How I Met Your Mother - 7x18 - Karma

The episode starts with Ted summarizing the last few episodes in like six thousand less words than I did. Which just makes me wonder, why the hell am I doing this again?

Fine, let's try this in bullet points:

Robin's moved out and is crashing at Marshall and Lily's. Ted's trying to cope with his heartbreak by filling the now-empty room with anything other than a constant reminder of who's no longer there. Barney gets taken pretty hilariously, though unbelievably, by a stripper named Karma, who's probably going to end up being the woman he ends up maybe-marrying in that flash-forward-back that's framing the season. Marshall and Lily reveal they've been existing in a living death of old people and shuffleboard out in the suburbs, and try to rope/shanghai Robin into joining them.

How I Met Your Mother - 7x17 - No Pressure

Alright, so it's less of a sprint and more of a light jog. But hey, at least they're going somewhere right? Right? Seriously though, are we going somewhere?

We pick up more or less where we left off last time. Robin, fresh of dumping/being dumped by her fiance of three hours, on the roof. Ted, master of perfect timing, in front of her, telling her, again, he loves her and to take him back. This can only end well.

New Girl - 1x24 - See Ya

It's moving day for Nick, and while Winston and Schmidt are content to crow passive aggressively about how much money they're going to save (and then spend on licensed plumbers), Jess is resorting to direct insults, sabotage, haranguing, and eventually just straight up pleading to get Nick to stay.

And then she goes back to sabotage again.

New Girl - 1x23 - Backslide

Distraught about Russell (and maybe partly about Nick?), Jess backslides into Paul, and no one makes a crude pun, a fact that makes me both proud and disappointed in this show. Schmidt commits to Cece in the sweetest and most painfully disgusting way he can, because he's Schmidt. And Nick has a meaningful conversation with his past self that we will all cherish forever.

Forever.

New Girl - 1x22 - Tomatoes

Nick (maybe as a consequence of his soul searching last week?) decides to seize control of his crapper of a life and he starts by...planting some tomatoes. Or is it one tomato? He plants one plant is what I'm saying. Who knows how many tomatoes are supposed to come from there. Do I look like a goddamned philosopher?

New Girl - 1x21 - Kids

Everyone's babysitting tonight!

Jess starts freaking out when Russell asks her to watch his daughter for an afternoon. Not so much about being responsible for, or bonding with, the kid, but because, well, everyone else in the apartment has a tendency to alienate and frighten outsiders. Hell, last time Russell was there, he straight-up got stabbed. Honestly, it shows a surprising level of trust for him to send his only child into such a den of bloodshed. Maybe he doesn't like her very much. Kids can be annoying, you know?

New Girl - 1x20 - Normal

Ironically THIS feels like the real Part 2 to Fancyman Part 1, much like last week felt like the Part 2 to Fancyman Part 2. If it wasn't for the fact that FM2 explicitly showed Jess and Russel's first date, I'd recommend shuffling the viewing order a little.

Jess spent an entire week at Russell's GIANT MANSION, and it all went splendidly. But Jess gets scared by how good it's going. And who could blame her? I'm 98% certain her line about living in a romantic comedy montage where she tries on floppy hats is from an actual Zooey Deschanel movie. So, she tries to get the relationship on a more even keel by asking Russell to spend the weekend at her place. Not surprisingly, a middle aged man spending a weekend in a loft with drunken twenty-somethings ends in nothing but tears and blood.