by Grace Crawford

Images courtesy of Bay & Thomas Productions and 20th Century Fox.

9×19: “Vesuvius”

So here we are. After this week’s “Vesuvius,” there are only three four episodes left until How I Met Your Mother is over forever. I would say it’s a bittersweet parting, that it’s time this show wound down to a close, that the curtain dropped, that everyone got their happy ending. There’s just one problem:

Something is terribly, horribly wrong.

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by Grace Crawford

9×18: “Rally”

So the mid-season/Winter Olympics break is over, and we’re in the home stretch now. Buckle up; it’s about to get crazy.

It’s the morning of Barney and Robin’s wedding, and Barney is lying comatose in front of their hotel room door, unable to move or even wake up. This, friends, is about to be a cautionary tale on the dangers of drinking… sort of.

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by Grace Crawford

All images courtesy of Nickelodeon.

When I was younger, I used to dream of having superpowers. I would pretend that I could shoot fireballs out of my hands, and I would dream of the day I would get to use my powers on anyone who was mean to me. I think I even got as far as giving myself a superhero name and considering costume design before it finally occurred to me that if my powers hadn’t manifested themselves by the tender age of fifteen (don’t judge), they probably never would.

Maybe that’s why I like watching movies and TV shows about people who can do things like that: X-Men, Heroes, Sky High, Frozen… I like watching people become more than the world around them. I like watching them discover who they are and who they were meant to be. And I really like watching people shoot fireballs out of their hands. So it makes sense that I enjoyed this show as much as I did.

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by Grace Crawford

Images courtesy of Bay & Thomas Productions and 20th Century Fox.

9×17: “Sunrise”

So remember how in last week’s review I got all serious and said how, what with the Mother losing the love of her life and doubting if she would ever luck into that again? And how overall the episode was about moving on?

Well, this week’s episode, “Sunrise,” was about letting go. This may be crazy talk, but I’m sensing a theme here.

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by Grace Crawford

Images courtesy of Bay & Thomas Productions and 20th Century Fox.

9×16: “How Your Mother Met Me”

Sometimes, when writers want us to feel sympathy or camaraderie with their characters, they make said characters go through something negatively life-altering: embarrassment, failure, loss. We can’t identify with characters when they’re happy all the time, which is why all our favourite stories start out well, get really awful, hit rock bottom, and then go back up to being great again.

If the situation is too unsubstantial or not sufficiently devastating, we won’t feel the emotions we’re supposed to feel. But if the situation is too severe, we can become angry with the writers, thinking, “I see how you’re trying to manipulate me, and it’s not going to work. I’m smarter than you. I’m not going to feel anything.” It’s a constant challenge we writers face: how to write a compelling story about an engaging character that doesn’t make the audience want to smash their own faces in with a hammer.

Say what you will about this week’s How I Met Your Mother, but I think the writers, flawed as they’ve been in the past, succeeded in that goal.

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by Grace Crawford

All images courtesy of the BBC.

Spoilers ahead!

Almost exactly one year ago, I had the flu/mono/Spanish plague. I was in bed for a whole week. I had all kinds of nasty things leaking out of my face. I was cross and hot and miserably uncomfortable. I was looking for a diversion, and my sister recommended Sherlock.

“Why not,” I said to myself. After all, it wasn’t like I was going anywhere, and it looked like there was about nine hours’ worth of episodes. That would keep me busy for  a while. So I started with “A Study in Pink,” and that was pretty intriguing. Then I watched “The Blind Banker,” and even though it wasn’t a particularly great episode, I kept watching. Then came “The Great Game.” It was at that moment I realized I was hooked.

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