HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER “The Slutty Pumpkin Returns” Season 7, Episode 8 – Long time fans of How I Met Your Mother no doubt remember Ted’s enigmatic “Slutty Pumpkin” from the first season’s rooftop Halloween party. The woman in that slutty pumpkin costume had become a kind of mythical creature and tonight she became a reality.
When you’ve been waiting seven seasons for a tiny glimpse of Ted’s future wife, the unmasking of this mysterious yet inconsequential character is a minor consolation. Unless Naomi, aka. the Slutty Pumpkin, was somehow directly connected to Ted’s future wife, we were going to be a little bit disappointed that Ted was wasting time on another random girlfriend. In that sense, I actually thought the Slutty Pumpkin’s return to How I Met Your Mother put an interesting spin on our own expectations by killing the chemistry between Ted and Naomi before it could even start.
Katie Holmes was cute and she was definitely able to make her scenes with Ted feel really uncomfortable. It wasn’t so much that she was laugh out loud funny, but she made Naomi so incredibly awkward that by comparison, Ted seemed like an experienced Casanova. I cringed as she sang Bare Naked Ladies and groaned loudly while kissing Ted and I just wanted Ted to end it before it got worse.
Of course, “classic Shmosby” has to complicate things further by blurting out “I… love… you” when he had intended to break up with her but that made the payoff all the more successful. Seeing their brief romance from Naomi’s point of view showed us that she was feeling just as turned off by their relationship as Ted was.
Meanwhile, Lily and Marshall were gifted a house in the suburbs by Lily’s grandparents. Although she hates the suburbs, Lily jumps at the opportunity and tries to convince Marshall that they should start their family outside of the city. No doubt, if someone gave me a nice house with no strings attached, I’d take it. Maybe they shouldn’t move out to the burbs right away, but Ted still has his rundown house outside of the city so they won’t be alone in their transition eventually.
What irked me about this sub plot was the play on Lily’s “pregnancy brain” which made her more than occasionally absent minded and turned her into a stupid woman who couldn’t be trusted to make important decisions for the nine months she’d be carrying a child. I don’t know any women who have become so drained by pregnancy that they’re incapable of making serious decisions. I think I would have liked this plot line better if Lily stuck to being the manipulative fox playing dumb, instead of conceding that she shouldn’t make big decisions while she’s pregnant.
Lastly, thanks to the wonders of Facebook, Robin discovered that Barney’s biological grandmother was born in Manitoba, making Barney a quarter Canadian. I was cracking up with every little thing Robin did to torment Barney about his newly discovered heritage. She seemed to take so much twisted pleasure in being able to share her Canadianism with her new found Canadian brother while Barney was so wonderfully horrified by this reality. I loved this development in Barney’s character and I hope it’s not the last we’ll hear of Robin taunting him for his Canadian roots.
We’ve had a couple old romances come back this season to give Ted closure when he least expected it. First it was Victoria and now the book on Naomi can be closed without Ted wondering “what if” about the mystery girl in the slutty pumpkin costume. I’m hoping this is a sign that Ted is on a straight path to uncovering the biggest mystery on How I Met Your Mother and that we won’t get too many more detours before we finally get to meet his true love.
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