How I Met Your Mother: Miracles (S03E20 – Season Finale)
We’ve officially closed the chapter on the third season of How I Met Your Mother and it’s incredible how regularly this show manages to outwit other sitcoms. While tonight’s episode was was a plot-heavy one, there was still tonight’s gem: Barney’s Datetime Continuum.If that’s not enough to keep you reading, how about photo stills of every frame of Ted’s life-flash (including one that makes no sense!). Catch it along with the rest of the review after the click.
Whether it’s the Bro Code or the 8.3 seconds rule (the time you have before a woman decides whether she’ll sleep with you), every few episodes Barney unleashes a hilarious addition to his philosophical world view. What’s so ingenius about HIMYM is that in a genre (romance/relationships) that has been defined and written about ad nauseum, they always find a new take on the situation. Even with the well-defined cliché of never sleeping with a friend’s ex, the show decided to focus on the entire Bro Code instead.
This week Barney gave us the Datetime Continuum: The idea that you shouldn’t plan farther into your relationship that you’ve been in it. Cue the flashback. Barney uses this wisdom to rip up Ted’s tickets to Bruce Springsteen for a girl named Robin.
Speaking of flashbacks, there were a lot of them tonight. Considering the fact that the almost the entire show every week is a flashback from the year 2030, HIMYM gets away with flashbacks in a way most other shows can’t. The flashbacks in this show are treated like human memories. It’s something that sets it apart. Sometimes, we’re thrown around mid-scene because that’s how we would remember things. We get ahead of ourselves or mix up dates in our mind. I think that because all our minds work in this way, the drastic time changes feel natural and easy to follow.
Tonight we went all the way back to Robin’s childhood…even before her sparkling days. And, of course, more Canadian jokes. I’m not sure how many people get the Canadian references or how funny they are, but personally I find them hysterical (FYI: I’m Canadian). We got two this time around:
The first was Robin’s professed love for Springsteen, America’s Bryan Adams, and her childhood dog, SirSkratchewan, a reference to a certain Canadian province. To all the Americans who watch this show, are these references funny or mean absolutely nothing? I wonder if there are Canadian writers on the show or they just do their research. If any of them are reading this, what about a trip back home for Robin in a future episode…maybe to meet the parents?
Despite the comedy, this show was all about the drama. They played up Ted’s car accident so well that I felt like we all got blindsided by the bus along with Barney. It was well executed and a great way to end the whole Ted-Barney fight. The show doesn’t function as well with Barney away from the group.
We also got some more of Stella played by Scrubs’ Sarah Chalke and I’m amazed at how well she transitions from one show to the other. She fits in so well in both roles that you forget who she is, even though she plays a doctor in both. According to Bill Lawrence, the creator of Scrubs, Chalke will be available for next season because Scrubs will wrap its shooting schedule before HIMYM even begins. I don’t know whether she should or is the mother, but I think the show is stronger with her being a frequent guest star. Obviously, with a marriage proposal on the table, we’ll see her back for at least one more stint.
After all that, where are we left?
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Barney, Ted, and Marshall are no longer friends but brothers.
- This easily explains why Future Ted calls his friends Uncle and Aunt to his kids
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Barney loves Robin.
- Not sure if this plays out well or not. But we all knew this was coming.
Spoonfuls (thoughts in smaller portions):
1. Marshall’s Miracles
Marshall’s proof of the existence of miracles was great. Where else would a pencil going up a nose be considered divine?
2. Continuity
Unlike most sitcoms, HIMYM pays attention to the continuity between shows like no other. They constantly use future references from earlier seasons at the appropriate time including Ted’s 30th Birthday and Marshall’s law firm getting caught up in a scandal. There’s the big hint of Ted already seeing The Mother on St. Patty’s Day, and conspiracy theorists pick the random girl we saw Ted bump into for a moment as the eventual mother, but I doubt they’d have let anyone figure it out so easily. We do know for a fact that The Mother’s wedding dress covers her whole face.
3. Can this show possible grow its viewership after 3 seasons?
I hope so, but I doubt it. Even with the presence of Spears in 2 episodes, there wasn’t a significant boost in the ratings. It’s frustrating that this show is ever on the bubble for renewal, but after 3 years, it will be hard to find new eyes to watch this show.
4. Barney’s Blog
If you haven’t read the blog on CBS.com, go do it now. This show puts a lot into the web content for fans and this is just one example.
5. Season 4 – Aparment Changes
Season 4 will bring Lily & Marshall into their new apartment and by Ted’s birthday we’ll see (at least) Robin moving into the old apartment.
Here it is…Ted’s Life-Flash in 70 stills
Play close attention to the picture of Ted’s wedding.
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This is a WPSimpleViewerGallery
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11 Responses to “How I Met Your Mother: Miracles (S03E20 – Season Finale)”
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that’s cool. I just stumbled on this site and I kinda like it. Good luck with it!
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Awesome, but what’s the deal with the pic of ted getting married if that happens in the future?
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i thought it was weird when they showed his wedding, since he’s not married yet, but i guess it’s not a big deal since there were hella random flashes in there too.
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The wedding picture was from the episode in which Ted considers whether or not to date his dream girl, so he imagines their wedding and imagines his future disappointment because he knows that his dream girl would never match up to his desire: robin (although that wish seems to now have changed). The scene isn’t his actual wedding, but rather a still from a day dream.
~ ay
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addie is correct about where the picture is originally from, but that doesn’t really answer the question of why it was in his life-flash.
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I thought it was just another example of how the writers like to play around with the concept of time/memories. The flashback was probably the collection of moments he treasures the most “now” (as in the year 2030). That also explains why a lot of those images were from moments when Ted wasn’t around. He found out about them eventually and he remembered them the way he imagined them. Remember that every scene we see comes from Ted’s imagination.
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what was that picture where Ted is watching tv with some girl. i don’t remember her.
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[...] of every frame 70 frames total and posted it on their blog. Scroll down to the bottom of the reviewhttp://yawgurt.com/2008/05/yawgurt/scripted-tv/how-i-met-your-mother-miracles-s3e20-season-finale/DUI/DWI News Blog-Why It??s Critically Important To Avoid …Ex-Girlfriend Pictures et al. It??s [...]
[...] of every frame 70 frames total and posted it on their blog. Scroll down to the bottom of the reviewhttp://yawgurt.com/2008/05/yawgurt/scripted-tv/how-i-met-your-mother-miracles-s3e20-season-finale/How I Met your Mother OnlineHow I met your mother Online is the FIRST fansite for the TV show. [...]
the photo where he is getting married is from when he was going to meet his “soul mate” then imagines if they got married and robin was in the guests
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LOTS of spoilers after the jump.This is what they’re planning for the first episode in season 4, but there’s no guarantee the final cut of the episode will match these spoilers exactly, as there should be more drafts and revisions of the script between now and then. How I Met Your Mother season 4 starts[Filming starts Monday, August 11]
When season 3 ended Ted asked Stella to marry him and what I found out was so shocking that I was very surprised when I found out Stella’s answer to Ted proposal, which I’m glad she said the answer I wanted to hear, but what happened after the proposal i would have never thought in a million years that this event would happen and it shocked the hell out of me.I guarentee all of you when you find out about what happened to Stella after the proposal you would have never thought that would have ever happened.
For the 1st episode of How I Met Your Mother in season 4 on Mon,Sept 22nd, 2008 this is a continuation of where season 3 left off
The Ted Situation: STELLA SAYS YES,BUT THE EPISODE MAKES IT CLEAR THAT THEY”RE NOT READY TO BE ENGAGED. Stella has an allergic reaction to something early on and goes into anaphylactic shock – Ted, when the paramedics ask him basic questions about her medical history, is unable to answer any of them, or provide her middle name or address. Later, Ted makes her watch Star Wars, which she’s never seen before, and even though at first he doesn’t seem to care if she enjoys his favorite movie, after a talk with Marshall (in which he remembers three relationships where the girl not liking a movie ended up being a dealbreaker, the movies in question being The English Patient, Ghostbusters, and an Indiana Jones movie) it becomes really important to Ted that Stella enjoys Star Wars it. JUST A REMINDER EVERYTHING WILL CHANGE FOR THIS SITUATION AND WHEN THERE ARE CHANGES I WILL UPDATE YOU ON THE FOLLOWING FOR THE 1ST EPISOE IN SEASON 4
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