‘How I Met Your Mother’ review: Who’s the bigger jerk?
Who would we have ever thought that Barney on “How I Met Your Mother” would be the one more suited for a relationship than Ted? As strange as that may sound, that was the sort of general feeling that came out of Monday night’s new episode “The Autumn of Breakups.” In some ways, it is rather remarkable that Ted has remained a protagonist worth rooting over the years, mostly since he is kind of a jerk.
For a prime example, just look at the trajectory of his relationship with Victoria. First, he cheats on her with Robin. Then, he allows her to leave Klaus at the altar (knowing how well how that feels, even if Klaus was secretly okay with it) to be with him. Finally, it appeared almost as if he was going to let Victoria go in this episode before finally realizing due to Marshall that if he really wanted to make this work, he had to make her a commitment. So he proposed … but then Victoria made a provision that he and Robin cannot be friends.
Does this make Victoria a jerk? Hardly. Really, all this makes her is someone who does not want someone around who slept with her man while they were together in the past. Maybe in some ways Ted was a jerk for not addressing this himself, and Victoria as well for allowing Ted to propose before bringing this up. This marks the second time that Ted has proposed only to see things go awry, and what was interesting here in that he decided not to tell Robin about why he and Victoria are over … at least for now.
Now, we will turn our attention to the other relationship in disarray this week: Nick and Robin, who clearly showed that she still had feelings for Barney in choosing to help him get over the loss of his new dog “wingman.” Was this completely ridiculous? Sure, but it did show that the spark was still there … and it makes sense considering that Robin’s own relationship is not going to last forever. It’s a shame in a way, since Nick does seem to be a nice guy who cares about her. Maybe this makes Robin, who is still with the guy, almost as much of a jerk as Ted … even if there was no proposal here.
What did you think about this episode, and do you think that Ted made the right decision in dumping Victoria in order to still have Robin in her life?