‘How I Met Your Mother’ Summarized By Someone Who Has Never Seen The Show
Okay, so.
There is this show that has been going on for approximately 17 years called How I Met Your Mother, and it just came to an end this Monday night. Everyone is very sad and angry at this ending, and expresses this anger by posting untagged spoilers about it on every social media platform they can access.
But their anger, and their subsequent spoiling, is totally understandable — this was an important show that came to an unsatisfying conclusion, and I am going to explain that show to you right now.
Neil Patrick Harris is the main character of this show, and his name is Barney (??), and he is a ladies’ man. He hits on every woman he sees, and speaks in catch phrases, and requests hi fives, and says the first part of the word “legendary” and then makes you wait for the rest. Judging by the nature of this kind of show, I’m assuming he eventually puts aside his lothario ways and finds stable love with a female character.
Barney is also notable for being the inspiration/imagery behind countless irritating memes that people you stopped talking to in high school post on Facebook.
Then his friend (Chandler? Ross? I don’t know this character’s name) is played by the tall man from all of the Judd Apatow movies whose penis we saw in Forgetting Sarah Marshall. He is married to the girl who put a flute in her vagina in American Pie, and they are a happy, mutually supportive couple who elicits a healthy amount of “aww” moments from the live studio audience. They are neutral and appealing. If this were a 7th grade science experiment, this couple would be the “control” group.
Then there are two people who I do not recognize because they have not had any other significant roles that I am aware of, and they must be together because I don’t see any other people in the posters. The man has two children, and the premise of this show is that at some point in the future he is explaining to his children how he met their mother (and through these scenes we get some of that classic Harry Potter let’s-age-everyone-by-putting-grey-powder-in-their-hair moments). Apparently the mother has been dead all throughout the series, which lends a slightly macabre air to the title, and has caused Twitter great distress.
Throughout the series, we get most of our hijinks by following the gang at their local bar in their local city (Cleveland? Boston?), where they gather to deliver the hot goss and flirt with people. Tall man from the Judd Apatow movies is a good but put-upon man who occasionally rolls his eyes at his be-fluted wife, and Barney is going to get himself into some scrapes with the local hotties, but everything works out in the end thanks to the reasonable mediation of the pretty brown haired woman I don’t recognize.
All in all, it’s a great show with a wonderful cast of characters and what appears to be a morbid, unsatisfying ending. Though the non-HIMYM devotees might be put off by the sudden social media takeover of show discussion, they shouldn’t be. We should educate ourselves on what is going on, so we can participate in the water cooler chats and share our favorite Chandler moments.
I’m here to help.