Last night marked the return of "How I Met Your Mother," or HIMYM as I will henceforth refer to it. (All the cool kids use acronyms). I discovered this show at the beginning of last season and it quickly became one of my favorites, mostly because the characters are believable and the writing is FUNNY (something a lot of comedies don't think is important anymore). Ted, Barney, Marshall, Lilly, and Robin all seem like people I would be friends with. Also, I tend to identify with the storylines (having just graduated from college, long term relationships seem to have grown in importance lately).
Ok, enough about me and why I like the show. Let's get to last night's episode. I'm surprised at how well the writers are handling Ted and Robin's break-up. It definitely seems like they will not be having this pair get back together and are moving forward to having us finally meet the mother. I like shows that move towards resolutions instead of wandering from place to place without any sort of clear destination, creating completely unnecessary problems for itself (e.g., Season 9 of Friends and the Joey/Rachel relationship). I also liked how Ted went to Robin's apartment at the end because he needed to yell irrationally and hadn't been able to do that yet. Again, kudos to the writer's for creating real characters.
Second, and this is another one of my favorite things about this show, I love how the writers work in current pop culture slang, e.g., calling Ted's lower back tattoo a "tramp stamp." I first heard the term from my younger sister (who is much cooler than I am and thus up-to-date on such terminology) about six months ago. This is not the first time they've done this and if anyone else can think of another example, please let me know.
The stunt casting of Mandy Moore and Enrique Iglesias was a bit unnecessary, but they didn't do a bad job, so I won't complain. All in all, I'm definitely looking forward to the rest of this season, especially since they're going to bring back the Slap Bet gag from last season. (If you don't know what I'm talking about, watch the Season 2 episode "Slap Bet," which also features Robin Sparkles, another gag I hope to see again soon). I can't wait until November to find out what happens when the Slap Countdown clock runs out.
