How I Met Your Mother has four different kinds of episodes. They can pair up, but generally speaking we have the crappy, waste of time episodes, filler episodes that are neither good nor bad, great episodes that play with the linear aspects of the narrative and huge plot/myth episodes. So we can have great episodes that play with the myths and narratives like Bad News earlier this year or we can have fillers like last week’s. This week, a strange filler episode that kind of advanced the myth turned out to be quite fun. But more on that later.
‘I’m broken.’ – Barney
Our main story follows Barney hanging out with his dad (again). If you happen to remember every episode since Barney met his father for the first time, he was disappointed with who his dad turned out to be. Jerry recognized that he had let Barney down and wanted to change that. And since Barney wanted to see the crazy Jerry that abandoned him as a kid, Jerry decided to let loose and go crazy with his son.
Only he didn’t let go. He was just wanting to impress his son. Jerry didn’t rip out a parking meter; Barney was so drunk he didn’t notice the parking meter was already on the ground. Jerry didn’t get in a fight with a huge biker; Barney just didn’t realize it was a mannequin. In the car ride back, they both come to a sobering conclusion: Barney can’t keep living this life. When Jerry says the one thing that helped him change from the guy Barney is now to the man Jerry is now was a good woman, Barney gets the far off look in his eye that says he already knows who that woman is.
And that woman is Robin. Guys, the wedding that we’ll see is going to be Robin and Barney. At the beginning of the episode, Barney goes into this subconscious stream of thought where he pretends to be his dad saying “Deep down you know you were never happier than you were when you were with her.” It was treated like a joke, but c’mon. You know it’s true. It’s a total set up to them getting married. Not to mention the fact that the creators of the show have said that the wedding will take place farther off in the future and how the couple will be married will unfold in the seventh season.
Which brings us to Robin’s story. When she happened to run into a crush that she met several years ago, things were heating up. But Ted stepped in like he always does and ruined everything. So that’s going to happen. Robin is going to hook up with that guy, Barney is going to realize that he’s in love with her and then have to fight to get her back. I would say it sucks that we know how it is going to play out, but we always know how things are going to play out in HIMYM. It’s watching them unfold that’s fun. I’m looking forward to season seven now.
‘Ok is lame. Gay bar.’ – Everyone
Ignore the promo playing before this clip. The good stuff is right after.
Meanwhile for the rest of the gang, Ted was upset about the red cowboy boots that Robin hated (boo hoo). Barney invented new personalities for everyone else and assigned Lily and Marshall to an open marriage. They took it as a challenge to see who could get more numbers where the winner got to have sex with the other in the bathroom. I seriously don’t think those two could get any more adorable. And HIMYM managed to update “Who’s on first?” for the twenty first century by using club names. That was some fairly clever writing, I have to say.
Overall, not a terrible filler episode. It had it’s moments, but it was definitely setting the characters up for “something bigger.” And if the show will play out like I think it will, that “something bigger” is going to be awesome.
