"Everyone stop!! Alan Thicke, shut up. Marshall, it's a station wagon -- get over it. Ted, stop talking about porn. And for the love of God, somebody get the Storm Trooper some Pizza!" -Lily
"It's not a Storm Trooper!" - Everyone else
And that, ladies and gentlemen, summarizes the funniest scene I've seen on TV so far this season and one of the funniest I've seen on any TV show EVER!! HI-LARITY that seemed to have no end in sight as the scene just escalated by the second. Lily, Ted and Marshall, on a mission to break up Robin and Barney, piled into a stake-out station wagon (because the iconic van would have cost them $25 more to rent) and set a plan into motion that seemed destined to break up the pair: make them relive their four worst fights. Lily, in a one-night only return from breaker-uper retirement, hatched the break-up scheme that brought Alan Thicke, Crazy Meg, dirty dishes and a robot who was supposed to be a Storm Trooper together in a station wagon while Lily watched the unsuspecting couple from her binoculars. And it just got funnier from there...
Ted couldn't stop pointing out lines from his newly acquired porn collection which Barney bestowed to him upon entering into a serious relationship with Robin. Marshall couldn't stop complaining about the station wagon. Alan Thicke couldn't stop complaining about how long it was taking, the pizza guy couldn't quit going on about the sausage pizza and the "Storm Trooper" just wanted a slice of pizza for crying out loud! So. Freakin'. FUNNY!!
So why, you ask, were Lily, Ted and Marshall bent on breaking up Barney and Robin? Well, ever since B/R became a serious couple, they stopped caring about themselves. They kept diving deeper and deeper into a permanent state of unhappiness. Barney was eating his way through his troubles (special nod to the awesome make-up/costume effects) and Robin wasn't showering from the looks of things. But most of all, both of them were miserable. So, the plan was hatched and the players were put in place to trigger the couple's four biggest fights (dirty dishes, a crazy ex-girlfriend, a Storm Trooper and one simply dubbed "The Canadian/American War"). And while all of the hilarity ensued outside in the stake-out station wagon, Robin and Barney sat inside the restaurant seemingly unaware until Lily saw them looking in her direction. She assumed they had been made. But Barney and Robin hadn't seen them. They saw their own reflection in the window and neither could believe what they had turned into, and that realization triggered them to both admit they were unhappy. When the gang had seen them kissing in the diner (and assumed that they were in love and had overcome a simple rough patch), Barney and Robin were breaking up. Or rather, two friends were getting back together.
It seems that too much awesome-ness cancels itself out. And that kids, is the story of how Barney and Robin went back to being friends, and How I Met Your Mother managed to pull off a hook-up that seemed totally unawesome (from the outset) and make it totally awesome without compromising the show.
How I Met Your Mother airs Mondays on CBS. If you missed last night's episode, watch it for free at cbs.com.
1 comment:
Wow! My opinion of the episode was the exact opposite of yours. I liked virtually none of it.
I can see Barney/Robin ending, but it would be in flames, not in apathy.
Lily’s “plan” to break them up was something a five year old with devise – pile scheme on scheme on the theory that if one plan is good doing four at once is better. And none of Lily’s plans seemed that great to me.
The thing that caused Barney and Robin to realize they should break up also made no sense. Barney’s weight gain and Robin’s aging were not real, they were a metaphor. As soon as they broke up the gang saw them as their old selves. And you can’t see a metaphor reflected in window glass.
The scene in the stake-out wagon was mildly amusing.
The highlight of the show was the promise of seeing Robin’s failed variety show sometime in the future.
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