HIMYM 8x08: Twelve Horny Women

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It's the not-too-distant future, and Marshall is talking to the New York judiciary committee about his case against Gruber Pharmaceuticals and their lead counsel, Big Dick Richie. Future Ted is telling a story about Marshall telling a story. It's pretty stupid. Anyway, Marshall asks Brad why he dicked him around since they used to be brunch bros, and the answer is all too familiar: His lady broke his heart, so he said screw it, suited up and started lying.

The world is a far darker place without love.

Regardless, Brad knows he can't win the case on its merits, so he plays to the jury, which happens to be made up of the titular twelve horny women. Instead of using facts and sound reasoning, he uses the one thing Marshall doesn't have: Buns of steel.

It's not lecherous when women are doing the ogling.

Using his powers of sex appeal, Brad wins over the judge, the jury, and even the court sketch artist. It looks like he's got everything in the bag. Marshall tries to win back the ladies with a cute duckling that was sickened by the chemicals Gruber dumped into Frog Lake, and it looks like it might work until Brad shows off a video of himself flexing and cavorting topless in the lake. All seems lost until Marshall notices Brad scratching himself.

He ain't pretty no mo'

It seems that the waters of Frog Lake gave him a pretty severe case of acute dermatitis. The jury finds against Gruber Pharmaceuticals, and Marshall wins the case. Unfortunately, the judge only fines the company $25,000 because he doesn't give a crap about the birds and fish and turtles and otters. It seems like all of Marshall's work was for nothing until Brad comes to see him at MacLaren's. He's seen the error of his ways and taken a job at Honeywell & Cootes. From now on, he'll use his manipulation skills and his buns to save the world. He also tells Marshall that he ought to be the one behind the bench making decisions, and that's why Marshall's in front of the Judiciary Committee: To apply to become a judge.

Meanwhile, the rest of the gang takes the day off from work to support Marshall. They don't have much to do during recesses, so they talk about how they were super badasses back in high school. Only Lily really was, though. Apparently, in the HIMYM universe, either The Wire does not exist, or Omar was based on Lily. That's not only ridiculous, it's lazy writing that borders on plagiarism.

Plus, there's a couple minutes of Barney-Robin relationship stuff at the end of the episode.

What I Liked
-"Objection, Your Honor, on grounds that this is ridonk!" If I'm ever a lawyer, I'm going to use that line as much as possible. All of Brad's bro-lawyer speak is pretty good, actually.
-Brad's video. It had sex appeal for the ladies, and comedy for guys like me.

Where the crap did all this gold come from?

What I Hated
-They retconned Scooter's first name. Originally, it was Bill, but in this episode, it's Jeff. Why even bother having continuity if you're just going to ignore half of it?
-The cast is way too old to do flashbacks to when they were teenagers. Alyson Hannigan's in some pretty heavy make-up, but she still looks like a 38-year-old mother of two.

They're supposed to be about 16 in this picture.

-The gang is there in the courtroom for every day of the trial. Supporting your friend is great, but using up all your sick days for that seems kinda ludicrous. Basically, the writers wanted them in the room, but they just couldn't think up a plausible reason for them to be there, so they had to go with something stupid. They don't really add much to the court scenes, though, so I'm surprised they bothered with it.

Final Thoughts
It took until the end credits for me to find out that one of the justices was played by Dennis Haskins of Saved by the Bell fame. He's gotten really fat.

Seriously, did he eat Screech or something?

Again, the Barney-Robin relationship drivel was just tacked on to the end of the episode. It all seems so fake and unrealistic because it's not happening organically. Their relationship isn't being derived from their actions or the situations they're in, but instead it's like it's something external that's happening to them without their consent or input. Almost as if the writers can't figure out a reason why the two of them should be together, but still have to turn them into a couple because we know they're going to get married(or at least have a wedding). It's fine to write the ending first and work your way towards it, but if you flash forward and show that ending, then you're stuck with it. The writers on How I Met Your Mother are stuck with a bad ending that they don't know how to get to, and it's really starting to show.

This episode hit 16 on the still unmade Laugh-o-Meter, which is an improvement over last week, but nearly all the laughs came out of Brad-related stuff, and if I'm not mistaken, Brad's not a regular character on this show. The B-plot was so bad that it completely eroded any good will the A-plot garnered. The good bits of this show are still pretty good, but they're so few and far between that the bad bits overwhelm them. It seems like everyone's just killing time while they wait for the end of the series, and it's sad to see a once-great show end like this.