So apparently I'm an angst whore. I learned new things this week!
So I watched HIMYM on Tuesday (damn work) and then rewatched it today, and read all the reaction to it. It seems like that episode pissed a lot of people off. There's a lot of rage and a lot of hate, and TBH, I don't get it. Normally, I'm on the side of the majority in the B/R community.
I loved this episode. I loved the angst, I want it all over the place. I know it's a sitcom, and I understand where people are coming from but I also feel like it was totally in line with how the HIMYM writers have played us before.
I mean, of COURSE they tore the rug out from under us with the fake kids. And I gotta say -- excellent casting on them, they were just too cute. And I loved the boy being in a suit, totally great.
But everyone seemed pretty upset about that being an illusion -- I found it beautiful and poignant and DAMN it hurt my heart so, so bad to see Robin sitting on that bench in the end. I loved the hell out of it, and I thought turning Ted's normal monologue around onto Robin was a brilliant device to use. It's hard to keep things fresh after this many seasons, so I loved it. I think it really drove things home.
And yeah, it did bother me a little that Robin's desire for kids was based on her suddenly finding herself unable to happen -- but to me? That's also what made it incredibly REAL. Hell, I don't want kids -- it's one of the reasons I love Robin and unabashedly relate to her -- but every now and then it's fun to fantasize about what it would be like, to ignore the nine million reasons I'm never going to have them. It's one thing to actively make the choice not to have kids, it's another to be told that it's no longer your choice, it's out of your hands. Yes, there's adoption and fostering and a million other ways, but in that moment, for Robin, she was told there was something wrong with her, something physically wrong, and that's a hard thing. It's hard to have it go from a choice to a given reality, to have those little fantasies quashed.
For whatever reason, them throwing yet another roadblock up makes me even less worried that Robin and Barney might not be endgame. I guess I see Barney and Robin as running parallel stories.
Marshall and Lily's story has been as a settled couple and the problems that arise therein. For both of them, they've also struggled with the career-versus-family choice, with Lily choosing between art and Marshall and how to balance these two things, and Marshall trying to figure out whether to support his family or follow his dream as an environmental lawyer. For Ted, it's about finding The One, and what that means -- he's struggled with his career and his options about it, but he's always known what happiness is for him, a wife and kids.
For Barney and Robin, I've always felt like their larger arcs were about finding happiness and figuring out what that means to them. For Robin, as much as I hated Don, his plotline let us see her try and figure out the line between her career and her personal life. It seems like she's been trying to figure out what she really wants to be happy this entire time. And Barney... he went from Ultimate Playboy to now in the opposite direction due to the dad plotline, to a guy who thinks he wants a family and kids and a white picket fence. I see it as him trying on different hats of happiness, trying to find what everyone else tells him he's supposed to want.
I think he's going to find himself somewhere in the middle, that maybe not being the dad he never had isn't the answer, but that finding someone that makes him happy IS. I think they're gonna find each other somewhere in the middle. That's my thought and my feeling and why I love the fuck out of the angst going on and I'm just... not worried.
I mean, okay, I'm a TAD worried that, given the writers are so committed to certain preordained views of acceptable family units we're gonna see someone else as the bride but.. I dunno. I don't care. In my head, that's not how it's gonna be, and that's good enough for me.
Robin is someone who sort of gets into these ruts, as we've seen with her job, until she gets to a point where she's just pushed... over the edge. Since she holds everything in. She doesn't always take the leap, but maybe this will make her. Somehow, in some way. I don't know.
I liked it. A LOT. And yeah.
I loved this episode. I loved the angst, I want it all over the place. I know it's a sitcom, and I understand where people are coming from but I also feel like it was totally in line with how the HIMYM writers have played us before.
I mean, of COURSE they tore the rug out from under us with the fake kids. And I gotta say -- excellent casting on them, they were just too cute. And I loved the boy being in a suit, totally great.
But everyone seemed pretty upset about that being an illusion -- I found it beautiful and poignant and DAMN it hurt my heart so, so bad to see Robin sitting on that bench in the end. I loved the hell out of it, and I thought turning Ted's normal monologue around onto Robin was a brilliant device to use. It's hard to keep things fresh after this many seasons, so I loved it. I think it really drove things home.
And yeah, it did bother me a little that Robin's desire for kids was based on her suddenly finding herself unable to happen -- but to me? That's also what made it incredibly REAL. Hell, I don't want kids -- it's one of the reasons I love Robin and unabashedly relate to her -- but every now and then it's fun to fantasize about what it would be like, to ignore the nine million reasons I'm never going to have them. It's one thing to actively make the choice not to have kids, it's another to be told that it's no longer your choice, it's out of your hands. Yes, there's adoption and fostering and a million other ways, but in that moment, for Robin, she was told there was something wrong with her, something physically wrong, and that's a hard thing. It's hard to have it go from a choice to a given reality, to have those little fantasies quashed.
For whatever reason, them throwing yet another roadblock up makes me even less worried that Robin and Barney might not be endgame. I guess I see Barney and Robin as running parallel stories.
Marshall and Lily's story has been as a settled couple and the problems that arise therein. For both of them, they've also struggled with the career-versus-family choice, with Lily choosing between art and Marshall and how to balance these two things, and Marshall trying to figure out whether to support his family or follow his dream as an environmental lawyer. For Ted, it's about finding The One, and what that means -- he's struggled with his career and his options about it, but he's always known what happiness is for him, a wife and kids.
For Barney and Robin, I've always felt like their larger arcs were about finding happiness and figuring out what that means to them. For Robin, as much as I hated Don, his plotline let us see her try and figure out the line between her career and her personal life. It seems like she's been trying to figure out what she really wants to be happy this entire time. And Barney... he went from Ultimate Playboy to now in the opposite direction due to the dad plotline, to a guy who thinks he wants a family and kids and a white picket fence. I see it as him trying on different hats of happiness, trying to find what everyone else tells him he's supposed to want.
I think he's going to find himself somewhere in the middle, that maybe not being the dad he never had isn't the answer, but that finding someone that makes him happy IS. I think they're gonna find each other somewhere in the middle. That's my thought and my feeling and why I love the fuck out of the angst going on and I'm just... not worried.
I mean, okay, I'm a TAD worried that, given the writers are so committed to certain preordained views of acceptable family units we're gonna see someone else as the bride but.. I dunno. I don't care. In my head, that's not how it's gonna be, and that's good enough for me.
Robin is someone who sort of gets into these ruts, as we've seen with her job, until she gets to a point where she's just pushed... over the edge. Since she holds everything in. She doesn't always take the leap, but maybe this will make her. Somehow, in some way. I don't know.
I liked it. A LOT. And yeah.