10 How I Met Your Mother Moments That Prove Ted Is A Total Jerk

As a sitcom reaches its middle age, it’s common to see the characters become caricatures of themselves. As ideas run a little thin, the most obviously comical aspects are heightened for the purpose of quick laughs. Few shows, however, have done this as clumsily as HIMYM did with Ted Mosby’s pretentiousness.

Ted was always pitched as the smartest of the group, with more of a taste for the finer things than the others. For the purposes of this episode, however, he becomes entirely insufferable, dead set on impressing Peter Bogdanovich, and apparently fluent in Italian.

In this instance, at least, the writers are attempting to turn Ted into an annoying character, rather than writing plots and gags that they think are loveable but come across anything but. Still, this smacks of laziness, a show five years in deciding they’d like to do an episode spoofing high class pretentious New Yorkers and completely changing the lead character in order to do so.

As is often the case, it would be forgivable if it yielded good material, but it doesn’t really. It just serves to make Ted an even less likeable lead in his own story.