How I Met Your Mother - 7x15 - The Burning Beekeeper

Another filler episode whose only redeeming characteristic is some awesome, but brief Martin Short-istry and a great visual gag, but is otherwise pretty unimpressive. You would think the show's long-standing tradition of an unreliable narrator would make it easy for them to try their hand at Rashoman-as-sitcom, but even if Coupling hadn't already done it far better, the entire excercise falls surprisingly flat. None of the threads they dangle are particularly intriguing, the payoffs to them are fairly boring, their intersections are plotted awkwardly, and most of the drama in between isn't the least bit engaging.


Lily and Marshall finally get around to throwing a housewarming party at their new place, only for the titular Burning Beekeeper to come flying out of the kitchen, flailing about the house, ruining the party completely. Well technically, it's the army of bees that subsequently occupy the entirety of the house that ruin the party, but the Human Torch is a much better visual to hang the entire premise of the episode on.

As FutureTed explains, the whole thing went wrong in exactly five minutes, and required the disparate actions of the entire cast, in three different rooms, to come together. Basically, Rashomon. Or more accurately, 9½ Minutes. Ted takes it room by room, but I'm not even going to remotely bore you with that, especially since there's no particular reason any of this had to be split up that way.

Stare at this for five minutes, you'll be more entertained.

Lily's freaking out because of the usual party hosting disasters that just keep compounding. She has to juggle her father's new basement beekeeping business, a surprise mouse infestation, and Barney macking on one of the busty and absolutely insane divorcee neighbors. She trashes the mouse-squicked gouda before anyone eats it, warns Barney that neighbor lady has a habit of Bobbit'ing when feeling jilted (which I honestly thought she was lying about), and even keeps her father from making a complete ass out of himself in front of every one else. But she's just a little too late to stop Barney from convincing her dad that all real beekeepers soak themselves in kerosene.

If she'd just put out a small cup of grapes instead,
they could've had the most adorable homemade wine.

If that wasn't bad enough, Martin Short has decided that Planet Earth doesn't have time for them to dilly-dally and party hardy, so he's forcing Marshall back to work in 15 minutes. Marshall summons up some genuinely impressive brass ones and calmly tells his boss that he's straight up quitting rather than leaving his wife in the lurch once again. I guess it's nice to see some follow up to Field Trip.

The Secret Origin of Convection Oven Man

Being gracious guests, Ted and Robin bring along a kugel... and their latest argument. Ted thinks Robins too confrontational, Robin thinks Ted's too much a pushover. This makes Ted all too willing to fight Martin Short when he accuses Ted of eating all the vegan springrolls. Eager to stop the fight, Lily points Short to the hummus in the kitchen, where he has a chat with Lily's father, who, lends him his kerosene-soaked beekeeper's outfit. When the oven beeps signalling the kugel is ready, he reaches into the oven, catches a spark, and fwoosh. The near-death expirience revitalizes him, and he decides that they will take the night off after all.

Seriously. It took half an hour to get to that. There's an end tag about Barney having to decide between staying the night with neighbor lady and risking his manhood, or braving a house full of bees while naked, but...seriously, who cares?

Maybe it's unfair to compare one show against another, but in this case I really can't help it. Coupling's fourth season was by far it's least popular, but it could still pull of this narrative device much more effectively, without trying nearly as hard. The main crux is the pacing. Coupling allowed each segment to be a self contained story, a single narrative, only briefly brushing against the others to deliver unexpected *additional* layers to the humor. By contrast The Burning Beekeeper's segments just kept flitting about all over the place, dropping pieces of every other plot everywhere, more often than not without adding any humor to them. As a result every segment felt unsatsifying and incomplete. It might've helped if the threads had been funny to make up for it, but come on: Barney and a Penis-Chopper? Ted and Robin arguing about arguing? Mice on the cheese? The only thread that felt the least bit satisfying was Marshall's, and that was only for the brief minute that he grew a pair and quit his dream job.