"I'm your two best friends!" - Barney
But back to the strip club. Barney’s unhealthy rejection of his feelings gets kicked up a notch when a familiar face from the group’s past shows up: Stripper Lily (Lily’s doppleganger from Season 5) makes another appearance, and Barney is instantly on board with welcoming her and her hulking Russian boyfriend into their group to replace Lily and Marshall—cue a modified version of the show’s theme song in which Stripper Lily and her scary boyfriend smoke angrily and handle various pieces of weaponry alongside the smiling gang.
Better Lily, as she is dubbed, and New Marshall lead their new cronies to a poker game in the basement of a “mostly abandoned mental hospital” (the episode, to its credit, is
filled with very funny one-liners such as that), where an inebriated Ted makes enemies of a bunch of cartoonishly villainous criminals by beating them all at poker. The gang’s new friends Better Lily and New Marshall proceed to rob Ted, Barney, Robin and Kevin and desert them in an alley, leading Barney to conclude that he should probably not be in charge of the group’s plans anymore. And at this point, they realize they are not ready to give up on the idea of their five-man band.
The group decides to take the forty-six minute train out to East Meadow, Long Island to surprise Marshall and Lily before sunrise. Kevin, who has been agreeing to the crazy adventures all night in order to prove to Robin that he is fun and interesting (Robin has been doing the exact same thing), finally admits that he doesn’t want to go, thus ending the pattern of self-conscious lies. So, Robin, Ted and Barney head off to the dreadful Long Island (represent!) to visit the other two-thirds of their codependent clique.
"These annoying notes he keeps leaving around: 'I need absolute silence while practicing the drums.' 'Do not touch the fudge in my nightstand.' 'We need ant traps for my nightstand.'" - MarshallThings have not been going smoothly for Marshall and Lily out on the Island. Lily’s dad, Mickey, who maintains a complete lack of redeeming qualities, has invited himself to stay with his daughter and son-in-law indefinitely. Since they are now living in the house Mickey grew up in, he has seized authority on the layout and rules of the house. Marshall reaches his breaking point—a bit out of character, actually—and tells Mickey he needs to leave. Unfortunately, this occurs right before the power blacks out, and Mickey, who knows the house to a tee, even in the pitch black, passive-aggressively refuses to help Marshall find the fuse box (he even uses the intercom to play a sort of
Saw mind-game with Marshall. Eventually, Lily gets through to her dad, convincing him to be a mature and helpful father, and he talks Marshall through the booby trap-lain basement to the fuse box.
The morning comes, and Marshall and Lily are overjoyed to see Ted, Barney and Robin. And they’re forgiving enough to allow Mickey to stay for a little while longer (even though he has never, to date, appropriately made up for ignoring Lily throughout her childhood—still bugs me). A closing monologue from Future Ted admits that groups do grow apart, but that his has done a pretty good job of keeping together—need we be reminded that they still do attend Robots Vs. Wrestlers every year.
What did you think of “46 Minutes”? Do you think the show is taking a wrong turn with Ted? Will Marshall and Lily begin to fade out of the group’s regular routine? Let us know in the comments section or on Twitter (
@MichaelArbeiter).