[Discuss Thrower]

Originally Posted by duncan_idaho

Good thoughts/breakdown of Lily.

She's never been an extremely likeable character. Part of that is because Lily and Robin and Marshall and Ted are examples of flipped gender roles.

Lily and Robin display a lot of traits usually reserved for the male gender role (me-first, find themself before committing, career-first, life-experience first, not wanting kids, logical rather than emotional, and probably a few that aren't springing to mind, sexual empowerment, sexual curiosity).

Meanwhile, in Ted and Marshall, you see two really sweet, nice guys that are relationship-first, family first, romantic, emotional).

The Ted-Robin relationship doesn't work because they're in different places or because she isn't The One. It doesn't work because Ted is too sensitive/progressive for Robin, and not (traditionally) manly enough.

One other thing I was thinking about after this week's role: They've done a lot in the last season and a half to break down some of the Barney Stinson facade. First, the settling down/falling in love with Robin. In the past episode, him admitting that he was broken inside and his behavior reflected that, and also his reveal that his entire job was an elaborate long con designed to get revenge on the guy who stole his girlfriend...

Not sure how I feel about that. Is Barney better off being humanized and brought back to earth, as they've recently done? Or is he better as a ridiculous caricature?

I think a large part of the problem is that the show should've only ran for 6-7 seasons max. I don't really believe they intended it to go 8. I think you see the cracks in the narrative once you realize that the whole point of Nick and Quinn/Karma in Season 8 were to extend the same plot points brought on by Kevin and Nora from seasons 6 and 7 for Robin and Barney respectively.

EDIT:

Spoiler!

A hole in my notion that the Mother is dead is that Monday's episode will be told by Milioti, and probably not Ted.. Whatever. I still think that killing her off in the finale makes sense considering Bays' (or is it Thomas') background in high-theatre.