I think this episode could have also been titled “Baggage” because that was essentially the theme. As always, I love it when this show references past episodes and this one did a bang up job. In an earlier episode, I believe from last season, Ted foreshadows the movie Tony writes about Ted and Stella called “The Wedding Bride”. I love how the writers poke fun at cheesy romantic comedies. The over the top acting, the way the bad guy is so ridiculous, how dramatic and sad the actress who plays Stella is. I felt so bad for Ted as he watched the horribly skewed version of a heartbreaking moment that happened in his life on the big screen. Can you imagine if your heart was broken and someone wrote a movie about it? Worse yet, wrote a movie and pegged you as the villain and not the victim?

Besides the movie, Ted talks about how as we get older in the dating world, everyone that comes along has some form of baggage. For Ted, it was being left at the altar. The funny sidebar showcases Marshall’s baggage of being too nice. He’s always helping people in his small town Minnesodan way, but sometimes he’s too nice for New York. Like when he stops to help someone load a moving van only to find out later he accidentally helped someone rob someone else. They even took the children’s
toys!
The end of the episode was awesome when they reveal the baggage of the girl Ted is seeing, Royce. We find out not only has she been left at the altar three times, but she has a gambling addiction, and she SHARES A BED WITH HER BROTHER! “Yeah…you gotta go.” says Ted. Great episode! Oh, and I’m so happy I missed all the spoilers, because apparently they were aplenty on the web. I guess it paid to be in the dark on this one!

This is the episode where Robin finally stops looking like a train wreck. I’m excited that the writers have finally acknowledged that her character was gross.  Well, they didn’t use those exact words but the storyline sheds some light on how Robin’s been doing the last few months. She’s been going through her mourning period over Barney, and dealing with the hurt of having to see her ex all the time, and hear him talk about his lady conquests.

Marshall realizes how much of a jerk he’s been by accidentally rubbing it in Robin’s face. HIMYM once again scores a big hit with the little ditty Marshall makes up called, “Bang Bang Bangity Bang”. Here’s a little clip. I warn you, it’s catchy and you’ll find yourself singing it around the house.

Barney realizes he’s been insensitive and he plans the “Superdate” he was supposed to go on for Robin and her new crush Don. And Robin gets her bangity bang on! I got back some of my affection for Robin because I really felt for her in this episode. Barney showed that he really is a good guy deep down. Oh, and Jennifer Lopez guest starred as a self help book writer, “Take a Look at Yourself You Dumb Slut” (possibly the greatest title, EVER), but I loved that she wasn’t over the top. Like a lot of the guest stars on HIMYM she blended in and didn’t take over the show. I love how when Robin is interviewing her, she talks about her next book coming out, about Outer banks foreclosures called, “Take a Look at Your Finances You Dumb Slut”. Hehehee.

It was a good episode, but I’m still ready for Ted to have a bigger storyline. He needs to jump start his dating again.

Oh.My.God. The cuteness of this episode was enough to cripple me. D and I have a thing about pigs. It’s this inside joke, and I will just say, it has to do with his (and my soon to be) last name. We always joke around about pigs. So this week’s episode of How I Met Your Mother quickly went down as my absolute favorite, at least my favorite storyline involving Barney.

The basic theme of the episode was how everyone at some point has either left someone on the hook, or been left on it. The hook meaning the person thinks eventually they’re going to have a change to date the other person, and they’re just hanging out on the hook waiting. I know I’ve personally done it and had it done to me. It sucks! You become this miserable little puppy following the other person around.

HIMYM does this great montage of Ted giving this girl foot rubs, feeding her chocolate cake, cuddling. Then it flashes to him and a girl he’s got on the hook, and she’s doing all of those things for him. It’s hilarious! So then Marshal points out to Lily how her ex Scooter is still on the hook, and how she has to tell him once and for all that he doesn’t have a chance with her.

That’s when Barney’s storyline comes in. He says that in order to entice a girl back to your place, you need bait. For Ted, it’s his antique art collection or borrowing a book. For Barney, he found the perfect bait-a teacup pig. I squealed along with Robin, Lily and Marshal as they all said, “You have a teacup pig ohmygosh a teacup pig!” I so want one. So freaking cuddly and adorable!! Ted borrows the teacup pig to try to bait Tiffany, played by Carrie Underwood. That whole storyline doesn’t really work out. It just shows Ted being a jerk to the girl he’s got on the hook, while Tiffany is a jerk to Ted, and then her boyfriend is a jerk to her. It’s a vicious jerk cycle.

My favorite part of the episode is when Marshal borrows the teacup pig, and uses it as practice for Lily to learn how to let Scooter off her hook once and for all. See, Scooter has these adorable puppy dog eyes and when she tries to tell let him off the hook, she can’t because he’s got that adorable sad face. He makes her look the little teacup pig in the eye and tell him off. I wish there were clips of that scene to share with you because it’s hysterical. The dramatic music as they zoom in on the cuteness that is the teacup pig. Lily crumbles and always ends with, “We can’t be together…right now.”

Have you ever hooked someone or been the hookee? How adorable are teacup pigs? Where can I get one???

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!

At first I was OK with Robin and Barney dating, but then they just starting getting lame. I’m glad the writers wrote this latest episode, the Rough Patch, because it points out what happens to two people not meant for each other. Barney and Robin started to let themselves go, and instead of having fun adventures together, it became talks about taking a trip or staying in and watching Legend wait for it, softhe fall, Legends of the Fall!

It was pretty funny watching Barney in the fat suit eating food the way he used to chase women, with wild abandon. And as for Robin, I really don’t think they had to work hard to make her look bad. I just don’t think Robin is pretty. I think she’s a bit of a cow. Luckily by the end of the episode both Robin and Barney realize that it’s more than a rough patch, and they aren’t meant for each other.

Hopefully now the writers will focus a bit more on poor Ted and his quest to find his mate. And I missed Barney and his antics. Here’s hoping next week’s episode will get back to the good stuff that makes How I Met Your Mother such a good show. Even though this wasn’t the best episode, I still cracked up at Marshal, Lily and Ted in the stake out wagon. “A van would have been too expensive!” Ted, you’re as frugal as I am, and I love that about you!

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?!

Last night’s HIMYM cracked me up because sadly, they way they acted around couples is the way D and I can get. Marshall and Lily have been the only couple in a group of singles forever. They’re always looking for couple friends to hang out with, for game nights and group trips. The problem is, they try way too hard, and end up coming across as total creepers. It just made me laugh because while D and I aren’t quite as bad as them, we do get bummed when potential couple friends never call us back, or don’t offer to hang out. The scene where Lily and Marshall are in bed crying into their ice cream containers is hilarious, and I totally felt their pain. Trying to find couple friends and it not working out can feel like a breakup, and you’d need the best weight loss pills just to recover from all the ice cream and chocolate eating.

I don’t think I’ll ever be as wacky as Marshall though and make up a song and photo montag for every single event. D teases me about this because I do one of those videos every year at Christmas, but that’s for family, not people I just met. Ok, maybe I am too much like Marshall.

The other part of the story involves Ted and being the “Sexless Innkeeper” because women only come over to his apartment because it’s right above the bar and it’s a place to crash. They know Ted’s a nice guy and won’t try to seduce him, hence he’s dubbed, the sexless innkeeper. There’s a great scene where Barney does a little poem. Classic Barnicle!