Last night’s HIMYM was funny, but I was frustrated. Ted gives Marshall and Lily the green light to set him up for an “arranged marriage”. He says he’ll let them pick someone for him, and if he likes her, he will MARRY her. But instead of getting excited, which they totally should have, they forget about it, and then find him a random hottie cast off by Barney at the last minute. WTH?

The Marshal and Lily I know would have jumped at the chance to set up Ted, to control who will be with them on The Porch. But instead they just shrugged it off. Weak sauce.

And what happened to the student that Ted met? I thought they were going out on dates? I’m so confused! Did I miss an episode where they explained that? I think I need to go back and re-watch a few.

I did like Robin’s story and the whole rabbit versus duck theory. Personally I’m with Robin and Ted, Duck is the best. Maybe that’s because I always tell D I like his duck butt (because it’s cute). Either way, I like the theory behind it. You may see someone at first and you look at them one way, but then eventually, they look like something else, and you realize you’re into them. And Marshal is right, she’s going to marry her coworker’s butt off.

I liked Barney’s little side story with being obsessed with his phone and the calls. I was so excited to see his little promo at the superbowl, and I loved how they tied it into the show. Freaking brilliant!

In this episode, we finally see Ted’s kids again. It’s great to see the look on their faces as Ted reveals that not only did Aunt Robin smoke, but the entire gang. Barney has a classic “I’m not a smoker” speech in which he says the only smokes when he’s with Germans, post coital, coital, and pre-coital. Then Ted says, “So why are you smoking now?” to which Barney says, “I’m always pre-coital Ted”. Love that quote!

It’s so true of smokers though, everyone who has been a smoker always says, “this is the last cigarette ever!” The gang decides to quit together and they all support each other, which lasts about five minutes. Lily develops a creepy smoker voice that’s hilarious; she sounds like she’s possessed.

Ted’s speech at the end is the best part though, when he talks about when everyone really has their last cigarette. For Lily, it was when she started trying to get pregnant, for Marshal it was when their son was born, and for Ted, it was two weeks after he started dating his future wife. And he never looked back. Great episode! Those speechs of Ted’s are my favorite.

The window of opportunity is a great philosophy. It cracks me up because it’s so true of the serial monogamous. So many girls have such a brief window of being single before they jump into another relationship. For Ted, there is a girl he went to college with who is the “perfect girl next door”. The only problem is he always missing his window of opportunity before she starts dating someone else. This time he doesn’t miss it, and asks her out right after her latest breakup. Unfortunately he has to teach a class that night, and he asks Marshal and Lily to keep an eye on her.

Marshal and Lily take it way too seriously and start to creep out poor Maggie. Meanwhile Barney takes the Overall Challenge. Marshal’s mom has been sending him tons of his old childhood things, and in that box was his old pair of overalls that he wore all through high school. Barney takes the challenge that he can get a woman to sleep with him even looking ridiculous in stone washed overalls.

Back in Ted’s class, he ends up having a heart to heart with his students about the idea of him being ready for a relationship. The students end up giving him advice and it’s all very classic HIMYM hilarity.

Meanwhile in the bar while Marshal, Lily and Maggie talk about their career dreams, Marshal realizes he sold out to the corporate world and leaves to go quit his job. Lily has to run after him and leaves Robin to watch Maggie and make sure no guys hit on her. Robin ends up trying to distract a coworker of Maggie’s and ends up throwing herself at him in the most awkward, cringe worthy way. Then Barney hones in and tries to steal her. Ted, Barney and the coworker start arguing over her and Robin sends Maggie home. They all race to her apartment, only to discover the ultimate girl next door ran into her old guy next door.

Ted realizes through the whole Maggie experience that he’s ready for a relationship again, and wants to find that real love he’s been waiting for. I knew Maggie wasn’t going to be the mother because he told us a few episodes back that the mother was one of his students. As much as I love this show, I’m dying for them to fast forward to the mother!

Barney is back in all his original chauvinistic pig glory! Being newly single, he’s pulling out all the stops to get girls. He even shows the gang his Playbook. Leatherbound of course. The gang leafs through it, and Ted discovers there’s a play called “The Ted Mosby” which goes, “I got left at the altar”. Ted tries it, and it works! He isn’t sure whether or not to be happy about this.

While the group is looking through the playbook, Barney comes into the bar looking like scuba guy there to clean out spa filters. It turns out it’s an elaborate play called “The Scuba Diver” in which Barney tricks his friends into helping him get the girl at the bar.

It was classic Barney, and I loved how much thought he put into his plays. At the same time, it was kind of a cheap shot how he wasn’t sad about ending things with Robin, and it seems like the writers are just calling the entire Robin/Barney relationship a big mistake. Makes you wonder if they’ll come back to it. I don’t know if I want that or not.

The playbook parts were not the best part of this episode for me. The best parts were Ted and Marshal teasing Robin about how she’s going to find someone. It’s that theory, “you find someone as soon as you stop looking” and it’s so true. Again what I love about HIMYM is how they incooperate such real world dating experiences. The second you stop looking is when you find someone. Robin keeps denying it, and the Ted and Marshal jokes keep on coming. Robin says she’s going to throw herself into work, and of course, cue hunky coworker. Although in this case I found him to be less than attractive, but maybe that’ll work for Robin. Now if only we can get Ted to stop looking so he’ll meet the mother already!

HIMYM is a show that keeps getting better. This week’s episode started out with the cast using bagpipes instead of a naughty four letter word. It was their special brand of humor, and reminded me of the Christmas episode where they replaced the word bitch with the word Grinch.

So Robin and Ted’s new neighbors “play the bagpipes together” all the time. Ted’s ready to show them the exit signs and send them packing. It was a great episode opener!
The rest of the episode centers around Barney having “new couple smugness”. I love this show because it’s so true, they focus on real things that happen in relationships.
Barney convinces Marshal that it’s a problem that Lily asks Marshal to wash the dishes right after he dirties them, instead of leaving them in the sink. I cracked up at this, because I’m the exact same way. I hate when dishes sit in the sink!
So Marshal is an idiot and listens to Barney’s advice about standing up to Lily and telling her to wash the dishes herself. Marshal does it, and oh guess what? It backfires, of course!
But it doesn’t actually backfire because of Barney’s advice, Marshal actually screws it up completely. Then it snowballs into fight spinoffs, which cracked me up even more. Have you ever had a fight with your significant other and it turned into a fight about all kinds of things, and not really at all about what you started the fight about?
So Marshal and Lily keep fighting, and Robin and Barney act more and more love-y dove-y until Ted realizes that it’s just a big cover up for the fact that they fight all the time.
I’m loving this show just as much as I did when it first started. It’s actually way better than whiney Ted last season. I have to say though, where is Ted lately? They haven’t had any big moments with him. It’d be nice to see the show focus on him a little bit more, and I don’t know…maybe the MOTHER?!

The season premiere of How I Met Your Mother focused on Barney and Robin and their relationship. They kept it a secret for months, but Lily finally found out and made them promise to definite what they were. Then the next episode Ted goes on a blind date, and realizes he’s been on the same date with that same girl seven years ago. The frustrating things about this season is that they’re not getting any closer to Ted’s future wife reveal. Still the show is awesome, and I love it. The show has kept its quality even in its fifth season. It’s funny, but still with its serious moments. I’m just anxious to see who Ted is going to end up with.

This episode of HIMYM we see Ted’s kids again, something the writers haven’t done in a long time. He tells them a story of how seemingly unimportant events lead him on the path to finding their mother. All of these events he retells lead him to standing on a street corner in the rain, and getting tapped on the shoulder by a woman. All through the episode we think maybe, just maybe it’s going to be the future mother. It turns out to be Stella, his ex that left him at the alter. Everyone’s got their theories on how Stella leads Ted to his future wife. I can’t really even begin to guess how she’s connected. We know it’s not her sister, because we’ve already met her. Maybe one of her friends? A coworker?
Either way, I’m just happy they’re back on track to telling us who in the hell this mother is.
Oh yeah, and Barney reaches his 200th sexual conquest. GROSS!

This week’s episode starts out with the guys laughing about a joke. Lily sits down and asks what the joke is. Ted and Marshall insists that Lily won’t like the joke, because it’s guy funny, not girl funny. He tells it anyway, but because it’s the “dirtiest joke ever” Ted won’t repeat it. So of course I’m compelled to search the internet for the punchline to “What’s the difference between jam and peanut butter?” I googled it, and well, yeah it is definitely guy funny, and I’m not repeating it on my blog! The punchline results in Lily storming off while Future Ted narrates, “And we didn’t see Lily again for 4 weeks”.

The rest of this episode follows Ted on his journey to starting his own architecture company. He’s nervous so he’s procrastinating. He’s also set up his home office in his apartment with Robin. He even hired an assistant, PJ, who ends up in bed with Robin.

Elsewhere, Marshall is trying to come up with a “thing that makes him a guy”. He decides on becoming Sports Guy and everyone in the office places their bets with him for his fantasy baseball league. He ends up carrying a lot of money, and panicking, typical Marshall style.

Back at Mosbius Designs, Ted fires PJ because he stops being a good worker, and becomes obsessed with Robin (seriously don’t know what he sees in her). Then he becomes all needy, and Robin dumps him, so Ted hires him back. This of course creates a creepy tug of war between Robin and PJ.

Meanwhile, Barney confesses his love for Robin to Marshall, who of course already knew. He agrees to help break PJ and Robin up, because it’s killing Barney to hear that she’s sleeping with him. Watching Barney struggle with his inner player as he confesses his love is pretty funny. “No I don’t love her, I just miss her when she’s not here, I think about her all the time, and one day I dream of us running towards each other in slow motion”. Marshall ends up hiring PJ as his assistant to help him with his fantasy baseball league and helping him stay the sports guy without all the stress.

I thought this was an interesting episode, the way Lily wasn’t in it, and they excuse it away because she’s offended by the joke in the beginning credits. My theory is that she wasn’t in the episode due to her pregnancy, but I’m not sure. I thought it lacked that special dynamic that Marshall and Lily share. I still thought it was a funny episode, especially the wackiness that goes on at Marshall and Barney’s work ( I really want to work there!) but it wasn’t the best of the season.

I keep wondering what they’re going to do the for the season finale this year. I’m thinking maybe they will announce that Lily is pregnant-it seems only fitting since the actress Alyson Hannigan actually is in real life (or at least was during this season’s filming).
I think a pregnancy would just add to the growth of the show, and maybe anchor down the plotline a little. I’m sick of seeing loser Ted, I’m ready for the Ted that’s going to find his future wife.

I’m also ready to see this love story between Barney and Robin go somewhere. Robin has been just as big a loser as Ted, and it’d be good to see her back on her feet. I don’t like her character that much, but I think she works with Barney, and without her, I think the show would be lacking.

I love love love How I Met Your Mother, and last night’s episode was no exception.

*SPOILER ALERT*

The show starts with Ted reflecting on being left at the alter by Stella-one of the sadder moments in HIMYM history. I loved it because he talks about moving on and how he’s doing fine, and all his friends look at him and go, “um, Ted, the wedding was yesterday!” I love his denial because it is so something I would do. I’ve had my share of heartbreaks, and my solution is to just move on and pretend it doesn’t bother me.

Then Ted busts out the line, “Why confront something when you can avoid it?”So classic! So true! But the episode had such a good moral, and it’s another reason I love the show so much. They touch on key topics that really matter in life, but they crack you up along the way. Barney always makes the show with his super creeper stints too.

So the whole episode is about people that each friend wants to avoid, and how they would freak out if they ran into that person from their past. For Ted, it was Stella, who actually shows up at the restaurant where they all are. The gang decides to hide under the table, where they tell the stories of who they would avoid. At one point Barney gets up and hides under the other table, where there are pretty girls in skirts-the little creepster! Of course his story is about a girl he dates in prison for conjugal visits, ha.

At the end of the episode, Ted is about to confront Stella and tell her dumping him at the alter, and about leaving him for her ex, when he sees the family outside their apartment. He sees how happy they are, and how Stella made the right choice by leaving him. Ted realized it was the perfect end to a love story, but the story just wasn’t his. It was a great episode, but of course it leaves us wondering, who is Ted going to end up with?! It is the stuff that keeps us watching, and I can’t wait for next week’s episode.