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.
How many hours did it take to shoot the scene?
Carter: We had to add an extra day to shoot the musical. Usually we tape in three days, but we added a 4th, because we did 2 days of just a musical. The musical number is very much a musical number. It goes piece to piece and sequence to sequence, it’s not all one thing. It’s kind of like several different pieces, and there’s a crazy Pirates of Penzance-esque middle section with the rest of the cast, so it was really kind of like just knocking out piece by piece by piece — a handful of different sections to it — so we needed 2 days, and it was 65 dancers filling the Fox lot’s New York street, and Pam Fryman, our director, sort of acting like Cecil B. DeMille with this enormous production number, and she had never shot anything like this. And she kept turning to me and saying “I hope any of this is useable, I don’t really know what I’m doing here.” And of course it came out amazingly well.
Craig: I feel like this entire endeavor was everyone not really knowing what they were doing. Carter and I wrote this musical number — we’re not musical number writers, we have a piano and guitar, we just sit there and plunk something out, and then all of a sudden we’ve got 100 piece string orchestra playing the stupid song that we wrote.
Did you know how multi-talented Neil Patrick Harris was when you hired him?
Carter: We knew what America knew which was Doogie Howser and Harold and Kumar. And Harold and Kumar– that movie gets all the credit in terms of putting him on our radar, because that movie was so funny. But yeah, we had no idea. The one thing he did in his audition that sort of set him apart was the audition scene was a scene of Barney playing laser tag, and every other person that had come in and done it had mimed shooting laser tag guns and stuff, and it was always pretty fun. Neil comes in and does a full-on shoulder roll like dives behind a couch, does a roll, in that one little microcasm, you could see 100 episodes of utter commitment, and utter going the extra mile to get the laugh. That was the moment where we knew this guy’s going to try anything and usually be capable of it.
Craig: The more time you spend with him, the more stuff comes out that he can do. He’ll just sort of casually mention–yeah, I set up a high wire in my backyard to practice my high wire walking. It’s just — We had no idea what a show biz ninja this guy is. Each season, something new comes out that he can do. And he directed our 101st episode, and he did a fantastic job behind the camera, too.
It’s been 100 episodes, what has been your favorite episode so far?
Craig: The really strange thing is reaching this point, where you suddenly find yourself forgetting about entire episodes. Like I will sometimes forget about an entire episode from Season 1 like Life Among The Gorillas, that was really fun and really funny. It’s kind of nice reaching this point, where I look forward to when this show starts in reruns in the fall because — when it’s syndicated — because it’s kind of amazing that there’s this such enormous back log all of a sudden, because it does feel like we just started doing this. As far as a favorite, I still look at from season 1 “Drumroll, Please” because I know that Pam Fryman, our director, she actually brought that up to us just the other day, kind of reminded us–go back and watch that, because it really was — it kind of set the blueprint for the romantic tone for the show that I know we all really love. So I’d say that would be mine probably.
Carter: Boy, I feel like I can’t name a favorite one. But for some reason, the moment that pops into my head — the moment that I look at and I go “boy,” I kind of realized what we can really do on this show is the very ending of the season finale in season one, where you have Ted finally getting this girl — getting Robin, who he’s been chasing all year with the help of Marshall and Lily supporting him, and he comes home, so jubilant after this amazing night he had with Robin, and finds Marshall sitting out there in the rain with his engagement ring that Lily had given back because he and Lily had just broken up. And just like — one of the best moments of Ted’s life…Ted thinks he’s probably just met the woman he was going to spend his life with, and he finally landed her and comes back and just hits this brick wall, this huge curve ball that his best friend has just lost his fiancee. And he just sits down next to Marshall on the stoop in the rain and puts his arm around him. There’s this great song by Bloc Party called “This Modern Love,” playing at that moment, and we just sort of pulled back and ended the season on this kind of bittersweet moment of one friend on this high and one friend on this low, and they just sit in the rain with their arms around each other. And it was just to me, that was the heart and soul of this show and hopefully what sets it apart from sitcom, day of the week kind of show. Obviously, you can’t do that every episode. You can’t be that heartbreaking every episode, but it’s made me love these characters and feel for them, and I was just so excited to come back and do season two.
I absolutely adored the musical number in the 100th episode.
Carter/Craig: Thank you.
And I wanted to know if there might be a musical episode in the future.
Carter: We’ve talked about that, and we’d have to find a way to do it that would be just really a signature How I Met Your Mother kind of musical. There have been so many other shows that have done the all musical episode, it’s almost like it’s a — I guess you could say it’s a rite of passage for a show that’s been around long enough — but we will never stop writing songs, it’s just something we love to do. And whether it’s for this show or even for some dumb little website that’s connected to the show, that’s what Craig and I do with our hands when we’re idle. We love music.
Craig: That’s so dirty the way you just put that. (laughs)
Carter: (laughs) I know. But yeah, to us — one thing we should make clear about this musical number, it’s not just like all of a sudden, for some reason, people are singing musicals in reality. This musical takes place kind of within Barney’s mind, so it’s just one part of the show, it’s not an entire musical episode. I think it’s kind of hard to do an entire musical episode, and I think to me, Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s Once More With Feeling did it so perfectly that it would be too daunting to try and do an entire musical number that could possibly as good as that. But it was so much fun. The whole concept of this was kind of to have an on-air 100th episode celebration party, and just go nuts. And have three minutes of unadulterated, silly, joyful fun and see our cast and suits just doin’ it, and just kind of share our joy and pride at getting to 100 episodes, and throwing a little party for the fans. But it’s really just the end of the episode that’s the musical part of the episode.
Craig: I think we’d be more likely as opposed to an all musical episode, I think it’s more likely that when the show is over when we’re done with our run of the series, we’ll do How I Met Your Mother: The Musical, and put that up on Broadway, and maybe have a touring company.
Carter: (laughs)
Craig: That’s probably more likely.
That’s a fantastic idea. (laughs)
Craig: I think it could be fun! Maybe put it on ice, even.
Carter: I say skip the Broadway part, just go straight to ice.
I’m sure Neil Patrick Harris could skate.
Craig/Carter: I’m sure he can.
What was the spark that convinced you that this was a good premise for a TV show?
Carter: Initially, we had the idea for the title: How I Met Your Mother. And we didn’t know if it was a movie, or a TV show, or a book, who knows what. But it just felt like there was a relatable story in there. There’s something kind of universal, in kind of wanting to know where you come from. I think everybody has that question, and so it felt like — we wanted to write a story like that, and at the same time, we wanted to write a story about our lives and about the trevails and tribulations of people our age at the time, in our late 20s, either single and trying to figure out exactly how to transition from being single to basically being to moving forward in your life, and also for people in couples, how to navigate those waters, and it sort of felt like telling that story under the framework of a character 30 years later, explaining how it happened–those two elements sort of came together and that was the genesis of the show.
Was there a slap bet in your lives?
Craig: When I was in high school, I had a friend, and we used to make slap bets about various things. It was definitely…this is what we did in lieu of having girlfriends or lives. We’d watch wrestling matches on TV and slap each other. It was a good childhood, I’m not complaining. I made it out of Cleveland.
Carter: I thought that Slap Bet: the Board Game would get us sued. But the response was more “Where can I get that? I want that in my own home.”
Can you tell what’s coming up in the 2nd half of the season?
Craig: It sort of feels like the first half of the season was kind of arranging the ducks for what’s going to unfold in the second half vis-a-vis Robin and Don and especially Barney. Obviously, in the first half of the season, they gave it a shot and it didn’t work in the first half of the season, and the second half is going to be kind of them digesting that and then processing it, and seeing how that affects their friendship and the various friendships in the group.
Carter: We have a bunch of fun casting coming up. We have Carrie Underwood booked for an episode, you’ll see Amanda Peet on the episode in a couple of weeks, we have and episode with Nick Swisher from the Yankees, and Jim Nance in it. We have this Super Bowl themed episode we air the Monday night after the Super Bowl, and there’s a Barney storyline that leaps out of the Super Bowl, and if you watch the Super Bowl, there may even be a little clue or two along the way but I don’t want to say too much.
Craig: We’ve got something cooked up that will air after the Super Bowl that is Super Bowl related that will put events in motion that will lead to some interesting stuff.
The fans want to know who the mother is. Have you felt that pressure from them?
Craig: I think it’s definitely — there is a version is where we reveal who the mother is, and that is the end of the show. We hear that from time to time, like come on, tell us who the mother is, already. And then it is kind of like the ride’s over in a lot of ways. We definitely have that option, and we have ideas for stories that could take place after you’ve met the mother, but I think in addition to Ted, we’ve got 4 interesting characters with 4 interesting lives, and we sort of like the idea of making the show about more than just that central question. It’s nice having that question as sort of the central undercurrent throughout the whole thing, but we’re still very much enjoying the journey, so we’re in no hurry to wrap up Ted’s love life storyline.
Carter: …The truth is, we’ve always had one leading plan and way we want to do it, and we’re still committed to that, and I’m sorry, but I can’t say what that is.
Craig: It’s sort of like watching M*A*S*H and saying “End this war, already! Come on, enough, you’re still in Korea?” It’s like, that’s the show.
Be sure to tune in tonight at 8 pm on CBS for the 100th episode of How I Met Your Mother…you might say it suits you to watch!
The TV Chick 