TV Review: How I Met Your Mother - "Vesuvius"
By: Brandon Wolfe
In 2024, a curiously well-preserved Ted and the Mother are at the Farhampton Inn, the site of Barney and Robin's wedding, attempting to reminisce about the past when the revelation hits Ted that he no longer has any new stories to tell his wife. However, he thinks he has one last new tale up his sleeve, a yarn that begins with Robin breaking a lamp at this very same hotel. With that, we're back in that ceaseless wedding weekend as Robin has shattered a lamp with a puck while playing hockey in her hotel room with her sister, because Robin is Canadian and this show loves dumb Canadian jokes as much as Canadians love hockey. Lily thinks the bride should focus more upon her impending nuptials, occurring just a few hours from now, but Robin prefers to remain blasé about matters, choosing instead to spend the time watching 'The Wedding Bride Too', a Chris Kattan comedy sequel to the movie made about Ted being left at the altar.
Then we check in with Barney, who makes up for Robin's lack of concern over wedding preparation by freaking out over finding just the right suit to wear out of the several hundred he has brought with him. He had one tailor-made for the event by Tim Gunn, but now that the day is here, it and none of the others seem right. Ted, thinking at first that Barney is checking into the suit suite for far less savory purposes, comes to his friend's aid and assures him of what is really important on this day. Meanwhile, the episode ends with Robin finally finding something to snap her out of her too-relaxed haze when her long-lost mother shows up unexpectedly, played by Tracey Ullman.
"Vesuvius" falls victim to the same problem that has plagued this entire season of HIMYM, which is being stuck in the endless pit that is this wedding weekend. The "24"-like structure of the season locking us within the confines of this single event has grown beyond tiresome. This might have worked better had this final season been a truncated, 13-episode run, but at the standard 24-episode length, they have been forced to pad and pad and pad to fill up the hours.
A further problem is that the show's sense of humor has grown broader and cornier than even the show's usual standards. HIMYM has never been one of the comedy greats, but it used to do a decent enough job of juggling good jokes, whatever jokes and groaners, and now it's only able to keep those last two in the air. I counted two reasonably decent jokes in "Vesuvius." The first, and this is being pretty charitable, involves Ted attempting to bribe the hotel desk clerk with a five-dollar bill by wondering if “maybe Mr. Lincoln can emancipate that information?” The other takes place within the fake movie, "Wedding Bride Too," when Ted's onscreen, Kattan-shaped counterpart wonders who ate his cake, and then Marshall's double (named Narshall, because comedy) comes in with frosting and a guilty look smeared across his face, asking "What cake?" This sounds like the worst joke of all time unless, like me, you remember that Jason Segal has used this cake/frosting scenario to make fun of HIMYM's brand of sitcom humor in interviews as well as in 'This Is The End,' making it a pretty funny meta reference.
But just when you’re ready to consign HIMYM over to history as a show that went on far too long and got far too lame (or if you're like me and you’ve already been there for months but still need to see it through because you’re a schmuck), “Vesuvius” pulls out something surprisingly intriguing in its final moments. Back in 2024, Ted finishes up his story (which the Mother has in fact heard before), causing the Mother to remark about Robin’s mom, “What mother would miss her daughter’s wedding?” At this, Ted’s face instantly crumples into tears, and it has to be Josh Radnor’s strongest moment ever on this show (honestly, the Lincoln joke may have been his previous ceiling). This coupled with the Mother’s warm insistence that Ted no longer live in the past with his stories, but get out and make new ones seems to hint that maybe ‘How I Met Your Mother’ isn’t content to go out as the breezy fairy tale it always seemed to be. Maybe in the future when Ted is Bob Saget, there is a reason he’s telling his kids this unending story about the woman he married. This would be a bold move, and one I’m still not convinced HIMYM has the fortitude to go through with, but at this point, anything that keeps the yawning at bay can only be welcomed.
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