"Hooked" even works in a big name guest star, another consistent strength of the series. Guest star Carrie Underwood does a decent job as pharma girl Tiffany, so much so that it's a little surprising it's her first-ever acting credit. It helps immensely that she has great lines to work with (from "I've always been hot -- whaddaya gonna do?" to her excitement that Jack is "in a band!"), but regardless Underwood doesn't have the stiffness or blatant cue card-reading look that's common with many singers turned actors.
While the gang's story this week didn't focus on Barney (who it's probably safe to assume has never been "hooked" by anyone), we got just the right amount of Barney lines for him to steal a good chunk of the episode. His rundown of his previous attempts to find the "perfect bait" were very amusing (the slot machine was deemed "too fun," and the trampoline "too dangerous"), and it was Barney's teacup pig bait that brought the storylines for Lily & Marshall and Ted together. We even got another classic Barney history lesson, this time on the hottest jobs ever (gatherer, nurse, stewardess and pharmaceutical rep). Arguably Barney's best line of the evening was his rapid-fire listing of possible side effects to hooking up with a pharma girl: "loss of clothing, rug burn, shortness of breath, and sore abdominals the next morning."
Out of the three hooked storylines, Marshall and Lily's adventures with the teacup pig and Scooter (played by Neil Patrick Harris's real-life boyfriend, David Burtka) was the funniest. Marshall's revelation that Scooter actually works at Lily's school and "Lunchlady Scooter" isn't a "long overdue device that carries around those poor, underappreciated lunch ladies" was great. Lily's flashback as she remembered a previous "Lunchlady Scooter" conversation was even better, with Marshall asking, "Did you jump on that thing? Give it a ride? If it were me, I'd be riding that scooter all day long until I break that thing in half." The conversation and the practice with the teacup pig was all a great build-up to the final Lily & Marshall scene, with Lily attempting to break it off with Scooter and Marshall interjecting, "...right now!" and telling him, "Hang in there, Scoots, I'm not gonna live forever." It's great, character-based comedy with just the right amount of ridiculousness.
The Ted-Henrietta storyline was the weakest of the episode, but still resulted in a great line: "I seriously considering marrying her out of sheer awkwardness." Unfortunately we got there via a groan-worthy moment of Ted accidentally proposing to Henrietta, in a scenario straight out of Three's Company. Robin's "hooked" story was less a focus of the episode, but similarly resulted in one great line: "Our girl parts are like a spiderweb -- sometimes you're gonna catch stuff you don't want."
We didn't get any movement on the Mother storyline, but How I Met has proven that episodes can stand on their own when they're this well written and strongly tied-together. Consider us hooked.
