Zoo or False

Season 5, Episode 19, Aired
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Episode Summary

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7.3
out of 10
EPISODE RATING: Good
299 votes
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Marshall's mugging leads to Lily thinking a gun will solve her safety worries—and to him trying to come up with a way to stop her. Robin is dissatisfied with the quality of her interview show guests.
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Fan Episode Reviews (7)

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  • Mugged by a monkey? Written by chimps!

    2.0
    "Terrible"
    By Rayner, Aug 31, 2011
    I feel that How I Met Your Mother has suffered a steady decline in both writing and acting since the Christmas break. Tonight's episode was an all-time low in what once was one of the most entertaining shows on TV.

    First off, the characters/actors. Marshall seemed tired and almost ashamed to be delivering such god-awful lines. Ted has totally lost what little comic timing he ever had and seems to now rely on pulling weird faces and repetition to get the laughs.
    Lily is being reduced to a series of strange over-reactions. Last night obsessively repeating "mugged by a monkey" and "I'm getting a gun" long after the joke had originally fallen flat.
    Robin doesn't even do the job of providing decent eye-candy any more. Never a particularly great character, last night saw the writers scrape a hole in the bottom of the barrel by not giving her a single funny line.
    And then Barney. For a while he's been the only redeeming part of this show. Last night? Last night he was utterly dire. He seemed totally bereft of his usual charisma, the lines he was given lacking Neil Patrick Harris' usual excellent delivery.

    And now the story. You can tell you're in dire straights when you resort to a monkey to get your laughs...and this monkey didn't even get a smile in my house! Nothing worked. Not a single laugh. Although, judging from the laugh-track being used, the canned-people had been given some particularly good drugs.

    Shockingly bad.moreless

  • What happened to this show? The first seasons were so amazing, and now we have... a monkey.

    3.5
    "Bad"
    By gballigator, Aug 31, 2011
    So in this episode Marshall gets mugged my a monkey - or does he? And Robin would like to put it on her show! If this is not a terrible storyline, I don't know what is. A monkey? Really? Is this what a show that produced 'Mary the Paralegal' and 'Ted Mosby: Architect' has come down to?

    I'm not sure what the actors were doing in this episode - but acting wasn't really a part of it. The scene in the bar where Marshall reveals the monkey mugging was so fake, it made me cringe. Lily's laugh especially was over the top and sounded so totally unrealistic; it looked like she had to force herself to laugh, and just barely made it. Which is understandable, seeing as the plot was NOT FUNNY. And it became even less funny as the characters repeated their lines over and over again. Just because you say it a lot doesn't mean we'll laugh at it.

    I usually rely on Barney to save the show - which, let's face it - he usually does, but this time something was off. His lines weren't good and the punchlines didn't really have any punch. And when Barney can't even save the episode, you know you're screwed. A shame, because this show used to be one of my absolute favorites.moreless

  • We learn that Marshall is mugged, but we hear different versions of the story culminating with a version where a monkey mugged him. Lily wants to get a gun. Barney is starting to lose it as you can't tell where the truth ends and the lies begin!moreless

    8.0
    "Great"
    By jyarter, Aug 31, 2011
    Not the most humorous episode of How I Met Your Mother. The writing and plots on this series have been sub par for a little while now. You have to start wondering what's going on!

    Marshall gets mugged. OK, so Lily overreacts and wants to get a gun even though she claims she would never have one. Robin carries around this cannon in her purse and after Lily gets a feel for it she wants one as well. All of a sudden the mugging story starts changing when Marshall realizes Lily is serious about the gun. We hear some pretty strange versions until the whopper comes out that he was mugged by a monkey. Robin's been looking for a great story/person to interview and she jumps on this story. The network is even talking about taking it national.

    Barney is using his friends experiences to get girls. He actually tells one girl he's Neal Armstrong. When she asks why he's so young he makes up a story about passing through a space anomaly making him reverse his age! She buys it! Eventually we learn some truths, but it's becoming more difficult to tell where the truth starts and lies begin.

    Not a great episode, but entertaining and passable. They could and have done much better. Here's hoping they get the spark back. Maybe they could actually show Ted's wife soon! Thanks for reading...moreless

  • Pretty bad.

    3.0
    "Bad"
    By Canogaparkcindy, Aug 31, 2011
    : Let me start off with the only highlight of this episode was in which Marshall recalls every time he accidentally hit Lilly. That is the only time I truly laughed in this episode, and it wasn't even clever humor. It was "haha monkey, hit head bo bo" humor. This episode had childish humor, and the worst part is it was the most unrealistic plot ever. Mugged by a monkey? Whether Marshall truly got mugged by a monkey or not, who the hell cares? This episode was a huge waste of time, and the only person that would enjoy this episode is someone with an attention span of a 5 year old. I don't even want to explain the plot so I'm just going to stop my review here. Bottom line: Worst episode of How I Met Your Mother to date.moreless

  • A very generous score of 8. This was a pretty random episode that serves no purpose watsoever in the grand scheme of things.

    8.0
    "Great"
    By amazing_race, Aug 31, 2011
    This was another episode which highly disappointed me. Apart from a few odd episodes here and there, this season has not been a good one, and this episode is a great indicator of that!

    The episode started out interesting, when we heard that Marshall got mugged. That was a great start to an episode, but they drove it into that ground and killed it. I did however enjoyed the secene where Lily is shooting madly in one of those shooting ranges or placeds!

    The monkey storyline was awful. The monkey was adorable and cute, but the storyline was just stupid and meaningless.

    I reckon 8.0 is quite a generous score, and I would even go as far as saying that this is one of the worst in this show's history. I'm really disappointed by it.moreless
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  • TRIVIA (0)

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  • QUOTES (8)

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    • Robin: Were you reenacting the last scene of Sleepless in Seattle with tiny dolls?
      Ted: How long have you been standing there?
      Robin: Ten seconds.
      Ted: Then, yeah, just the last scene.

    • Barney: You weren't mugged by a monkey?
      Marshall: No.
      Barney: So, the monkey tricked you into giving him your wallet?
      Marshall: No.
      Ted: You mugged the monkey?

    • Marshall: What are you doing?
      Barney: I'm gonna pretend this happened to me later to get some sympathy sex.
      Marshall: Please, that wouldn't work. (to Lily) Would it?
      Lily: Big time!
      Marshall: I'll allow it.

    • Marshall: There was no monkey. I got mugged by a human being.
      Barney: Are you sure it wasn't a monkey standing on another monkey's shoulders wearing a men's trench coat?
      Ted: It'd be about the right height.

    • Barney: Who mugged you? Was he wearing a black skull knit cap and a five o'clock shadow? Marshall: Yes, Barney, because I got mugged in 1947 at the corner of Abbott and Costello.

    • Lily: Oh, that's the pizza. Baby, do you have any cash? Marshall: Oh, you know I, uh, actually I don't, uh, think that I should... have to pay. 'Cause I'm... not a fan of pizza. (everyone gasps) Robin: What?! Ted: Marshall, we've driven halfway across the country for a piece of pizza literally hundreds of times. Arthur the Pizza Guy: Marshall, there's a cartoon of you on our coupons. Barney: I'm not saying Marshall's a guy who likes pizza, but last time he went in for a physical, doctor says 'Marshall you've gotta stop eating pizza.' Marshall says 'Why?' Doc says 'So I can examine you!' But seriously, we kid because we love.

    • Barney: A lie is just a great story that someone ruined with the truth.

    • Barney: I love to travel, myself. Random Girl: Where's the best place you visited? Barney: Hawaii's nice. A buddy of mine lives in Seattle, that's a good spot. But the best place, I have to say, the moon. Hi, Neil Armstrong.

  • NOTES (3)

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  • ALLUSIONS (1)

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    • The monkey taking the doll, climbing up the model of the Empire State Building, and fighting off the paper planes is a play on King Kong.

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