How I Met Your Mother - Jenkins

Network: CBS
Time: Mondays, 8:00-8:30pm
Cast: Josh Radnor, Neil Patrick Harris, Jason Segel, Alyson Hannigan, Cobie Smulders

Summary: When Marshall finds out he's the "reacher" and Lily's the "settler" in their relationship, he sets out to make her jealous.  Meanwhile, Ted finds out his students have a drinking game about Robin.

Review: Usually in a HIMYM episode, there's something that stands out as the best part of the episode for me.  Everything else was good, but there's usually one part I can point to and say, "Oh, I really loved blahblahblah."

In this case, it was Amanda Peet.  I've loved her since her starring role on the short-lived but totally awesome Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip (go check it out if you've never seen it).  She's a great comedic actress, and her chemistry with Jason Segel was spectacular in this episode.  From the first introduction to the moment she plants one on him (that's not a spoiler; it was in the promo), it was easy to imagine her as a co-worker who Marshall didn't know was probably flirting with him.

Meanwhile, elsewhere in that episode, the group explains to Marshall that he's the reacher in his relationship with Lily, and she's the settler.  In other words, she's too good for him, but she's settling for him.  After much (much much much) prodding, Lily agrees with that, and Marshall decides he has to make Lily jealous.  But, of course, she doesn't get jealous, because Lily's too cool to get jealous.  Mostly.  Which just makes Marshall try harder.

That entire storyline was heartwarming on top of being funny.  I always enjoy watching Marshall and Lily interact, because there's just so much love between them.  It takes Lily forever to admit she even might be settling for Marshall, and, even then, it isn't a big deal in her eyes.  Meanwhile, even while Marshall's trying to make Lily jealous, he never wants to hurt her.  The writers and actors have really done a great job creating such a lovely couple that you're constantly rooting for.

Then there's the second story, where Ted, who is forever desperate to be liked by his students, discovers that his students all watch Robin's show... and have a drinking game about it.  This was yet another opportunity to throw Robin and Ted into an adversarial relationship, with Robin rubbing it in Ted's face and Ted trying not to let it bother him, even though it so obviously does.  It's a trick the HIMYM writers do a lot, but it's so much fun every time. 

There's no way this episode could have competed against the 100th episode, which was the last new one, but it was definitely fun to watch and it kept me laughing through the whole thing.

Rating:
[5] Excellent
[4] Good
[3] Average
[2] OK
[1] Bad