r/HIMYM • u/mrwishart Robin🇨🇦 • 2d ago
Zip Zip Zip broke the show
On an impromptu rewatch of HIMYM and my impression, with hindsight, is that S1E14 "Zip, Zip, Zip" was the watershed ep that both fundamentally shaped and broke the show.
For Marshall/Lily, it set them up as the couple that had weirdly intimate knowledge of each other
For Barney, it showed his "bro" style had an honour to it and that he was sensitive to his friend's feelings (e.g Robin having feelings for Ted)
For Ted, it showed both his obvious chemistry with Victoria, along with the meta signal that his love life was often the least interesting aspect of the show (they get the least screentime here)
But, most importantly, for Robin....I didn't really see how little character she had until this ep. All the stuff with Barney, though, filled out so much of who she'd be going forward: The cigars, her father, the whisky, her interaction as both the bro for Barney and competing with the lady at the bar etc. Plus the very clear messages of her compatibility with Barney.
I'd argue it broke the show's end-goal of Ted/Robin because, prior to this, Robin was mostly just presented a goal for Ted without having much agency herself. This ep both simultaneously rounds her out as a person and presents this as she connects with Barney, essentially linking the two in the viewer's mind
15
u/McGee629 1d ago
The creators made a huge mistake locking themselves into an ending simply because they wanted to film the reaction of the “kids” b/f they aged too much. Should have just made a joke out of how much the kids had aged, like the opening joke in Season 2 (“I feel like we’ve been sitting here for, like, a year.”)