[chiefzilla1501]

Originally Posted by Discuss Thrower

Bays and Thomas redeemed themselves big time for most -if not all- of the filler episodes that have been made since season 6. Outside of one laughable "continuity" error, there was nothing more they could've done with tonight's episode that would have made it any way better.

Spoiler!

Yeah, there was the whole dead boyfriend plotline that was probably hit or miss for several fans. CB&CT needed an analogue to Ted's relationship with Robin without being a carbon copy of it... and a tragically killed character is probably the only way to do that. Yes, a lot of the dramatic punch was missing with Millioti's scene on the beach house porch since we didn't really 'care' about her and the boyfriend's relationship, but there would've been too much second guessing if CB&CT had fleshed out the Mother's and Max's relationship prior to killing him off.

Really, my only beef with the episode was how they depicted the "close calls" with the Mother and Ted with the scene of him running across Columbia's campus and then her playing of a song which was "coincidentally" released on iTunes this week right next to his room. The audience already knows they don't meet until well after the Wedding, so what does the extremely close calls do besides antagonize viewers?

That, and saying St. Patrick's Day 2008 festivities took place during April. I'm gonna pin that one on the editing department moreso than the showrunners.

Spoiler!

I agree. I do like the idea of the close calls, though. Given the storyline in the episode, I don't think you could set up a story where she falls in love at first sight. They did a good job in using the close calls to show that she was developing an interest in Ted even when she wasn't interested in anyone else.

If anything, the episode really raised a tough bar for the writers to hit. They had the challenge of proving to the viewer this season that the mother was worth it for Ted and they've kind of done that. Until yesterday, when they hit that out of the park. After yesterday's episode, it's flipped. Now they have a challenge of proving that Ted is worthy of the mother especially now that he has to measure up to a dead guy. Let's just hope the gimmicks are over. The writers spent a lot of time turning Ted into a bit of a dick. If they're not careful, they might set up an ending where people are disappointed that Ted meets the mother... but this time, it's because of Ted (not because the mother wasn't what they hoped she'd be)