How I Met Your Mother Season 9, Episode 12 “The Rehearsal Dinner”
Written by Chuck Tatham
Directed by Pamela Fryman
Airs Monday nights at 8pm ET on CBS
One of the many things How I Met Your Mother‘s lost over the years is its sense of wonder: as Ted and the gang’s adventures have drawn to a close, the surprises have faded. Part of this comes from the construction of the show: at this point, we all know Ted’s happy ending is coming, just as we spent most of season eight (and seven, if we’re being honest) knowing that Barney and Robin were going to get engaged. It’s equally ambitious and constraining: knowing the big moment is coming is both exciting and frustrating – like this season, as we wait and wait for Marshall to arrive (which will happen next week) and Ted to meet and fall in love with the Mother. At this point, there aren’t really any “surprises” to be found – which makes “The Rehearsal Dinner” a perfect time for a good ol’ Barney ruse.
There are a few things that give away the elaborate construction of the episode’s big reveal: seeing the episode begin with Barney in a security office immediately recalls “The Magician’s Code (Part II)”, when Barney proposes to Quinn in the first of his multi-episode, convoluted “plans” that always manage to push the borders of acceptable human behavior. It’s immediately evident that something isn’t quite right – and the more “The Rehearsal Dinner” goes out of its way to suggest that Barney’s dream of a laser tag rehearsal dinner will never come true, the more it becomes clear that something else is afoot.
To the episode’s credit, writer Chuck Tatham does a fantastic job hiding the ultimate reveal, even if it does so in a barely logical way. We won’t get into the details of the fake laser tag arena, security room, and what not – when it comes to Barney’s elaborate plans on HIMYM, examining them as plot devices only reveals the many, many loose threads that are compiled to create the illusion of surprise. In reality, Barney’s laser tag ruse embodies much of How I Met Your Mother‘s final season: lengthy, elaborately constructed narratives that take way, way too long to find simplistic, heart-warming resolutions. More so, these time-wasting stories often undercut what we actually like about these characters: should I be impressed/happy/ecstatic that Robin and Barney are going to put each other through stress for the sake of personal satisfaction? Sure, surprises are nice: but surprises that come with hours of stress and frustration attached do not make for a “happy” marriage – unless HIMYM wants us to embrace Robin and Barney as full-on sociopaths, which at this point, they just might.
If anything, “The Rehearsal Dinner” acts as a nice send-off to “Robin’s Canadian!” jokes, which consist of about 60% of the episode’s humor (including a long sequence of Canadian jokes being told in a bar while a family lives their entire lives out in the background). It also presents a few interesting non-Mother tensions for the middle act of season nine to explore: primarily the tension growing between Marshall and Lily (and now Ted), a manufactured drama that finally finds an interesting wrinkle when Ted gets mad at his best friend. Although I don’t think a guy considering breaking up a wedding is anyone to talk about making decisions without talking to other people, Ted makes a great point when he points out Marshall’s rash decision-making – it’s not often HIMYM pit Ted and Marshall against each other, which might give the next few episodes some much-needed dramatic tension while we wait for the “big moments” to start rolling in.
Other thoughts/observations:
– I wish “all that Lily and Marshall crap” had become a running phrase earlier in the series. It’s a great little bit.
– Anyone up for a dinner at Le Zertag this evening?
– one of the flashbacks sees Ted complaining about LeBron again as he sits alone in his Liberace suit. “Like that’s not traveling because he’s MVP?… C’MON.”
– The biggest hint that this is all Barney’s plan? Note the Ice Rink sign underneath the “Farhampton Lazer Tag” sign.