How I Met Your Mother S4E13: Three Days of Snow

“Serve the hotties first.”

This one was straight filler, all the way. Marshall and Lily, in an attempt to be more mature, start letting go of all their cute little “rituals.” Funny, I thought they learned this lesson last time they tried to be mature. The ritual in question involves airports, local microbrews, and chauffeur signs. They both agree not to take part in the ritual, and then each decides that the other will do it anyway, leading to a desperate gambit on both sides.

Meanwhile, Ted and Barney take over McLaren’s for a night, complete with a re-enactment of the behind-the-bar antics from Cocktail. Robin agrees to drive Marshall to the airport. Because if he were to drive himself, she would literally have no role in this episode. Anyway, they get buried by a snowplow, thus forcing Marshall to miss Lily’s arrival at the airport, and causing her to sit forlornly on a bench.

…Or not! HIMYM writers are quite good at subverting the viewer’s expectations. In the end, it turns out the three story lines that appeared to be simultaneous actually took place over the three days. Day One: Lily’s flight was canceled but Marshall didn’t pick up the phone because he thought it was their “ritual” lunchtime call, so he and Robin are buried in snow on their way to the airport. Day Two: Barney & Ted take over the bar and accidentally invite over an entire marching band. Day Three: Lily arrives at the airport and doesn’t find Marshall. But then a marching band appears, along with Marshall (now it makes sense), and the two kiss passionately.

So, filler. Filler that was only mildly palatable.

How I Met Your Mother S4

Apparently I am not only a bad blogger, I'm a clueless one. I had no idea I had missed three episodes of HIMYM. Whoops! So here are three brief recaps from the CBS website.



HIMYM S4E11: Little Minnesota
When Ted’s younger sister, Heather, comes to visit and decides she wants to move there, Ted worries that she’s not mature or responsible enough to survive in NYC. Being the overprotective older brother, Ted tries to keep her out of trouble, and in particular keep her away from Barney. But when Ted becomes too overbearing, Heather teaches him a lesson that gives him new respect for her. And after northern natives Marshall and Robin bond during the first frost of the year, Marshall helps Robin get through her worst bout of homesickness by introducing her to his favorite Minnesota themed bar.



HIMYM S4E10: The Fight
When the bartender at MacLaren’s gets into a fight with some patrons sitting in the gang’s favorite booth, Ted and Barney decide to back the bartender up and get into their first fight. Ted wants to prove he’s not the pathetic guy who got left at the altar and Barney wants to impress Robin, who thinks fighting is sexy. But when they step outside and find the bartender has knocked the guys out in a flurry and thinks Ted and Barney helped him do it, Ted and Barney decide to go along with the legendary story. The story of the fight makes them heroes at the bar until the guys who got beat up decide to press charges, and Ted and Barney have to decide whether or not to come clean.



HIMYM S4E9: The Naked Man
When Ted walks in to find Robin’s date sitting on the couch naked, he stumbles onto a phenomenon that revolutionizes the gang’s concepts on the art of seduction. For Ted has discovered “The Naked Man”: a move on a first date that involves waiting until the woman leaves the room and then stripping nude in hopes that when she returns, she’ll be charmed by the man’s bravado and decide to sleep with him.

HIMYM S4E8: Woooo!

Another day, another not-so-great episode of HIMYM. This one revolved around “Woo!” girls. You know, girls at the bar who go out in groups and throw their arms in the air and go “Woooo!” whenever anything happens. It had the potential to be really funny, but the jokes fell flat. And the rhyming…dear god, the rhyming.

But the worst part of the night had to be Robin claiming that all single people are secretly depressed and yearning for coupledom. Was she just trying to reassure Lily because she couldn’t woo sufficiently? Normally I would think so, but this incident paired with Robin stealing a baby sock last week had me wondering. Robin’s character has become kind of pathetic.

Meanwhile, Barney tries to steal the title of Ted’s Best Friend by hooking him up to design his firm’s new headquarters. But then he is wooed by the Swedish collective SVEN’s idea – a building shaped like a T-Rex that shoots fire from its mouth. Marshall yells at him, Barney changes his mind, and Ted’s firm gets the project. Blah.

HIMYM S4E7: Not a Father's Day

“God, it’s me, Barney. What up?”

I’m disappointed, and losing interest in this show. For me, it might be one of those that is just better on DVD. In “Not a Father’s Day,” Barney gets the news that he might become a father. Of course he dodges that bullet, so he starts a new holiday to celebrate. Meanwhile, Marshall, his terrible hair, and Lily are wooed by their next-door-neighbor’s baby and start to talk about having one of their own. Lily turns to Ted and Robin for help, and they each try to sway her (Robin’s afraid of babies, Ted loves them). In the end, Marshall and Lily decide to wait. But I bet they don’t wait long, since Alyson Hannigan is pregnant. I actually expected, after the big “let’s wait” discussion, for Lily to realize she’d missed her period, or something like that. I’m sure it will happen soon enough.

In other news, this episode finally explained how Robin moved in with Ted (first tantalizingly dangled during “The Goat” episode). Refreshingly, it was less exciting than one might have hoped. Robin, back from Japan and jobless, needs a place to live. The end. And in the blogosphere, people seem to be making a lot of the fact that Robin stole Jeremy’s sock. But the way I see it, Robin is totally lost right now. No job, no place to live (until the end), eating ice cream & beer (together) while moaning about her dismal life. So, she’s easily distracted by a tiny, adorable sock. It won’t last.

The Ex List S1E...

Yep. It's been canceled, effective immediately. I'm going to assume that Bella and Augie would have ended up together eventually.

The Ex List S1E4: Do You Love Me, Do You Surfer…Boy?

“’The one’ isn’t going to be called ‘The Animal.’”

Although I still enjoy The Ex List, it’s getting a bit monotonous. And, from everything I’ve read, it’s going to be canceled any minute. So, I might stop blogging about it. In this ep, Bella runs into an ex. Shocking. She dumped him because all he cared about was surfing. Now, he’s become a famous surfer, and though she has fun with him she can’t believe he’s still a wild child. But, in a twist, it turns out that it’s all a marketing ploy. And for the first time, Bella doesn’t break up with him at the end. He’s not Mr. Right Now, but he is Maybe Mr. Right Someday. Plus, he’s super cute.

HIMYM S4E5: Shelter Island

“Namaste here any longer than I have to.”

Finally, an end to the Stella-Ted storyline. The whole thing has felt rushed and awkward from the start, and anyone with half a brain knew Stella wasn’t the mother early on. This episode could have (should have) been excellent, but instead it was just ok.

Stella’s sister, who is also getting married but is beating them to the punch, steals Stella’s dream wedding. And when the sister gets ditched by her fiancé at the last minute, Ted and Stella have a “telepathic” conversation in which Stella decides they will take over the aborted wedding, and Ted decides they will buy the sister dinner. How could this possibly end well?

The moral of the story is: never invite an ex to your wedding. Robin, working in Japan, tries to avoid coming to the wedding but Ted wheedles until she relents. Barney decides this is the perfect chance for him to sleep with Robin again after getting her drunk and preying on her insecurity as a single, dateless female. However, he and the rest of the gang are horrified to arrive at the lodge and discover it is hippie haven, with no meat or alcohol allowed. Also, Stella’s newly single sexpot sister throws herself at him. Hard. There is no way Barney will be able to resist.

Stella gets angry when she learns that Robin is coming, and demands that Ted rescind the invitation. She goes on about how things are unresolved between them, it will bring up old feelings, blah blah blah. Meanwhile, Stella’s ex Tony refuses to bring their daughter Lucy to the wedding until Ted somehow convinces them both to come. Tony & Robin show up at the same time, and Stella is pissed.

“If I had done things differently, none of this would have happened.”



Stella offers an option: she will talk to Robin, and Ted will talk to Tony. There is a shutter-flash of what would have happened, with Father Ted telling two blonde children, “And that, kids, is how I met your mother” while Stella smiles in the background. But that’s not the way it goes. It never is.

Ted tells Robin about Stella’s “no exes at the wedding” rule and Robin sounds off. She is relieved. She’s not looking forward to watching him marry someone else. Ted doesn’t understand, because there is nothing between them. “Maybe there is!” Robin responds, then amends that. “Of course there is!” She has quit her job in Japan and wants to come back to her real life. It’s all very sweet, but then Robin ruins it by saying that she thought if someday she decided she did want to get married and have children, Ted would be there. “So I’m your backup school?” he asks. She asks Ted not to get married. Ted says it’s a good thing she won’t be at the wedding, and stalks off.

Sad Robin goes to Barney’s room with a contraband bottle of scotch, asking if she can stay with him. It would be Barney’s perfect dream come true … except he has another woman in his bed. Wearily, Robin leaves.

On the ferry back to the mainland, Robin sees Stella … we cut to Ted reading a note at the lodge … we cut back to the ferry and Tony walks up behind Stella, wrapping his arms around her while Robin looks on in shock. And this, folks, is where HIMYM took it just a little too far, and their tendency to do this is one thing that really bothers me.

If the final scene had been exactly as it was, without the stupid voiceovers of Stella repeating things she’d said earlier in the episode, it would have been perfect. As it was, the writers apparently felt the need to beat the ending like a dead horse: all those things Stella said about Ted & Robin not being over each other, she was really talking about herself and Tony. Yes, it was obvious! No need to reiterate it with lame voiceovers and soft-focus floating heads!

The Ex List S1E3: Protect and Serve

“My sister is a big sausage fan. ”

Bella gets robbed, and the cop who arrives on the scene is her ex-boyfriend Ronny. We flash back to Bella’s sophomore year of high school, when Ronny was just a young tuff. Her father, who is in the military, sends Bella away for the summer to keep them apart. Ronny doesn’t seem to care much. In the present, Bella is turned on by Ronny’s casually dismissive manner and sexy uniform. Ronny tells Bella’s landlord that the apartment isn’t up to fire code, so they can’t raise the rent. She is thrilled. I find it quite strange that all of Bella’s old boyfriends still live in town.

Throughout the episode, Augie is mildly jealous. I think under the surface he’s seething. He slyly tells Bella’s dad Jimmy to pretend to love Ronny so that he will therefore be less appealing to Bella. Jimmy does so, but it doesn’t have the intended consequence. Instead, Bella is offended that her father is treating her like she’s 15 years old. Everything goes great between Bella and Ronny until the day that Bella sees a neighboring store owner with a black eye. He had been irritating her as of late, and when she asks what happened he mutters, “Ask your boyfriend.” And the shit hits the fan when Bella realizes that this is what all those “favors” Ronny has mentioned are. She unceremoniously dumps him.

On the side, Vivian finally has a storyline that makes her somewhat likable. You see, Vivian is a high school history teacher, and some of her students hang out at “her” beach on the weekends. The boys stare, drooling, at their hot teacher lounging in a bikini. She ignores them. But then the principal receives a note claiming that Vivian is engaging in inappropriate behavior with these boys. In the end, it turns that a somewhat plain girl who likes one of the boys wrote the note. And the next time Vivian sees them at the beach, she wears a modest cover-up and lets the girl enjoy her time basking in a swimsuit and flirting with the boy.

HIMYM S4E4: Intervention

Fate decided that I would not watch HIMYM last night and I cannot handle watching it online again, so I make apologies and direct you to a number of other wonderful recaps instead…

TV Squad

Give Me My Remote

BuddyTV

The Ex List S1E2: Climb Every Mountain Biker

“My mad skills are too much for the spaghetti strap to handle.”

Ah ha! We learn in the opening that Bella lives alone, while Cyrus, Augie, and Vivian live together, next door. This is only slightly better than all of them living together. During the gang’s traditional “stuffing our faces at an outdoor café while a marathon is going on” (I could hang with these folks), Bella runs into ex-flame Jake, a couch-potato-turned-athlete. In the flashback, we see that once Jake landed a 23-year-old punk rock Bella, he never wanted to leave the house. Or, as he says, “The only reason people go out in the first place is to find someone to have sex with while they watch TV.” He has already got that, so why go out?

Bella’s flower shop is called Bloom. How original. Daphne and her fiancé make a pact to not have sex before the wedding, so she moves in with Bella. Meanwhile, after googling a hot ex-girlfriend and being horrified at how she’s turned out, Cyrus creates the drinking game “Google Ex Smackdown.” Augie gets waaasted, while everyone else is barely buzzed.

Jake takes Bella on a series of athletic dates – ultimate frisbee on the beach, mountain biking, rock-climbing gym, kayaking. She finally convinces him to take her to a bar, but even then they end up playing Trivia Olympics. All this time, Bella is still watching Tommy Anzide’s cat and having regular run-ins with Elliott. And one night, the cat escapes through the bathroom window. While wandering the neighborhood looking for him, Bella discovers Elliott half-naked at a blonde stranger’s house. How big is this town, anyway?

Bella forces Jake to talk to her, explaining that their dating life thus far has been “like camp without the kissing and alcohol.” They finally sleep together, but afterward it gets super awkward when he starts talking about his ex. Like, immediately afterward. It’s really uncomfortable. And then we’re off. Suddenly all Jake talks about is his ex. Bella can’t stand it, and eventually dumps him. In the end, she is talking to Daphne about the situation and says that the right guy is the right guy. And Elliott knocks on the door.



Now. Although I thought from the pilot that Elliott was to be Bella’s soul mate, somewhere in the back of my mind I also thought that was just way too obvious. After this episode, I’m wondering what the chances are that Bella’s soulmate could be … Augie. Their interactions in this episode, combined with Vivian’s description of her relationship with Augie, just really struck me. I know that would cause all sorts of issues seeing as Vivian and Augie are two of Bella’s best friends but … I don’t know. I guess we don’t know if they have dated, but I can totally see it happening. What do you think? Am I crazy?

HIMYM S4E3: I Heart NJ

“No snakes on that plane.”

Ted lives in New York, Stella lives in New Jersey. He feels like he spends all of his time on the train, so he invites his buddies to hang in NJ one night even though they all hate NJ – and Ted hates it most of all. Once there, he is horrified to learn that Stella expects him to move in with her once they’re married. Ted is totally immature and is SO not ready to get married. How could he possibly expect Stella to move in with him? As she points out, she has a house in NJ, her kid’s school is in NJ, her kid’s friends are in NJ, her family is in NJ, etc etc etc. They get into a big fight about it, but then he runs into her daughter, who asks him to read her a story. And naturally she woos him, and he decides to move to NJ after all.

Whatever. I’m a Sarah Chalke fan, but the Ted-Stella relationship just doesn’t work. As I said before, Ted is so immature and petty that I can’t believe Stella would actually agree to marry him. The whole proposal storyline came on way too fast – obviously on purpose, as evidenced by the “Do I Know You” episode. We are meant to believe that every event in Ted’s life eventually leads to the mother, so obviously there is a reason for all of this…I’m just getting tired of waiting.

Meanwhile, Robin quits her job at Metro News One after getting the national anchor job. Only it turns out she didn’t get the job – she got an audition. Desperate, she begs for her old job back even though Lily and Barney try to convince her she’s better than Metro News One. She goes through a bunch of rigamarole to get her job back, but then ends up quitting on air, for good. And then, in the least surprising twist ever, Robin doesn’t get the national anchor job…she gets a job as a foreign correspondent, which means she’s moving to Japan.

On a related note – there is a promo photo out there that shows Stella punching Barney, and it was touted as being related to this episode. Obviously not. Hmmmm….

The Ex List S1E1: Pilot

“I wanna get tattoos together and drink each other’s blood.”

I thought this show sounded cute from the start, but after trying to explain its premise to several people I felt like an idiot. And I almost didn’t watch it last night, but I’m glad that I did. It wasn’t the best pilot I’ve ever seen, and it’s not the kind of show I will purposely stay home on Friday nights to watch. But, I have to tell you that The Ex List is really funny.

A 9 pm timeslot on Friday evenings will surely murder this show, which is a shame. It centers on Bella, who takes her sister’s bachelorette party to a psychic for kicks…only the psychic tells Bella that if she doesn’t get married within a year, she will be a spinster forever. (She also makes several other uncanny predictions that eventually cause Bella to believe her). The catch is, Bella has already dated and dumped her soul mate.

Enter Elliot, who has amazing abs and seems likely to be Bella’s true soul mate. They are recently separated because he doesn’t believe in marriage and she’s tired of waiting around for him. This is the only reason given for their breakup, so obvs they’re perfect together. Bella is also surrounded by a wacky group of friends. The only thing that keeps me from identifying with these people more (besides Bella’s exceptionally skimpy outfits) is that this group of four 30-somethings all appear to live together. Which is pretty damn strange (although kind of like Friends, now that I think of it).



We have Augie and Vivian, a couple. Augie has been Bella’s best friend for 15 years. In the pilot, Vivian goes in for public hair maintenance and ends up completely bare. Augie won’t have sex with her because she looks like a 10-year-old, so she gets a merkin, which is a vaginal toupee. All of this is kind of odd, especially for a pilot, but it worked out to be pretty amusing. Perhaps the best part was Augie trying to explain the appeal of pubic hair: “It’s like, hey look over here! There’s something really cool over here. But it’s SO cool, we can’t show it to you.” Other characters include unemployed sarcastic roommate Cyrus, and Bella’s super-peppy sister Daphne. I couldn’t figure out why I recognized Vivian, and it was driving me nuts. Her resume includes a whole slew of shows that I have watched, so I still can’t figure it out. Can anyone help?

The first boyfriend Bella reconnects with is sensitive musician Johnny, who we see in a hilarious flashback telling her he wants to get tattoos and drink each other’s blood. But The Ex List subverts expectations (at least mine) by casting Eric Balfour as Johnny. It’s just so different from anything else I’ve ever seen him do, and that made it all the funnier. Anyway, in the present Johnny has turned into a super-hot eyelinered-and-tattooed rock star whose #1 hit, “Bitch,” is all about how Bella broke his heart. Naturally, Bella is instantly attracted to him. As Cyrus puts it, “He doesn’t like you anymore and it happened at the same time that he became more appealing to you. How weird.”

Bella & Johnny reignite their relationship, but Johnny turns needy pretty quickly. She tries turning the tables on him to make him dump her, but he puts up with all of her crap and she realizes maybe he is the one. Joke’s on her, though. It turns out that Johnny has orchestrated the entire thing to get revenge…which turns out to be the name of his next big hit. And he humiliates Bella by dedicating it to her in a crowded club.

In the end, Bella answers an ad for a lost cat and the owner turns out to be another ex. And the previews for next week look promising, with Bella reconnecting with an extremely active ex about whom she says, “He never stops moving. It’s like dating the bus from Speed.” Hilarious!

HIMYM S4E2: "I will eat your hand!"

“The Best Burger In New York”

Marshall waxes poetic about the best burger in NY, which he had at a small restaurant he discovered when he first moved to the city and could never find again. Regis Philbin guest stars as a celebrity whose photo is on the wall of the restaurant. He doesn’t remember where the restaurant is either, but he attacks Barney when the poor boy approaches him to ask about it. In the end, they discover that Robin knows the burger joint, and they all experience the best burger in New York. Meanwhile, Barney tries to convince Marshall to take a job with his company’s new acquisition, Goliath National Bank. Even though Lily points out that Marshall just left a corporate job and is not about to take another. But of course, he does.

This episode was pretty pointless as far as the overall story arc goes, but it did lead to Marshall getting a job, finally. And because watching this episode on the CBS website was pure torture, I had a hard time keeping track of the best bits. Needless to say, Regis Philbin calling Marshall “Lurch” and Barney talking about how he loved the burger so much he wanted to take it home and put on some Terence Trent d’Arby for it were just two of many great moments.

HIMYM S4E1: "At what age did you get your first period?"

“Do I Know You?”

I have to say, there wasn’t much to like about this premiere. Ted asks Stella to marry him, and she accepts. Then, when he can’t offer any suggestions about a shower present, he realizes he doesn’t know anything about her (hobbies, favorite color, etc). I know their relationship was underdeveloped due to outside forces, but this seems like a pretty major warning sign that it isn’t going to last.

Ted learns that Stella has never seen Star Wars, and since it’s his favorite movie he decides that if she doesn’t like it, he can’t marry her. Stella tells him she loves it, but later she secretly admits to Marshall (who has truly terrible hair) that she hated it. Marshall asks if she can pretend to love a movie she hates for the rest of her life (“through sickness and health, til death do you part”), and she says, “I do.” So freakin’ cheesy.



Meanwhile, in more cheesiness, Barney admits to Lily that he’s in love with Robin, who looks super hot this season. But Barney’s conflicted – he wants to be with Robin, but he doesn’t want to be her boyfriend. At Lily’s prodding, Barney calls Robin to ask her out. He is so awkward that he ends up asking her when she first got her period after Lily whispers for him to ask something personal. Lily sets up a surprise date for the two of them. Robin wears a fabulous dress, and Barney is sweet and decorous. This freaks Robin out, and at the end of the night she plays “wingwoman” and hooks Barney up with their waitress. Barney tells Lily that if he has to choose between Robin and bimbos, he chooses bimbos. But once Lily storms out of his apartment in frustration, Barney flips on the TV and looks longingly at Robin reporting the news. The end.

Ted and Stella’s relationship is boring. Barney in love is funny, but a tad too pathetic. I am disappointed to say that I was completely underwhelmed by this premiere. It was basically a pointless ½ hour.

We're not just friends...we're brothers.

How I Met Your Mother – Miracles
In the season three finale, Ted has an accident and his close call with death finds him reevaluating his life and his relationship with Stella.

This finale had everything you’d expect: Stella invites Ted to a wedding that is six months away, so he breaks up with her. Then, he gets into a car accident and all his friends rush desperately to the hospital to learn that he’s fine – only he has realized he never should have dumped Stella. He says that in a near-death experience, your life doesn’t flash before you. You only see the things you love. Stella, who doesn’t realize they’ve broken up, shows up and everyone’s all, “How cool of you to show up even though Ted just dumped you.” So then she dumps him.

Meanwhile, Lily calls Barney to tell him about Ted’s accident, and Barney runs all the way to the hospital and gets hit by a bus. There is kind of a weird scene where he’s in traction and asks Ted if they can be friends again and Ted says, “We’re more than friends, we’re brothers.” And then Ted and Barney and Marshall all start to cry. With Barney’s permission, Ted runs off to win back Stella, and Marshall asks what Barney saw in his near-death experience. And what did Barney see? BOO-YAH! He saw Robin! He doesn’t say that though.

Ted finds Stella and asks her to marry him, and that’s the end.

Sounds like that bitch had it coming.

How I Met Your Mother – Everything Must Go
When Barney and Abby realize that they have one thing in common – their mutual hatred of Ted – the “couple” goes to the bar to flaunt their new relationship. Desperate to get a rise out of his former pal, Barney pops a surprising question to Abby.

Though I have never seen a bad episode of HIMYM, this one lacked oomph.

Storyline #1: Marshall tells Lily she needs to sell all of her designer clothes and accessories because the cost of fixing their crooked floors will be more than expected. Lily tries to sell her paintings instead. She fails miserably, until a veterinarian sees one and discovers that Lily’s art “speaks to the canine sensibility.” He buys four paintings, and the kids get enough money to finish the floors.

Storyline #2: We learn that Abby (Britney Spears) is the one who was bad-mouthing Barney all over town in “The Bracket.” She is also upset that “lame and awesome” Ted is dating Stella. She and Barney pretend to be a couple to make Ted mad. Or something. This makes no sense, since Ted doesn’t care a bit about either of them. Trying to get a reaction from Ted, Barney proposes to Abby. She thinks he’s serious; he thinks she knows they’re doing a bit. In the end, Barney says that Ted asked him not to marry Abby because he, Ted, is in love with her. Abby is thrilled.

Again, when the story doesn’t focus on Robin, the writers give poor Cobie Smulders NOTHING to do. And … woah. I googled her name to make sure I spelled it right and according to Wikipedia her full name is Jacoba Fransisca Maria Smulders. And she really is Canadian. Ted didn’t have much to do either, besides boast about how he can pull of red cowboy boots. Which he totally cannot.

Surprisingly, this ep was also bit light on fab quotes. Abby’s laments about Ted being “lame and awesome” were basically it … although I did love when Lily told Ted she yelled at a little girl in her class who only draws rainbows and Ted replied, “Sounds like that bitch had it coming.”

Finally, if you feel like doing some good, HIMYM is having a sale to benefit Childrens Hospital Los Angeles. Go to www.marshallandlilyselltheirstuff.com.

The other website mentioned, http://guyforceshiswifetodressinagarbagebagforthenextthreeyears.com, is also real. But no good will come of it.

It's like your virginity: the sequel.

How I Met Your Mother – Rebound Bro
Ted betrays Stella by sharing an intimate secret with his friends, which threatens his relationship with her.

Plotline #1: Ted tells his friends that he and Stella haven’t had sex yet. She wants to take things slow, and Ted is ok with waiting. Soon after, though, a desperate Ted tries to have sex with Stella in her office, and she admits that she hasn’t had sex in five years. Ted immediately tells his friends. Stella decides that she’s ready to sleep with Ted, and they plan an intimate night at a hotel. Ted starts to feel a lot of pressure because “it’s like her virginity: the sequel.” Lily says that Stella “needs it so bad that anything you do will seem like fireworks.” Marshall tells Ted to lower Stella’s expectations. When Stella comes to pick up Ted and runs into Marshall and Lily, the couple makes it clear that they know about her little secret. Stella is not cool with that. She says there’s always a reason not to sleep with a guy, and Ted just gave her his. He accuses her of looking for a reason to be mad at him just because they’re getting serious and she’s scared. The next day, Stella admits she overreacted. She says she’s in. It’s cute. And then she takes him to meet Lucy, her daughter.



Plotline #2: Barney, trying to save face, tells Ted he has to let him go. The gang wants them to get back together, and Robin asks why Ted’s not as mad at her. Ted says he’s not mad, he’s just outgrown Barney as a friend. Randy, a guy at work, offers to be Barney’s new wingman, but Barney rejects him, telling him this job is like “vice president of awesome” and Randy is “assistant undersecretary of only okay.” Barney tries to recruit some old friends but learns they’re all either settled down or already have other bros. Unable to find anyone, Barney finally relents and asks Randy to be his wingman. And Randy is adorable, taking notes when they hang out and eagerly explaining that he’s been reading Barney’s blog for years. Unfortunately he can’t talk to women, but he does mutter to himself, hide under a table, and get a nosebleed when he gets an erection. Trying to pick up a girl, Randy tells her she’s a fat, ugly whore. So, Barney calls Robin to act as a stand-in so Randy can practice. Robin points out that Randy is just a rebound bro, so Barney breaks up with him.

In other news, Ted’s son has gotten really old. This episode was not the best ever, but it wasn’t terrible. It certainly had its moments, like Barney’s old friend who is ready to party with Cranium and 27 Dresses. But Barney needs to be let back in the group again. And poor Robin. When she’s not the focus of an episode, she really doesn’t do much. And now I leave you with my favorite bit…

Barney describes Ted to Randy:
Barney: When I met him, he was an even bigger loser than you.
Randy: What a loser.

Woah, goat turd on the floor, is that new?

How I Met Your Mother – The Goat
Barney breaks the “Bro Code” in a matter involving Ted, and has to deal with the consequences.

On Ted’s 30th birthday, we finally see the story of the goat (first mentioned in season one episode “Milk”). Robin and Barney wake up together. They decide to pretend that nothing happened, and they’re kind of cute together. Barney has a terrible time pretending and finds it difficult to be around Ted. He is super awkward and keeps thinking that everyone knows.

Barney tries to tell Marshall his secret, but Marshall covers his ears. So Barney tosses a bowling ball that Marshall is forced to catch, and takes the opportunity to tell Marshall that he slept with Robin. Marshall is horrified. Barney hires Marshall as his “lawyer” to study the “Bro Code” and prove that he did nothing wrong. It’s a testament to the writing that this new, contrite side of Barney didn’t feel “wrong.” Barney is unscrupulous, even towards his friends (i.e. making Ted grow a mustache he knows will look ridiculous) – but never about anything really important. Shopping at Sky Mall when he’s depressed is totally in step with his materialistic character.

Lily brings a farmer and his goat into her classroom and when kids ask if they’ll get to see Missy the goat again, the farmer says he’s having her slaughtered. So Lily brings her home, with a plan for Animal Rescue to pick her up on Monday. Marshall arrives at the apartment, acting horribly awkward, so Robin instantly knows that he knows. She threatens him, telling him not to breathe a word.

Marshall cannot find a loophole in the Bro Code and Barney is upset because he just wants to feel better. His next move is to show that Ted has broken the Bro Code before, but Marshall proves that Ted has always upheld the code. Marshall tells Barney the only way to feel better is to tell Ted what he did.

Barney picks up Ted in a limo to take him to his surprise party, but tries to take him to Vegas instead, to prove what a good friend he is. He starts to tell Ted that he slept with Robin, but Ted already knows. Turns out Robin was unable to keep the secret. In a flash back, Robin breaks when Ted shows her a picture he has found of the two of them on vacation. She is earnestly repentant, and Ted tells her he’s not mad. He says the same thing to Barney, but he’s totally lying. Back at the party, we learn that Lily knows too, and she asks if it was amazing and if Barney was “all smooth down there.” Back in the limo, Ted punches Barney in the crotch.

In a suddenly serious turn for HIMYM, Ted tells Barney that he doesn’t want to be friends anymore. He calls a cab, and Barney looks like he’s about to cry.

At the very end, adult Ted starts to tell the story of how the goat locked herself in the bathroom and ate Robin’s washcloth. Then he stops and says, “Wait, Robin wasn’t living there during my 30th birthday. The goat story happened during my 31st birthday.” What?!?!

To be perfectly honest, I do not pay as much attention to the time line of HIMYM as I could. But, in the second season episode “Single Stamina” when Barney’s brother gets married, Robin and Ted slow dance at the wedding. We don’t know exactly where this scene fits into the overall time line, but let’s say it’s roughly 6-8 months after their breakup. The conversation they had with Lily and Marshall before they got up to dance implied that they were not together – Ted says something like “I think I’ll stay a little longer” and Robin says “Me too” – but who knows? That’s the sheer beauty of HIMYM.

The way the Robin-living-in-the-apt info was casually tossed out in the final moments of “The Goat” is indicative of everything I love about the show. What does it mean that in a year’s time, Robin will be living with Ted? Do they just become roommates, or will they rekindle their relationship? Or does Ted not live in the apartment at this future date? And, since we know (or think we know) that Robin is not the mother, does it even matter?

Is he somebody you went to Degrassi with?

How I Met Your Mother – Sandcastles in the Sand
Robin renews her relationship with an old flame that hurt her in the past, and she’s too blind with emotion to see that he’s still a loser.

I’ve found myself singing “Let’s Go to the Mall” the whole evening prior to this episode.

Robin’s old boyfriend Simon, who broke her heart, is in town and she’s excited to show off her hot self. The usual Canadian teasing ensues, from jokes that are elegant and well crafted (“Did he break up with you by saying he just wasn’t that Inuit?”) to crude and ill formed (“Something about fur trapping”). In the flash backs, Robin’s Canadian accent is hysterical. James Van Der Beek sounds like he’s trying to be Scottish, and he still looks exactly like Dawson. In the present, Simon is fat and bald, but Robin can’t stop giggling as soon as she sees him.

Simon is kind of mean to Robin, but she falls for him anyway. The gang learns that there is another Robin Sparkles video out in the world, and Barney is determined to track it down. Marshall introduces the notion of “revertigo,” whereby individuals revert to certain behaviors around people from their past. To illustrate, Marshall tells Lily to call her friend Michelle. When Michelle shows up, Lily stars talking all ghetto.

Simon dumps Robin again, in the same way and for the same reason. She ends up at the bar alone. Barney appears, frustrated that he can’t find her video, and finds her crying. He comforts her, telling her she’s one of the most awesome people he knows. The show teases up by making it seem like they’re going to kiss, and Robin invites Barney back to her place. One would hope it’s for sex, but really it’s to show him the second Robin Sparkles video.

It’s a ballad shot on the beach. And Tiffany and Alan Thicke are in it. It’s certainly no “Let’s Go to the Mall.” And then HOLY SHIT!! Barney and Robin start making out!



This has been a long time coming, and it’s thrilling. I don’t really expect anything to evolve between them – I mean really, we love Barney just the way he is – but I’ve always thought Robin might be the one girl who could make Barney change his ways. I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if they have a secret sexual fling. Neither of them is relationship-oriented, so it could work … for a time. We have heard rumors that by the end of this season Ted will begin to turn his back on Barney and his wanton ways – could this be the reason? I can’t imagine the young Mosby will react well to the news.

Your report is the crap that crap craps!

How I Met Your Mother – The Chain of Screaming
After being verbally berated by his boss, Marshall questions whether the decision to work for a big corporate law firm was his best career move.

Ted is dating Stella (what?) and buys a new car. Even though he lives in New York. Stella’s not actually in the episode, they just talk about her. Robin and Barney fight about whether you can “call shotgun for eternity.” These two totally need to date. Or at the very least, do it. A shell-shocked Marshall shows up needing beer because he’s been screamed at by one of the senior partners of the firm. Furious that he’s stuck in a job he hates instead of saving the environment, Marshall has burst into tears in front of his boss.

Each of Marshall's friends suggests a course of action, "acting out" their solution as Marshall. This was quite funny, except Ted's was kind of lame. Robin suggests threatening said boss with a gun, then gets harassed about being Canadian (“Gun violence might solve all the problems in Canada”). Ted suggests an eloquent speech to sway the boss. Barney tells a story about a guy at work who got tired of being yelled at; told his boss to kiss his ass; then died poor, destitute, and alone. The lesson is, “When your boss screams at you, don’t scream back.” Lily suggests that Marshall be positive and respectful to enact change.

The next night, Ted finds Marshall on the street with a box full of his possessions. We flash back to the previous night and see that after all the advice-giving, Marshall went to a diner to work on a report. Barney shows up and tells Marshall to scream at someone to make himself feel better. Marshall tries to scream at the waiter, but the waiter screams right back at him. So Barney tells Marshall to scream at him, and during the tirade Marshall realizes that he may someday turn into Barney if he stays in corporate America. We flash forward into the boss’s office, and learn that Marshall finally got so furious about the fact that he hates his job that he quit.

Marshall is terrified to tell Lily he has thrown away their future (wow Marshall is uber-dramatic), but of course she’s a fantastic wife and tells him not to worry about anything. In the end, Ted sells his car and gives Marshall the money.

Overall a good ep ... but tell me, am I crazy? Why does everyone in blogworld seem to think that Stella is the mother? I mean, I have to assume Ted's children know their own mother's name. The show has always painted Ted's kids as exasperated that they're being forced to listen to this rambling story. Wouldn't the kids be like "great story dad, thanks!" as soon as they heard their mom's name? I guess maybe the writers could do some kind of switcheroo to make this work, but I do not see how Stella could be the mother. Anyone care to convince me?