Spoilers for How I Met Your Mother coming up after the jump:
On the one hand, I am already as tired of Laura Prepon’s Karen as Lily and Marshall are. Not because she’s douchey per se, and not because Prepon is bad at playing her, but because she’s so viciously, over-the-top douchey that I simply don’t believe him repeatedly going back to her. Even if “he looks at her and sees the first person to touch his weiner besides himself, his mom and his pediatrician.” (It also sabotages Ted in a way that his embarrassing college flashbacks don’t. There comes a point when, if your friend insists on dating a douche, you must ask yourself: Is my friend a douche too?) Here’s hoping initial reports we’re wrong and that we’ve seen the last of her.
That said, straightforward, funny execution can make up for a lot of sins, and last night had plenty of that. The running gag of the gang ignoring the TV as the most exciting 4 a.m. talk show ever unfolded was brilliant, as was the subplot about Barney and Marshall’s choice of nightwear and how it reflects each man’s philosophy of life. (Marshall would rather be comfortable than cool; Barney would rather be ready for a porn-style fantasy sequence.) And I continue to love how HIMYM frames its fantasy sequences to reflect the fantasizer’s perspective—in this case, Lily’s ignorance of bridge.
Granted, the idea of Lily as puppetmaster, silently euthanizing Ted’s bad relationships, is a bit stalkery; but Alyson Hannigan makes the manipulation seem so sweet and well-intended that I, like Ted, can’t stay mad at her. Bridge! She wins.