REVIEW - How I Met Your Mother - S09E03 - ‘Last Time in New York’

This week’s episode of How I Met Your Mother, ‘Last Time in New York’, was only alright. It continued in the same vein as the previous two episodes, with Marshall and Daphne making their way to New York, Barney and Robin freaking out about their wedding, and Lily trying to cheer up Ted. Despite the liberal use of flashbacks in this episode, the new format seems to be growing stale.

Lily discovers Ted’s list of things he would like to do in New York before moving to Chicago, and we got to see some new flashbacks, as well as some from previous episodes. While it’s nice to be nostalgic every so often, the show seems to be trying to cash-in on its glory days, reminding long-time viewers how good it was (remember when Marshall ran Lily through with a broad sword?) to distract them from how lackluster it has become. Usually I like flashbacks in shows (and How I Met Your Mother is certainly the master of the flashback), but in this case I would consider the argument that flashbacks are just sloppy writing. The show is clearly trying to keep itself fresh (and fill time) under the strain of the new format they have gone with for this season, and I understand they have to use flashbacks in order to do this, but my question is what else have they got up their sleeves? Cue nice plot bomb at the end of the episode...

Anyway, apart from this little gem of information at the end, the rest of the episode wasn’t that interesting. Marshall and Daphne are continuing to bicker as they make their way to New York, and Barney and Robin fear the imminent arrival of their elderly relatives/their post-marriage sex-life. Here’s hoping Barney’s little revelation will make the next episode (I’d say episodes, but I’m not that optimistic) more interesting.

Review by Heather Bale.