How I Met Your Mother - The Burning Beekeeper

Despite the similar title, this one is not to be compared with “The Sexless Innkeeper.” That was actually funny. This episode had a more slapstick, goofy feel about it. It didn’t seem like the same show, quite frankly. Ern tried to defend this show to her mother, and this episode is not helping her case. Leeard will continue to watch and love this show no matter what, but no one can say that this episode is one for the ages. In fact, it is without a doubt the worst episode of the season, despite a Galaxy Quest reference. This show needs to remember that it is not a farce. If they are going to do an homage to farce comedy, it needs to be better and retain the tone of the show. Leeard didn’t hate this episode, but she found it boring.

Sidenote: Lots of young people (people in their 20s) love this show and lots of older people just don’t think it’s funny, yet they watch Two and a Half Men. I hope we can all agree that show isn’t funny at all. We think we have figured out why Ern’s mom, who has a perfectly serviceable sense of humor, does not like any episode of How I Met Your Mother, even the ones in the earlier season. It’s the same reason she doesn’t like Mean Girls (We know. She sounds like a cyborg. Go ahead and trash her in the comments; she doesn’t read the blog). Mean Girls is what high school is like NOW. Clueless is what high school was like THEN. It’s because the magic of How I Met Your Mother lies in jokes that our generation would appreciate and it captures the experience of being in your 20s today. It feels authentic. However, this episode did not have any of that familiarity.

The episode had three different storylines happening at the same time. Lily and Marshall are having a housewarming party. Ugh. These two moving is not helping the show at all. Each story happened in a different room of the house, in the first five minutes of the party. Before that though, Marshall and Lily were planning their party and discussing with Lily’s dad Mickey how he needs to not ruin it. Mickey tells them that he’s been beekeeping and there are ten thousand bees in the basement. Marshall is understandably concerned.

Ted and Robin arrive at the party, fighting and carrying a kugel they bought, since Robin couldn’t cook one. In the living room, Lily is freaking out about the party and Marshall is telling her that it’s the “party of the year.” We’re pretty sure any other party is topping it, at this point. The best thing about it is that Lily got a wheel of gouda cheese off the internet. She’s pretty proud of that, even though, as Barney pointed out, ordering things off the internet is not hard or unique. It just means she put way too much thought into the cheese.

Even though Marshall has been working long hours, this is his first night off in a while, and he is currently throwing a housewarming party, his boss, Cooter, shows up and tells Marshall that they will be going back to work in 45 minutes. Wow, Cooter is a jerk. We may care about the environment less just to spite that guy. Lily informs Cooter that she made him vegan spring rolls and he went to look for them. Mickey comes up to Marshall to inform him and Lily that the bees are keeping the mice at bay, a thin silver lining to a cloud of crazy. GET RID OF THIS MAN. Lily’s father is only funny in very, very small doses.

Ted enters the living room and Mr. Cootes confronts him for eating all the spring rolls, since Ted isn’t a vegan and could have eaten anything else. Ted breaks the tradition of his character instantly and completely when he challenges Cootes to a fight, outside. This is explained later. Lily breaks things up when she tells Cootes that she also has hummus and veggies available. Barney runs in, takes people’s wine, and chugs the glasses. This will also be explained. He goes into a monologue about how much he loves his penis, how it is a girl, and how he has tried to kiss it but couldn’t reach. Robin comes in with the gouda and Lily throws it on the floor and stomps on it. This too will be explained. Lily moans that the party is ruined. Robin denies this just as a man in a beekeeper suit runs through the living room. On fire.

The show moves to the dining room where we found out that Barney ate the spring rolls! Shocking. He is chatting with Lily and Marshall’s neighbor who just loves her cats and also loves talking about them. Barney doesn’t care, because her boobs outweigh her crazy. Barney told her that he is Agent Gary Powers in charge of intercepting asteroids. No woman is this stupid. The neighbor pretty much throws her snatch at Barney, giving him two minutes to make it to the upstairs guest bedroom. Before Barney leaves to bang the neighbor, he pins the spring roll eating on Ted when Mr. Cootes approaches.

Marshall goes to the dining room to get Robin to scream at him. He wants to be prepared for a fight with Cootes when he confronts him about not going back to work. Robin is offended that Marshall thinks she gets angry at the top of a hat. Then she proves him right. Meanwhile, Mickey tells Lily that the bees have escaped their enclosure and that he doused his suit with kerosene. Of course these things happened. Mickey leaves then returns without the suit. Soon after, a man in the suit runs through the dining room in flames.

We move to the kitchen, where many fires start. Ted and Robin are arguing about how Robin called an old lady a whore when they were trying to buy the kugel. Robin reams Ted for avoiding conflict and Ted thinks it’s better to be nice and not pick fights. Show, you have established Robin as a strong woman and Ted as a lovable wuss. Why do you have to a) hammer it home with no subtlety or humor and b) ruin it? Robin has never been that mean. This was entirely out of nowhere and a disservice to the character. Yeah, she’s had some anger issues, but this was too far and it’s been too long since they’ve reminded us of Robin’s anger issues. When does she freak out about little things? Barney enters and Lily follows soon after. Lily warns Barney that her neighbor, with whom Barney is about to copulate in two minutes, cut off her last one night stand’s penis with a cheese knife.

Then Lily accidentally knocks her gouda on the floor. It is swarmed with mice that fled the basement to get away from Mickey’s bees. Marshall comes into the kitchen with Cootes and tells him he’s not going back to work. Cootes protests and Marshall quits. Cootes thinks it’s crazy that Marshall would quit, since this was Marshall’s dream job and Marshall cares about Mother Earth. Cootes takes the moment to ponder his life and consider taking up a hobby. Enter Mickey, recommending beekeeping.

Mickey gives Cootes the suit and Cootes puts it on. The timer goes off and Cootes has to take the kugel out of the oven. He catches on fire and runs through the dining and living rooms and jumps out in the snow. The fire is put out. Cootes, exhilarated, realizes that he needs to party for the night and gives Marshall his job back, as well as the weekend off. Robin and Ted make up. Marshall opens the house door to find that his house is swarmed with bees. Barney is trapped upstairs with the neighbor, due to the bees. Maybe Marshall and Lily will move back now?

We think that we can all agree that the show needs to have Cootes and Lily’s dad leave the show. They ruin it and make it too slapsticky and weird. No laughs.

Episode grade: D+