How I Met Your Mother: "The Stinson Missile Crisis" Review

Note: Full spoilers for tonight's episode follow.

We all knew Robin still had feelings for Barney, and with "The Stinson Missile Crisis" it was all put out on the table. She had to come to terms with her feelings and either fight for him or let him go. It's a story told countless times in countless formats. It's a story ripe with emotion that could deliver a powerfully memorable episode. Unfortunately, How I Met Your Mother got too cutesy with the storytelling and tried for laughs over emotional resonance.

And you can't fault the series for that. It is, after all, a comedy. But How I Met Your Mother has proven before that it has the fantastic ability to deliver both emotions and laughs when it wants to. This is why "The Stinson Missile Crisis" was a bit of a disappointment for me. This was a huge moment for Robin and Monday night's episode buried it under a silly therapy session with Kal Penn. Television has often utilized this storytelling technique, flashing back through the story as it's told to and analyzed by a therapist. This can work well, but more often than not, this only works well in a drama. In a comedy, it's hit and miss. And last night, it was a miss.

Penn's therapist was terrible. Cocky, abrasive and easily annoyed, his therapist wasn't there to help Robin or dig to the truth of her turmoil. He was only there for punchlines, and mostly weak ones at that. So the entire conceit of Monday night's storytelling was flawed from the beginning. It didn't help that Robin was retelling moments that she wasn't even a part of-- the entire Marshall/Lily/Ted storyline. Usually you can let something like that go in a comedy, but because she was making such a point about how important it was, it was glaring that she was never actually a witness to anything going on. The set up of this being court-mandated therapy because Robin had assaulted another woman was an interesting bait and switch (did she attack Nora?!), but the result wasn't very surprising.

And the episode wasn't helped by the Marshall/Lily/Ted storyline either. It had its moments, like Marshall admitting his complete lack of knowledge of vaginas. Plus I liked the introduction of Dr. Sonya (Newsradio's Vicki Lewis), and the flash-forward to Lily giving birth with Marshall nowhere to be found. (Bits like that and the continuity of the ducky tie, made it clear that the writers have an overarching plan for the season. And that's a great thing.) But the overall tone of the story was just a bit too sappy. Ted often walks the line of whiny and sentimental. Monday, he was whiny. Though I did very much enjoy the Halloween costume photos in the episode's tag, including "Lewis and Clark and their canoe," and "C3PO, R2D2 and the robot Luke's Uncle almost bought from the Jawas."

But the episode was not a total loss. Having Barney put a stop to all of his "Bimbo Delivery Systems" saved it to a point. This, by far, was the best part of the episode. His fake doctor's free breast reduction consultations, followed by the lawyer looking for females wanting to sue said doctor got things off to a great start. Port Authority Mitch and the Cold Call 5000 only added to the enjoyment. But flashing back to all this through a weakly established therapy session was a problem. There was a good story to be told here, but "The Stinson Missile Crisis" tried too hard to make it clever instead of making it feel real.

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