Full spoilers abound; you’ve been warned.
This week’s episode of How I Met Your Mother finally answered some questions we’ve been asking for the last few weeks (namely, how does Ted get rid of Jeanette) and had one of the best Marshall moments in awhile, but just didn’t seem to stand up as strongly as it could have given the source material.
The episode begins with Jeanette breaking up with Ted and his realizing that despite how crazy she was, the sex was worth it, so he heads out to her apartment in an attempt to win her back, only to be stopped by Barney intent on making Ted see he needs to date other women (and so he and Robin don’t have to deal with Jeanette as Ted’s +1 at their wedding). Barney reveals to Ted that he really didn’t burn the Playbook in front of Robin and that he wants to mastermind some plays with Ted in order to get him someone one new. This leads to a few somewhat funny moments of Ted decked out in weird getups parrotting Barney’s advice through an earpiece in an attempt to pick up chicks at the bar, only to get drinks thrown in his face each time as Barney keeps convincing him to say horrible things to the women. During one of these attempts, Robin stops by Ted’s apartment to see what the Ted and Barney are up to, only to learn that the Playbook still exists, and she storms out as Barney chases after. As this happens, Jeanette storms into the bar, interrupts the play and gets back together with Ted.
Meanwhile, Lily and Marshall are at a big art gallery opening where Lily is hoping to get in with a promising new artist in an attempt to get some of his artwork for her client, the Captain. Marshall tries to fit in with a bunch of lame art jokes (Why are there starving artists? They run out of Monet) and sneaks in a bag of Skittles since he was worried, correctly, that no food would be served. During a minute of silence in honor of the artist’s Lily is trying to impress dead grandma, the Skittles in Marshall’s pockets, predictably, all scatter to the floot disrupting the entire homage. As Lily consoles Marshall for the scene he made, the artist comes over, and Marshall cracks a Ninja Turtle joke to ease the tension, whereupon we learn the artist is a HUGE fan of the turtles, thus pretty much securing the contract for Lily.
Barney finally catches up with Robin who is angry that he has been lying to her for the last few months. Barney, while pulling a bunch of magic tricks out of his sleeves, explains that his whole relationship with her has been based in part on a lie — whether from the way he tricked her in to thinking he was dating Patrice to make her jealous, to the elaborate plan it all played in to his proposal to Robin — but that despite all of that, the seed of truth deep within is that he loves Robin and did everything based on that love. Robin finally accepts his apology and they two head to Ted’s.
Ted is happily about to open some wine for Jeanette when she comes across the Playbook on his couch, freaks out and begins to trash his apartment. The episode finales with Ted and friends sitting below his apartment as Jeanette tosses his belongings from the window and blows up the Playbook which was foreshadowed a few weeks ago. Barney hands Ted back his RSVP to the wedding, and Ted crosses out the ‘+1’, making way for the promised meeting between him and the Mother at the reception.
Sadly, while Weekend at Barney’s definitely helped move the story along, it didn’t succeed very well at generating actual laughs. There were a few great moments such as when Marshall drops all the Skittles at the art gallery (best moment in the episode) and Barney and Ted arguing about how to hit on women while talking about his penis, but the rest of it just fell flat. The argument between Barney and Robin didn’t really do much to change or add to their relationship, and the rest really only served as the setup to get rid of Jeanette once and for all. What I was really hoping for (and didn’t get) was the twist that Barney’s helping out Ted with the Playbook and allowing Jeanette to find it, was all part of one last master play from him in order to rid her from Ted’s life. This would have been classic HIMYM and would have tied the whole thing together perfectly. Alas, it was not meant to be, and left me disappointed the writers took the lazy path. Still, Jeanette is finally out of the picture, and we know that she was Ted’s last girlfriend before he met the Mother, so plot threads are finally starting to tie together and bring us to a conclusion.
Let’s just hope the rest of the journey is much better than what we were presented with tonight.