How I Met Your Mother — Who Wants To Be A Godparent? (S8E04)

(My review of the last episode of How I Met Your Mother, Nannies)

Marshall and Lily’s first day away from Marvin was meant to be spent with their friends, but the group has nothing to discuss. Since none of them have “8 or higher” problems to talk about, all they are left with is the weather. Marshall and Lily scoot out of the bar to spend the day by themselves, but it is cut short when they almost get hit by a car. They realize that death is all around them and they can’t live so wildly, they have to be prepared for the worst: their deaths. And the most important part of their lives is Marvin, so they need to provide a new home for him. After some arguing and some bad decision-making, they realize that their families are off limits. And who is left? Only their three best friends, who all try to win them over by proving that they would be the best godparent. Ted and Robin bring ridiculously huge stuffed bears while Barney is trying to win them over by taking nursery rhymes and lullabies and turning them into bro-songs.

Rather than having to face their death head-on, Lily and Marshall turn it into a game, whoever wins gets to be the godparent. They have to cover topics such as telling Marvin that his parents died, disciplinary measures, and explaining the birds and the bees. With the responses that these three give, I wouldn’t trust any of them with a child for more than fifteen minutes. Barney’s ideas revolve around picking up women and spoiling him. Robin covers tough love and (incredibly) brutal honesty. And Ted wants to explain everything by using a ridiculous puppet named Infosaurus, which his kids in 2030 hate. The three realize how unfair and ridiculous this game is and quit. Ted thinks that he deserves the honor because he has been best friends with both of his parents for sixteen years. Barney wants him to be cool and lose his virginity by thirteen. And Robin thinks that she deserves to raise him because she’s a woman, and that automatically instills mothering instincts in her.

Marshall and Lily finally realize that they would all be terrible parents, but for a different reason. They need to understand that when you have a kid, that kid is your entire life. But after their three best friends storm out, Marshall and Lily realize that they have been terrible friends, too. They don’t know a single important thing going on in any of their lives. Yeah, they have to raise Marvin, but they can’t completely neglect their friends, either. They apologize to them and revoke the 8 or higher rule. Ted has to pay off Victoria’s $70,000 wedding, Robin is dealing with Nick’s terribly un-sexy eco-friendly motorcycle, and Barney slept with an 6.5 (Seriously man? You can do better!). And to finish off the episode on a touching note, the three take care of Marvin the next morning so Lily and Marshall don’t need to worry. All three of them are signed off as the godparents. Maybe if they are all combined, they can make a decent parent… Hopefully it won’t come down to that.

How I Met Your Mother — Nannies (S8E03)

(My review of the last episode of How I Met Your Mother, The Pre-Nup)

Since Lily and Marshall both work, they need to find someone to watch little Marvin. Lily’s father, Mickey has been staying with him since he burned down his house, but Lily doesn’t trust him to take care of her son. She remembered what a terrible job he did raising her and wanted better for her own son. They find the absolute perfect nanny in Mrs. Buckminster, she’s a sweet old lady and seems almost as perfect as Mary Poppins herself. When they realized that they can’t afford her, Marshall and Lily decided to use a nanny service called Hey Nanny Nanny (It’s a HIMYM site, check it out!) to find someone that they can afford.

To memorialize the fact that Barney is single once again he begins Bangtoberfest. Equipped with a t-shirt cannon and plenty of merchandise, Barney plans to pick up as many women as possible in the month of October to make up for his loss of Quinn. But he can’t use the same cheesy lines and old ways of picking up chicks. He has to come up with a legen–wait for it–dary new way. And he comes up with that way when he realizes that nannies are a whole new unexplored terrain for him. One of the nannies that he picks up happens to be a perfect (and affordable) nanny for Marvin. When she discovers that Barney doesn’t truly have a child, she is furious and won’t take care of Marvin because his parents are friends with that monster.

Just as they think that they’re screwed, on Lily’s first day back to work, Mrs. Buckminster shows up and offers to do the job, Barney paid for her services. But Lily can’t bear with parting from Marvin, she won’t see him for the entire day and he’s staying with a complete stranger. When Lily was asleep, Mickey snuck in to take Marvin for a walk. He spent the entire day with his grandson, which made Lily incredibly uneasy. But Mickey was great with Marvin, and he was apparently a great dad with Lily, too. But when she went off to preschool it broke his heart and he had to find something to occupy himself, and his life became completely absorbed in the ponies. Now that Mickey is there for her and for Marvin wholeheartedly, she asks him to be his official nanny, and there’s nothing in the world he would want more.

Nannies tend to stick together. This is a piece of knowledge that eluded Barney. As they were walking an assortment of babies in their strollers, they spotted Barney and went after him. They beat him terribly and tossed him in a dumpster. Maybe the single life isn’t as great as he thought that it was. He hires Mrs. Buckminster to nanny him and prevent him from making terrible decisions. She reminds him how inappropriate it is to seduce these young women. But she has no problem with him seducing her. Oh Barney, Quinn really messed you up, didn’t she?

Ted and Robin get into an incredibly petty fight to try to prove that they won the breakup–which was a long time ago, if you forgot. Rather than proving that they were happier in their relationships, they both proved that the other was unhappy. Robin can’t be with such a sensitive guy and Ted can’t be with such a slob. They agree that they will have to stick it out and they will grow into their new roles in the relationships. These couples won’t last long.

(My review of the next episode of How I Met Your Mother, Who Wants To Be A Godparent?)

How I Met Your Mother — The Pre-Nup (S8E02)

(My review of the last episode of HIMYM, Farhampton)

Because the summer of 2012 has been dubbed “The Summer of Love,” Ted has no interesting stories to tell his kids. So he jumps forward a few months to the “Autumn of Breakups.” When Barney is discussing his upcoming wedding at work, his boss, Arthur goes on a rant about how important prenuptial agreements are. His wife took everything from him, including his dog Tugboat and one of his kidneys in the divorce. Barney thinks that this is a great idea, he doesn’t want to lose out on any of his money. Quinn is annoyed that he wanted a prenup in the first place, but the requests he puts in there pushes her over the top. For every pound she gains, she has to pay him $2,000, she has to get her breasts enhanced every five years, and many other things along similar lines.

Ted and Marshall think that Barney was being completely unfair. Nick, who is new to this, thinks that he should be agreeing. But Barney brings up a point that they can’t help but think about, if they could make any rules or change anything about their girlfriends, would they do it? That night, each of the men go home to their girlfriends and discuss what they would have changed. In Ted’s voice-over, he announces that one of the three couples (Marshall and Lily aren’t included) will separate by the end of the following day.

Marshall would make a rule that said that Lily couldn’t be so overprotective with Marvin. He will never be able to grow up if he is coddled and Marshall wants to play with his kid like his dad played with him, rough. Nick wants Robin to stop watching television while they are in bed together. Ted, who originally invited Klaus to stay with him and Victoria when his life collapsed, wants to kick him out. Victoria is not pleased that Ted kicked him out of “his” apartment and not “their” apartment, which is how he referred to it just a few days earlier.

To get back at their men, Quinn, Lily, Robin, and Victoria make their own pre-nup. If they break up, Quinn gets custody of all of Barney’s suits. When he asks her why she wants them she says something so painful for Barney to hear, “Nothing, I’d just watch them go out of style.” And while they are still together, Barney has to wear a shock ring, so if he looks at once of Quinn’s hot friends, she can give him a terse reminder of who he’s married to.

Arthur stops them, they all have someone that loves them and they are all about to screw it up. They need to get out their feelings and talk about it. Though this is clearly an oversimplified cure, he’s right. Marshall thought that Lily had tried to say that she was a better parent than him, but Lily had actually just been overprotective because she never had a father figure and didn’t really know how he should act. Nick finds Robin super sexy and just wanted her to feel the same way, Robin tells him that watching herself on TV turns her on, which is completely fine with Nick. Ted didn’t want to be held back by the past, which was impossible with Klaus living with them, Victoria just felt bad for Klaus because she was so happy with Ted and he was so alone. These three couples all made up, so who does that leave?

When Quinn and Barney go to throw out their pre-nups, neither of them will throw it out first. They realize that this is because of their lack of trust. And if they don’t trust each other, they shouldn’t get married. Barney is surprisingly okay with the way that they parted. He’s cool with knowing that he will never be able to trust a woman enough to get married. But then, a little ways down the road we see Barney gloating to his fellow GNB employees about how great his wedding with Robin is going to be. Well, we know that they don’t end up getting married (at least not yet).

Though Nick hasn’t done much in How I Met Your Mother yet, I’m glad he and Robin didn’t break up. Just from his line  “I didn’t realize it takes 42 inches to satisfy you,” I think he deserves another few episodes. From the other works I have seen Michael Trucco in, he’s a truly fantastic actor and I’ll be thrilled if he stays on for another few episodes; the longer the better!

This episode was really simple for HIMYM standards. There are typically many story lines that jump back and forth with one taking center stage. But this episode followed a much less complicated format. Though there was a different story for every pair of characters, they were all based on the exact same formula. I think that this was a nice change of pace from the usual hectic episodes. And it definitely didn’t hurt that Ted didn’t have too much screen time. This was not one of the top episodes, but it was definitely solid.

(My review of the next episode of HIMYM, Nannies)

How I Met Your Mother — Farhampton (S8E01 Premiere)

This episode of How I Met Your Mother focused more on the drama rather than the comedy. I know many people are fond of this, but I mainly watch for the comedy… And Barney. Though there are definitely comedic elements, many very typical for HIMYM, the episode was pushed by Ted and Barney’s terrible, and for the most part unfunny, decisions in regards to women

Both Barney and Robin are freaking out about their pending nuptials. Robin tells that she can’t go through with it. Since I’m a huge opponent of Barney and Robin’s relationship, I grew giddy with joy at this. But, when it comes to How I Met Your Mother, my hopes are not high that they will actually call off the wedding. The writers like to toy with us, especially when it comes to those two. Robin throws out the idea of climbing out the window, which prompts Ted to tell another story. We are thrown back to May of 2012, a few weeks after the end of season 6. After Marvin’s birth, Lily and Marshall have  turned into complete zombies due to their lack of sleep, but they won’t admit it (Well, Marshall swore that they would not turn into babies after having a zombie, so I guess he didn’t lie). Due to this delirium, they constantly misunderstand what is said, repeat thing multiple times, and completely zone out. This was funny at first, but their confusion turned into my boredom.

So when Quinn asks Robin and Lily to be her bridesmaids (her stripper friends would do a terrible job), Marshall agrees as well. Robin pulls Barney aside to ask him why it isn’t awkward for Quinn that she and Barney had dated before. Barney responds that every trace of their having dating is gone. Robin, though she says she has no feelings left for him, is deeply hurt. It was a great time of her life and she wouldn’t want to forget it. Near the end of the episode, Barney gives her a key to a storage unit that is filled with these memories and objects that connected them. Though he may not like to show it, he’s actually a really sweet guy. And this gives me even more reason to crave more Barney screen time. Why doesn’t Neil Patrick Harris have his own show? He really should.

In the absolutely best scene of the episode, one of the best ones in the show, in my opinion, Barney explains practically his whole life story. When Quinn finds out about his and Robin’s old relationship, she gives him exactly one minute to tell her everything. He takes a deep breath then spews out the gist of everything that happened in the entire series run. If only he were the one telling Ted’s kids the story, they would be much happier. I still can’t believe they are still listening to Ted’s stories. Anyway, Quinn decides that she can’t trust Barney and walks out the door. When Quinn approaches Robin about it, she insists that there is nothing left between them. Which we all know is crap. But when she sees Robin’s incredibly attractive new boyfriend, Nick (Michael Trucco), she starts to believe her.

Now that I’ve recapped the much more interesting stories, I’ll talk about Ted. When he finds out that Victoria didn’t leave a note to the fiancee that she left at the alter, he turns back. Somehow, the only thing he learned when he was left at the altar was that leaving a note was important. You’d think it would have made him more sensitive to the topic, but not really. Ted offers to leave the note for Klaus, but he’s too scared to climb the pipe. After an elaborate plot to get into the room, he ended up locking the car keys there. Seriously? When he returns to the drain pipe to climb up it, he sees Klaus escaping from the wedding as well. Ted decides to climb the drain pipe anyway to hide Victoria’s note. That way it would make Klaus look like the bad guy and Victoria the victim. Somehow this made him get over his fear, but leaving the note for Klaus wasn’t a big enough deal.

After tracking Klaus down at the train station, he asks him why he left Victoria, she is the “greatest girl in the world” after all. After wasting two minutes on a terrible shtick about Ted speaking/not speaking German, Klaus explains something that Ted should understand very wel. Loosely translated from German, he says that Victoria wasn’t “the one.” And that if you don’t feel it right away, someone won’t end up turning into the one. And now Ted realizes (again) that Victoria isn’t the one for him. I can’t believe how annoying he is. It’s like his situation with Natalie all over again (he broke up with her on her birthday and three years later he broke up with her on her birthday again).

The story goes back to the day of Robin and Barney’s wedding, where he is sitting at the same train station. The camera pans away from him, and we see the woman with the yellow umbrella. The mother. Because there is a chance that this will be the last season, we should be getting much closer to discovering who this mysterious woman is.

(My review of the next episode of How I Met Your Mother, The Pre-Nup)