Buy Or Don’t Buy

2009 hasn’t been a huge year for celebrity babies, at least none on the level of a Shiloh or a Suri. But that doesn’t mean some celebs haven’t been gettin’ huge with babies. If you are even a casual viewer of Gossip Girl or How I Met Your Mother, you are already fully aware that Alyson Hannigan (HIMYM’s Lily), Cobie Smulders (HIMYM’s Robin) and Kelly Rutherford (GG’s Lily van der Bass Woodsen-RhodesIdon’tevenknowshe’shadlike7husbands) all had buns in the oven this past year.

Why do you know this?  It’s not because you read People, and it’s not because you Google them obsessively. It’s because their respective television shows are REALLY EFFING TERRIBLE at covering up their pregnancy.

Let’s start with the most egregious offender, Gossip Girl.  They’ve taken advantage of the tried and true method of dressing their pregnant star in floaty, patterned peasant tops, even though she used to dress like this:

Yeah, don’t buy it.  Lily was always sleek and sophisticated, and would NEVER be caught dead in a peasant top.  

They also attempt to cover it up by hiding her behind blankets, giant shawls, and shopping bags:

Again, I’m not buying it.  First of all, check out that hideous top.  Second, every time she’s relaxing on the couch under a thick blanket, other characters are traipsing about NYC in light spring jackets.  Third, would Lily van der Woodsen really be so gauche as to lug all those expensive bags around the city in this economy?

Hanging out under a blanket with a big bowl of popcorn is much more believable when you’re one of the middle-class characters on How I Met Your Mother:

HIMYM also often tries to work such tricks into the context of the show.  For example, in the above picture she’s recovering from food poisoning, and the food poisoning then feeds into the episode’s major storyline.  Good work, guys!

Okay, maybe I was a bit hasty with the praise.

Of course, there’s always the Alyson Hannigan approach: write her out of the remaining episodes entirely.

She didn’t return until last night’s episode, where she made a very brief pitstop, swaddled in - of course - a giant shawl and a huge bag in front of her belly.

I fully acknowledge that it’s difficult to cover up an actress’ pregnancy. It’s kind of impossible. Which is why they shouldn’t do it. Get creative! Use different angles and close-ups! Let them sit at a table! Almost anything would be more plausible than wool blankets in April and a sudden affinity for empire waistlines.