery woman will come up to warn Robin, and Barney will get to apologize to her. They do it, but again the plan fails.

Future Ted’s voiceover tells us that we’ll see more of the mystery woman later on.

My Reaction: I loved the whole idea of using a bracket to try to figure out who the scorned woman was! I know CBS broadcasts the NCAA tourney, so some people might consider it overkill in the cross-promotion department, but I thought it was brilliant! The debates between the gang over which Barney act was most despicable were hilarious, as was the montage near the end with the One Shining Moment theme was perfect.

But the two best parts of this ep, in my opinion, were the Barney/Robin fake pick-up scene, and the every end with Barney at his computer in the obvious Doogie Howser homage. First, Barney and Robin have all kinds of chemistry, so I really hope the writers decide to go somewhere with that pairing. It could happen, because Future Ted often refers to Uncle Barney and Aunt Robin, meaning that those two people are still in his life in 20 years. That doesn’t have to mean that the two are a couple, of course, but I can’t imagine the bond with Robin lasting that long if she wasn’t with Barney.

And that end, with Barney typing on his blog with the Doogie Howser theme song playing and that big-ass cursor on the laptop?? OMG — pure genius!!!

Oh, almost forgot to mention TedMosbyIsaJerk.com, a working site with a 20-minute song/rant from the coffee barista who hates Barney (as Ted Mosby, architect). Very cool!

Before I leave, I just need to dip into the shallow end of the pool for a moment. Neil Patrick Harris is incredibly hot!!! Wow! And even though he’s openly gay, he’s completely believable as a sleazebag womanizer because Barney Stinson is all kinds of awesome!

While browsing through my archives, I noticed that I haven’t posted about The O.C. since January. That’s because I sort of put the show aside so I could catch up on DVDs of Criminal Minds, Without a Trace, and The Office. But I felt like delving into a bit of teen angst yesterday, so I knocked off two more episodes from Season 3. I’m now finished through ep 3×06, “The Swells”, and am interested enough in what’s happening to keep on going. Here are a few random thoughts from 3×01-3×06.

– That Charlotte character gives me the creeps. I’ve never been a big fan of Julie Cooper before, but when she called Charlotte out after finding all those credit cards, I breathed a sigh of relief. I was really worried about what Charlotte was going to try to do to Kirsten. Now that Julie’s involved, I don’t think things will get too out of hand.

– I can’t get a bead on this new Johnny kid who’s so into Marissa. Is he genuinely nice, or does he have an ulterior motive as well? I know they went the psycho stalker route with Oliver already, but I wouldn’t put it past this guy. Like when he spilled his guts about going after his dad with a baseball bat and then said to Marissa, “I’ve never told anyone that before”, my first impression was, “Um, yeah, probably because you just made it up.” I really can’t figure him out.

– What’s with the low-class depiction of public schools in Orange County? Why do all the kids where oversized clothes, hoodies, have long hair, and carry skateboards around? I guess that’s the writers’ version of what the underprivileged look like. Give me a break. Just because the public school kids don’t live in mansions so big and extravagant that even the pool houses have fiberglass columns, that doesn’t mean they don’t have fashion sense, barbershops, and cars. Sheesh!

– The kids are now into their senior year of high school, and Summer is still acting like she’s completely brainless. I’m really curious to know how the writers are going to transform her into Ivy League material over the course of the season. It’ll probably be something sudden, like acing her SATs or something. If they go that route, that’s a total cop out. Brown just seems so out of character for Summer. I don’t get this choice at all….

– How many times does Ryan have to punch someone out to get his point across? That had to have been some kind of inside joke on the set when the show was in production because there’s no way someone would just keep on doing stuff like that. It’s farcical by now, which is why I think the writers and/or producers are poking fun at the show when they have Ryan punch someone out. Oh, and why does he always have to sucker punch these people. You know, he does the pretend walk away bit, and then suddenly turns around to deliver a right cross to the jaw. Not cool.

– I actually like Sandy and Kirsten’s storylines this season. I usually don’t care much for the adult shenanigans on this show, but this time around is different.

Anyway, I’m going to keep watching The O.C. until the bitter end. I know it’s not top quality television, but whatever. It’s at least entertaining most of the time, which is all I’m really looking for!