I have a friend who’s currently living in China who watches the show on Monday nights and will text me on Tuesday morning with his thoughts about the episode. Unfortunately, this week we came to the same conclusion about last night’s show: Total Dial-In. I mean, there were some funny parts, but the magic simply wasn’t there. As he put it, “They probably should have just gone to winter break after last week, and left this week’s alone.”
Yes, I know I’m being harsh, but when you’re consistently hitting the ball out of the park, you have to expect that your viewers will get used to seeing Home Runs. If they don’t, they’re probably Orioles fans.
Like me.
Robin’s working with a new guy named Don Frank, who’s already done the tour of 38 morning news shows across the country. Ted’s convinced she’s going to “hit that,” but Robin swears she’s not. She’s also a closet smoker.
And so is Marshall. He’s been smoking since he was 13, and after years and years of “last cigarette ever,” and six months off, he’s bumming ciggies from Robin. Why? Arthur, the boss from hell has been named the head of the legal department at Marshall and Barney’s company and he doesn’t know Marshall’s name. And it’s always the “what-is-names” that are on the chopping block first.
But when Marshall discovers that Arthur is a roof-smoker, he takes up the habit on a more regular basis to get face time. Sound familiar? It should…it’s just like when Joanna Gleason guest starred on Friends years ago as Rachel’s boss from Bloomingdales! There was one funny part when one of the fake names Arthur called Marshall was almost the same name as one of my sister’s real co-workers. But, I don’t think that they were writing the joke just for us. Ted wants to know what’ll happen when Lily finds out. Marshall swears she won’t since he has a “system.”
Of course she does, and then she takes one herself. Whenever Marshall falls off the wagon, she falls right down with him. It gets so bad that eventually she starts talking like Harvey Fierstein!
Robin’s barely surviving working with Don. He’s rude, he’s obnoxious, and he does the morning news in his tighty whiteys. It’s really the morning match made in hell. Why? Because their entire viewing audience is one half-drunk slob in his underwear. She wants to do the show for him, and Don’s sure he appreciates it. He also thinks Robin’s adorable for trying to Mayor Bloomberg on their show.
Finally, Ted and Barney fall too. No good reason, they just fall to the peer pressure.
After a week, they’re feeling the effects and are determined to quit. They all decide to do it together so they don’t pressure each other. The problem is, they all start snapping at each other. Robin gets them to all watch the show since she’s interviewing the Mayor, but when she learns that he’s cancelled just before they go on the air, she wonders if it’s all worth it. Don lights up and tells her that she could even light up if she wanted to since NO ONE IS WATCHING! Not even the cameraman is watching. Don invites anyone who has a problem with them smoking to give the station a call. When they hear from no one, she’s about to light up. Then the gang calls and talks her out of it. She defiantly throws the lit cig into Don’s coffee, and watches as it goes up like a Molotov cocktail.
Unfortunately, while Robin resists, the rest fall. She finds them upstairs smoking the pack Barney stashed on the roof. She joins them to watch the sunrise. Lily encourages her to date Don, but Robin swears it won’t happen. According to Dad-Ted, they were dating within three months.
Inspired by the sunrise, Robin says that it’s time for a real last cigarette ever. Dad-Ted says it was a good effort, but it didn’t work. They all eventually had their last cigarettes ever, though.
- Robin in June 2013
- Barney in March 2017
- Lily the day she decided to start trying to get pregnant
- Marshall the day his son was born
- Ted two weeks into dating his kids’ mother. And he never looked back.
And we’re off on a couple of weeks’ break for Christmas and I think New Year’s. Whatever you’re celebrating, I hope it’s a good one. And a big congrats to Neil Patrick Harris for his 2010 Golden Globe Nomination!!!
