By Amy Van Veen (Staff Writer) – Email
This week’s episode line-up has been legendaddy, I mean legendary. Every night, from Monday through Thursday has been a wondrous treat for those waiting for episode comebacks. Thursday night was more than alright with one of the most memorable Office episodes yet, which is sure to be eclipsed in a few weeks’ time. Even though Wednesday night lost a couple of contenders, it still packed a punch with Patricia Heaton and the Hecks causing all kinds of trouble on The Middle. Tuesday, sadly, didn’t have a new Raising Hope, but Traffic Light more than impressed audiences with its quirky charm and HIMYM, well, a special guest appearance boosted its legendariness up tenfold.
What starts as a visit to Ted’s home for his future hypothetical family on How I Met Your Mother turns into a yet another intervention for Barney and acts as a catalyst for flashbacks to the previous week or two, true HIMYM style. Barney’s lack of tool knowledge (a screwdriver, get your head out of the gutter) leads the gang to wonder what they still haven’t learned, which leads to some even more legendaddy, sorry, -dary flashbacks. Ted doesn’t know how to say chameleon because he sounded it out to himself as kid while reading it, which he learns while doing a lecture. Robin doesn’t know that the North Pole is a real place, which she learns while on a date with a marine biologist. Lily has terrible aim, which makes for some pretty fantastic moments throughout. The group has been coddling Marshall since his father’s died and, as a result, he started testing them. So, when he wants them to be honest about what he hasn’t learned, they get honest, and hilarious. He can’t wink, can’t swallow pills, adds too much water to oatmeal, consistently misses one belt loop, and is too old to see the cockpit. Barney doesn’t know how to face the truth of his father, and the whole screwdriver thing. Who is the daddy, might you ask? Why none other than the great John Lithgow! In Barney’s mind he’s still the party-hard guy who his mom didn’t want around following rock bands all around the world, but in reality John Lithgow (whose character name is Jerry, but must always be spoken of as John Lithgow) is a driving instructor and nerdy suburban dad. Barney likes Scotch, John Lithgow likes milk. And has acid reflux. And makes dad-puns. And brags about his stories featuring asparagus in order to appear “cooler” to his son. The intervention, then, is for Barney to give his dad another chance, but when he sees his half brother JJ, aka Jerome Jr., he can’t stop himself from reverting to childish jealousies. This leads to a yelling match with John Lithgow, making this already epic episode about five times more epic. In the end, viewers finally witness an honest-to-goodness crack in Barney’s douchey exterior.
Mad Love was mediocre. As Larry the narrator states at the beginning (which is eerily similar to Bob Saget’s commentary on HIMYM) the theme of Monday’s episode was jealousy. Connie is dating Dr. Chiropractor who doesn’t like Larry. When Larry notices he’s cheating on his wife with Connie, Larry goes out for a date with Connie while missing his chance to see The White Whale. The White Whale is the woman he saw once in the elevator and who, thanks to Kate’s friend in security, he’s been stalking ever since. Ben is working on a case with his ex, Erin, which Kate acts fine about, even though that causes even more tension than if she were to be crazy about it. Nick the surveillance guy smells like soup, stalks her, and helps her spy on Ben. Ben catches on and has an admittedly adorable moment with giant signs looking at the security camera. It’s a strong homage to an 80s rom-com which always gets me, no matter how clichéd the actual show is. Once again, they’re moving this Larry/Connie thing along way too quickly and it’s difficult to see an actual future for this show.
Traffic Light hosts a barbecue to celebrate Lisa’s big raise, which pushes her income past Mike’s by about four dollars which in turn pushes Mike to invite his boss over for a whole five dollar raise to put him in the spot of a man’s man bringing home those slices of bacon. Meanwhile, Callie’s sister Kate, who is played by the hilarious Kathryn Hahn (How to Lose a Guy, Win a Date) is staying over ever since her messy divorce. She’s a little less than eloquent and makes Adam slightly uncomfortable. Even more so because he can’t go to the bathroom when Callie’s home, never mind when her sister’s taking up space. Thus, he has been using the food-mart down the street where the stoner worker, Tad, thinks they’re best friends and invites himself over to Lisa’s BBQ. Whoever that actor is, he plays the role perfectly, right down to the creepy wannabe mustache. While at the BBQ, Adam is feeling the pressure, literally, and Mike isn’t picking up his insinuations when he refuses him access to the personal bathroom and makes him use the “party bathroom”. Desperate, he climbs through their bedroom window, then hears some worrisome noises, which just happens to be Ethan and Kate after Callie explicitly told her sister to stay away from him, which then leads him to smash his fingers and break them all, forcing him to swallow his pride and call his precious Callie to help him out. The two of them have another adorable moment this week when they craft an honesty policy, and Tad verbally unfriends Adam after being so poorly treated as his assumed best friend. Lisa finds out about Mike’s desperate attempt to be the greater breadwinner, and his apology is at first pathetic, but he then makes up for his drawing a blank after two generic adjectives. Great episode. Great show. Great cast. Great writing. Just great.
Spring break hits The Middle and the Hecks take off for Frankie’s sister’s and a stop at a waterpark. In the meantime, their neighbour brings their mail in and calls the police when she sees that they’ve been robbed and ransacked. When they get home, though, they know the house looks exactly the same as when they left. Frankie, in true Frankie style, gets unnecessarily ambitious and gets her kids to be heartless and toss out anything they haven’t used for a year because, in her words, they’re “criminally messy”. The only problem is Sue is all heart and feels sorry for all of her stuff, like her broken hot rollers. The war zone in which they live seems to be growing and spreading like a disease, so they move it all out onto the yard to sort through it, but when they don’t finish by sundown, they wake up the next morning to find their neighbours dropped off even more junk onto their ever-growing pile; so they move it back inside where it goes from the living, then to the kitchen, then Frankie has a small breakdown and says they should all pack up and live in a van. Apparently, though, Mike is van-ready with all of his stuff in one box, including his pro/con list of all major decision in his life, most controversially the list for marrying Frankie. As they deal with that in true Heck style, Brick has found a comfortable spot at a desk at the end of their driveway. He’s charging passers-by one dollar for information and an answer to any question, including the big one: “why do people get divorced?” Sue and Axl are given the job to drop off all of their junk at goodwill, but they’re faced with a dilemma that it’s closed, there’s a sign for no drop off after close, and there’s a voice telling them they’re illegally dumping which makes Axl apathetic, but Sue is ridden with guilt. At the end, the cops find all the stuff that they were “robbed” of; too bad it’s exactly what they were trying to get rid of.
Next: Modern Family, Mr. Sunshine and more!
