[S8E20] The Time Travelers
Ted returns to Barney, who reveals that the entire cocktail story happened in 2008, and Ted is actually sitting in the bar alone, with Barney and their future selves being a figment of his imagination, and that Ted relived the story to get rid of his loneliness; his friends were too busy to go to Robots Vs. Wrestlers, and Ted is preparing to head to the event alone (echoing "Robots Versus Wrestlers", in which Barney is upset because he feels the group is growing apart). Future Ted states if he could relive the events of that night, he would have instead visited his apartment, his friends, and most importantly, the mother (who was living several blocks away at the time). Future Ted imagines himself running through the streets before knocking on the mother's apartment door. Ted introduces himself, telling her how much he loves her, that they will meet in 45 days, and he would give anything to spend that extra time with her before getting punched in the face by her boyfriend.
[S8E20] The Time Travelers
Max Nicholson of IGN said the episode was very bizarre but had a grounded storyline. He noted that the time-traveler plot device may have been lifted off Felicity, and in the end he gave the episode an 8.7 out of 10.[3]
Sometimes episodes of television only need one moment, one scene to be remembered as truly sad. That is the case for 'Band or DJ' where one conversation between Ted and Lily propels it to almost heartbreaking status.
The episode has a lot of laughs as Ted attempts to plan Barney and Robin's wedding until it becomes clear he is doing so to distract from his feelings for her. That is nothing new. What was new was Lily's heartbreaking admission where she talks about sometimes wishing she was not a mother. The conversation between the two friends is powerful and enough to make any fan tear up.
Right at the core of each season of How I Met Your Mother is Ted's (oftentimes obsessive) quest for love. Apart from the obvious two in Robin and Tracy, the closest he got to the apple pie family life was with Stella.
''Any time Robin Sparkles is in an episode, I like it. Especially when we get to shoot music videos. ... My backup band are all crew members or writers, so I really like those. 'Let's Go to the Mall' has a special place in my heart just because it was the first one and it was an upbeat version and it was new territory, so that was a big one for me.''
''The moment when, at the airport, when [Jason Segel] comes in with the orchestra, that's forever in my heart. I was pregnant at the time too, so I was highly emotional. And then just to be surrounded by them, it was so lovely.''
Future Ted: [v.o.] Kids, it's been almost 20 years since that cold April night in 2013, and I can safely tell you, if I could go back in time and relive that night, there's no way in hell I'd go to Robots vs. Wrestlers. No, I'd go home. I'd go to my old apartment, see all my old furniture, my old stuff. I'd see my old drafting table, where I sketched out my first building. I'd sit on that old couch and smell the Indian food cooking three stories below. I'd go to Lily and Marshall's place, be back in that old living room where so many things happened. I'd see the baby. I don't know if you can picture me holding your six-foot-seven cousin Marvin over my head, but back then I could. I'd go have a drink with Barney and Robin, watch them fight about their caterer or whatever it was they were fighting about that night. But none of those things is the thing I'd do first. You know the thing I'd do first?[From outside MacLaren's, Ted runs down the street to an apartment building, where he knocks on a door:]Ted: Hi. I'm Ted Mosby. And exactly 45 days from now, you and I are gonna meet, and we're gonna fall in love, and we're gonna get married, and... we're gonna have two kids. And we're gonna love them and each other so much. All that is 45 days away. But I'm here now, I guess, because... I want those extra 45 days... with you. I want each one of them. Look, and if I can't have them, I'll take the 45 seconds before your boyfriend shows up and punches me in the face, because... I love you. I'm always gonna love you, till the end of my days and beyond. You'll see.Man: Can I help you?Ted: Oh, hey, it's... Louis, right? It's okay. It's fine... I'm in love with your girlfriend, and... we're gonna get married.Man: What?Ted: Yeah.[Louis punches Ted in the face and he falls the ground. With a shiner around his eye, Ted smiles.][The camera returns to Ted, still standing outside MacLaren's]
Future Ted: [v.o.] Kids, in April of 2013, your mother and I were very close and yet very far apart. I was living on West 82nd Street. She was up on West 115th. She was getting a degree in economics. I was teaching architecture. I was always at MacLaren's. She was always... not spending all her time in a bar. She was dating some finance guy named Louis. And I... I was alone.
Marshall: No, no, wait! Please, it's not my fault! I was tricked!Carl: Not cool, Marshall. This is a nice bar. Girls come here, they just want to relax with their friends, maybe have a few Robin Scherbatskys, and not have to worry out some guy pulling a Marshall Eriksen in the bathroom.Marshall: No, no, no, I know. I just... Wait a minute, did you just use my name as shorthand for a guy being creepy?Carl: Yep.Marshall: Well, you know what, Carl? I think that you are making a broad and prejudicial assumption. So next time I meet a guy who just goes around rushing to judgment, I'm gonna say, "Hey, that guy's being a real Carl..."Carl: You don't know my last name. You've been drinking here for years, and you don't know my last name. I will name every drink in this bar after you if you can tell me my last name.Lily: Well, that just seems confusing. How will you know what people are ordering?Carl: What's my last name, Marshall?Marshall: It's Carl...'s Junior.
20-Years-From-Now-Barney: Okay, guys, I've been waiting 20 years for this. Just like we practiced. No mistakes, ready? One, two, a... One, two, three, four.All: [singing, harmonizing] Whoa-oh-oh-oh For the longest For the longest time Whoa-oh-oh For the longest For the longest time If you said good-bye to me tonight Ooh-ooh-ooh There would still Be music left to writeDoo-doo-doo What else could I do? I'm so inspired by you That hasn't happened for the longest time.
When it comes to this eighth season of The Flash, perhaps someone should have run back in time and told the writers they needed to start over and come up with some better ideas for this 20-episode run. The series has been struggling from a lack of direction for most of the last year and it appears that this season finale was the obvious endpoint for that lack of direction. The show saw many a villain pop up and then get left in the dust starting from the very lackluster season premiere of The Flash that kicked off with a miniseries.
It turns out that starting out the season in a kind of self-contained story bubble should have been a big warning that the writing staff didn't really know what it wanted to do over the course of The Flash's eighth year on the CW. The one thing that the show did seem to settle on, is that it was going to just keep rehashing some of the same plot points it used in the last few seasons. Far too much of this season was about The Reverse-Flash or the Speed Force, or time travel or "The Forces" of the universe that showed up a year ago. And if the season didn't manage to rehash all of those things enough, it turns out the season finale managed to rehash all of those same story beats in one episode.
This episode of The Flash picked up immediately after last week left off, by bringing back the Tom Cavanaugh version of Eobard Thawne (which it has now done so often that audiences have likely lost count.) In fact, between this episode and the last, the Reverse-Flash died and was brought back just a couple of times alone. While there are some hints that this might have finally been the last time that Eobard Thawne made an appearance, that doesn't feel like it's actually going to be the case.
Part of the problem with bringing back the same villain over and over and over again was demonstrated in a couple of different ways from an actor who probably deserves better at this point. The first problem is that every time he appears on-screen as Thawne, Cavanaugh seems to feel like he's got to be more over the top and "evil" and his appearance in this episode was downright cartoonish. There's also the fact that when The Flash and his arch-nemesis have fought as many times as they have over the course of the series, those fights lose any kind of impact. The very real question these days is "what's the point?" The show even admits, as part of the actual plot, that the two are too evenly balanced to really do any damage to each other. Perhaps the writers were warning the audience that like the people in Central City, the viewers were going to be collateral damage.
There is one other trope that The Flash leans on to its very real detriment. That's the fact that anyone who finds themselves in mortal danger can rest assured that they will eventually be just fine. In fact, thanks to the fact that the show deals with time travel on a near-weekly basis, it usually turns out that the person who finds themselves in mortal danger will end up in a situation where there was no real danger at all. While that particular device can actually be interesting once or twice, The Flash uses it all the time, despite the fact that one of the biggest lessons the heroes in the show were supposed to learn is that "time travel is bad." 041b061a72