The 100th episode of How I Met Your Mother (airing tonight!) titled “Girls vs. Suits” is one of the best episodes of the show’s 5 year run. It packs a lot of punches, including a musical number I had to re-watch 5 times (and subsequently get stuck in my head all the time), and many amazing guest stars. Tim Gunn, Rachel Bilson, and Stacey Kiebler, to be exact, who all play a role in what Carter Bays and Craig Thomas call a “celebration for the fans.”
The episode centers around Ted meeting a girl at the University where he teaches (Rachel Bilson), who we think could be the mother. And Barney wants to be with the new hot McLaren’s bartender (Stacy Keibler), but she hates Wall Street guys in suits. He has to grapple with his suit addiction (one can call it that I think), and decide between the girl and the suit.
This is the first episode where get a really big glimpse as to who the mother is. We don’t ever see her, but we somehow get to know her much better than we had in episodes 1-99. How I Met Your Mother is a comedy with a great deal of heart, and this episode showcases that in an incredible way. Ted reveals some memories about the mother, we see a relic from her past…and we come to understand more of what Ted’s love life is in the future. And then there’s the musical number. You have to wait all of 21 minutes to see it (it’s at the end of the episode), but Neil Patrick Harris can do anything, including singing on top of a taxi cab. We knew he could sing and dance but he really takes it to another level. And each cast member plays a part in this amazing suit-centric song. My guess is you’ll be humming it for the next week…it’s that good. I recently chatted with Carter Bays and Craig Thomas, the brilliant creators of the show about the 100th episode, what we can expect in the 2nd half of the season, what their favorite episodes have been so far, and the aforementioned ever-so-talented NPH.
What kinds of highlights we can expect in the 100th episode?
Craig: Boy, there’s a lot — this is about the most we’ve packed in to 20 minutes and change, and that’s saying a lot. I think one of our season finales had like 83 different scenes, and while I don’t think this matches as many scenes, this is just about the most bursting-at-the-seams episodes we’ve ever done. We feel like everybody in the cast gets something fun, but the two big stories are a Ted story and a Barney story. Ted’s story is he meets someone at his university who may or may not be the mother. And I think it’s going to be a real kind of edge of your seat–oh my gosh–is this her? Has it taken 100 episodes to get here and we’re finally here…you know, I can’t say too much about that one, because I will be shot and killed by both network and studio but it’s really great. Rachel Bilson plays the part of the girl in question, and she’s fantastic. So yeah, we have several kind of fun cameos in the episode–we have Rachel Bilson, we have Tim Gunn and we have Stacy Keibler. Tim Gunn and Stacy Keibler factor into the other big story of the episode which is a big Barney story. Barney’s been with almost every type of woman in the world–every type of profession, size or shape of woman except one feather he does not yet have is a hot bartender. McLaren’s has hired a new hot bartender, played by Stacy Keibler, and Barney is driven insane–he must get this girl. It’s driven him nuts that he never got to notch that one off–the hot bartender. So Barney’s job in the episode is the pursuit of this girl, and the curveball is that it turns out she’s dated a lot of jerky Wall Street guys, and she hates guys in suits. So Barney, in his passion to try and land this girl, vows that he’ll give up suits, and it turns out to be sort of like a heroin addict deciding “okay no more of that stuff, I’m done with the heroine,” and it turns out to be pretty tricky. And Barney is faced with this horrible, horrible, horrible question — a girl, or my suits. And that’s a question no man should ever have to be faced with, especially Barney Stinson.
Did the success of Glee have anything to do with your decision to do a musical episode now?
Carter: Craig and I are huge music fans and we love making music. Our creative partnership began in a band, and so music has been something that has always been on the back burner for us for this show–we always wanted to do it–we’ve got two terrific Broadway song and dance men in the cast in Josh Radnor and Neil Patrcik Harris. We’ve got Cobie, who obviously made her mark as Robin Sparkles, and Jason obviously–he writes music for his movies. Music is a big part of the show, whether we’ve actually seen it or not. And we’ve done people singing on the show before but it’s sort of felt like this is the time — as fans of the big splashing movie/musical, we sort of felt like number 100 was a good time to make our foray into that. I think would Pam, our director, would probably kill us if we did it too often. But it feels like something — now that we’ve gotten our feet wet, we’d love to do it again. As fans of Glee, and that show has definitely made it clear that you can do a fun movie/musical type thing on television.
Craig: And ironically enough per your question, the musical number in episode 100 was choreographed by Zach Woodley, the choreographer from Glee, and he did a phenomenal job working with Neil Patrick Harris and our cast and about 65 dancers in suits who all showed up at around 5 in the morning so Zach could kind of put this choreography on them in the dark, before we started rolling at the crack of daylight. It was a pretty impressive feat to watch, it did kind of cross paths with Glee in kind of a fun way.
Carter: And I think we like to challenge ourselves, and do things that are a little bit dangerous. There was a fun moment shooting this where Neil jumps up onto a cab. And there were a few moments where he jumps up onto the cab and does a spin and sings and it’s all in one shot, and there were a few moments on that spin, where it felt like it was like wait, is this maybe the end of the show? Is he going to fall off this cab and that will be it?
Craig: Neil’s incredibly graceful, he just amazing at nailing continuity take-to-take in any scene. But there was a little moment or two, when his shoes were a little slide-y on the top of this cab and we were watching the monitor…
Carter: You realize how fragile a TV show can be.
Craig: Carter and I happened to be watching the monitor with Gary Newman and Dana Walden the presidents of the studio, and you just saw their hearts leap up into their mouths, as one of their stars took a little slide on the top of this cab, treacherously to the edge of the roof, of course being Neil, he righted himself and nailed it. But of course there was this little moment of oh well, 100 episodes, we made it, that’s great, now Neil will die, Neil’s going to land on his head and die. We can’t complain. But it all came out well. Suffice it today, that’s not the final take we used that you’ll see Monday night.
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Southland was canceled by NBC in the whole Leno mess (whew boy), but was picked up by TNT. It’s a great cop drama that let’s viewers get an inside look at the lives and cases of a Los Angeles police force. The show stars Ben MacKenzie (The O.C.), Regina King, and Michael Cudlitz. It really wasn’t given enough of a chance on NBC, so I’m glad it has found a new home. TNT is handling the show in a very unique (and great) way. Tonight they are airing the first season premiere, with about six minutes of never-before-seen footage. In addition, every Tuesday night, TNT will air each subsequent episode from the first season of Southland. This is a great way for the network to gain new fans of the show, and for old fans to re-watch the season or catch up.
