How I Met Your Mother – Marshall is a light saber wielding crazy person

(Season 4, Episode 10 – “The Fight”)

I know I was supposed to think this was the funniest episode in the history of How I Met Your Mother, but I am just not there. Maybe it’s because the topic wasn’t funny to me, or because the Robin joke got old, but it was just missing something tonight.

I really do love this show, honest! And I even love some of the episodes, like the last one, “The Naked Man (brilliant, brilliant, brilliant!),” and “Happily Ever After,” when Ted is getting over Stella. Tonight’s episode, though, just didn’t click for me.

That said, as always, “The Fight” had its laugh-out-loud moments, and HIMYM is always a fun ride.

It’s funny, because in the first scene at MacLaren’s, I was immediately struck by the fact that the gang wasn’t in their usual booth. Little did I know that this would become the basis for the entire episode. I think I’ll list the cool stuff first:

• Barney trying to have a conversation all in titles of black sitcoms from the ’70s and ’80s had the potential to be hilarious (see the not-so-cool things).
• Marshall, on the Star Wars forums every day, convinced there would be real light sabers in three to five years. It only got cooler when the end bit was proof that he was right all along. Star Wars fans out there just scored big. I think I may have heard , “May the force be with you, Marshall,” echoing across the land at 8:59 EST.
• Robin thinking fighting is hot gave us more insight into her violent Canadian upbringing. OK, I jest a bit, but between the hockey fetish and the gun lust, she’s really got some issues.
• Again with the goat; they are really building the suspense with these teasers, and I can’t wait to find out the deal. But as they said, not for another few months. Love it.
• Funnier than Ted actually crying when Barney punched him in the nose was Barney saying Ted would look like Owen Wilson.
• Quote of the episode, or perhaps of the decade:
  “You know what I was doing while you guys were out there being immature? I’ll tell you what I was doing.” — Marshall
  “Your nails?” — Barney
  “No, I was doing …” — Marshall
  “The relationship quiz in this month’s Cosmo?” — Ted
  “No, I was doing …” — Marshall
  “Your best not to cry when Big came back for Carrie at the end of the Sex and the City movie?” — Barney
  “No — and spoilers much! — no … I’ll tell you what I was doing …” — Marshall
  “The captain of the football team because he gave you his promise ring because you look so pretty in your open-back homecoming dress?” — Robin
• It just fits Marshall that he would think Crocodile Dundee and David Hasselhoff are the manliest men in the universe. HIMYM does a great job of coming up with little gems like this that are so true to the characters.
• So was the scene with Marshall and his brothers fighting at the end supposed to be like Fight Club? There’s some disagreement in my household on this point (I say yes; others, who shall remain nameless, think it wasn’t a strong enough suggestion). Maybe it’s a movie neither of us are familiar with? Filmed in a very cool way, nevertheless.

Now, the not-so-cool things:

• Doug. Pretty much everything about Doug. WTF, HIMYM? I can’t believe I just wrote an entire sentence in initialisms….
• Robin thinking fighting is hot; ewwww.
• The scenes in Lily’s classroom. Maybe I have a bias as a former classroom teacher, but man, if Lily can’t control a room of nine 6-year-olds, she is truly the worst teacher who ever taught. The fighting and the wuss-calling? Unacceptable!
• The lack of Barney. Not enough Barney….

OK, so I guess I came up with a lot of really cool things from this episode. I deem myself mistaken, on some counts: it still didn’t have that “click” that I like to get from HIMYM, but it was a pretty funny episode. The not-cool parts were just really, really uncool.

How do you weigh in on “The Fight?”

Clacked by Debbie McDuffee
on Dec 08, 2008 @ 22:04 EST5EDT