[How I Met Your Mother] Marshallgammon!

This week, "Future Ted" (a.k.a. Bob Saget) tells his kids about embarrassing moments.

Apparently Marshall is the king of all games, so in order to make the games more fun for everyone else they appoint him Game Master. He takes this to mean that he gets to make up a game and name it after himself - Marshallgammon. It's a hodgepodge of all the popular games, Candy Land, I Never..., etc., except for Backgammon. He took the best of Backgammon, the gammon, and threw the rest in the trash where it belongs. No one understands the rules, except for the part where if anyone asks "What?" Marshall hits the buzzer and they have to take a drink which they do throughout the show and is very funny. During the game, Lilly tells Barney that she ran into an old friend of his, Shannon, and she gave Lilly a tape to give to him. "Where's the tape?!" So she hands it over and he proceeds to destroy it. They want to know what was on the tape and Barney's, like, too bad you'll never know. But Lilly is a sneaky one, "Too bad I didn't give you a fake tape and hide the real tape in my purse." She sticks it into the VCR and we he a ponytailed, goateed, Mexican hoodied Barney crying and singing his soul out to a girl who's obviously dumped him. Barney walks out. Later at the bar, Barney shows up and begins to tell his story. Before he was present Barney, he was a hippie working in a coffee shop and in love with this Shannon, they were going to join the Peace Corps together. One day a guy (Bonnie Hunt's "husband"), who is the future Barney, walks in and tells him that to keep the girl it's all about money. Barney's like, it's not like that between me and Shannon, until she stands him up on the day they were supposed to join the PC. In order to continue the story he forces each of his friends to tell their most embarassing moments: Marshall and his "funnybutt," Lilly not ending a call with Marhsall's mother who listens to them having sex, Robin who's story is dissed b/c they already knew it and then is shown up by Ted's new girlfriend Victoria who's story is so dirty they fade to black, and Ted who admits the night he told Robin he loved her he went back to her apartment after getting really loaded and ralphed on her custom Sherbatsky doormat and then ran away. He "re-returned" and is not "vomit free since '93" which Marshall finds very disappointing. Anyway, Barney finds out he's been stood up b/c she's been cheating on him with the future Barney. Leaving the coffee house he is handed a flyer that says "SUIT UP!" and we see the montage of Barney transforming into the man we know today. He continues the story to that night. When he left Ted's apt, he went to see Shannon and "nailed her." They don't believe it but he recorded the whole thing on his phone!! He thinks he's dodged a bullet and his current life is awesome. And so we finally find out some background into our favourite, yet most 2-D character on the show.

I like this show. It's not nearly as good as "Friends" but it has somewhat filled the void that "Friends" left when it ended. However, I've found that in order to become the next "Friends," they are stealing directly from "Friends"! Thus far, we have seen the Ted and Robin double-reverse-unrequited-love storyline of "he likes her but gets a girlfriend to get over her and that's when she likes him" that Ross and Rachel had at the end of season 1 into season 2. We've seen people caught in a small room to as not to disturb what's taking place in the living room. There was also the fear of "nothing new" in a long-term relationship. And in this episode, we watch as they play a game that makes no sense but is awesome - Let's play Bamboozled! As well as the development of the "one-liner" character who's job is a mystery to us - Chandler anyone? Like I said, I like this show. But I also think it can, and should, stand on its own two feet. It's funny, already filled with catch phrases and has an engaging cast who seem to genuinely enjoy spending time with eachother which makes it more enjoyable for us to watch a sitcom. Although, as I mentioned previously, there's that one character I can't stand in an ensemble. Here it's Robin. She has no comedic timing whatsoever and we've known since the 1st ep that the will-they-won't-they ends in won't so I don't care for this crush she has on Ted. However, I do have a prediction: she's going to end up with Barney! Anyway, the concept for the show is right there in the title: "How I Met Your Mother." They were doing great with that premise in the early episodes, but seem to be succumbing under the pressure of becoming the next "Friends". They need to re-focus on becoming themselves. I know, that's way cheezy!

Originally Posted by Highbrow