A Picture's Worth a Thousand Skanks

Pictures and birthday parties go together like cake and ice cream, and this week's very funny episode of How I Met Your Mother used that combination very well.  There's always one in the group who never takes a bad picture and one who takes nothing but bad pictures, but Barney's good photos streak was, wait for it, LEGENDARY!  Not only could he not take a bad picture (believe me, Robin tried), but he always had the exact same pose in each one.  He chalked it up to the camera loving him, but Robin was hell-bent on getting a bad picture.   All of this led to a hilarious side story.  Meanwhile, Lily was focused on her birthday celebration and getting Ted to stop bringing random "skanks" to group get-togethers.
 


Lily didn't just claim that Ted always brought these "skanks" to their group events, she had the photo album to prove it.  In a funny scene she made Ted "Name that Skank," which of course, he couldn't.  The photo album game led to a hilarious trip down memory lane where we got to see various occasions that Ted ruined when he brought a random "skank" to the event.  There was the yoga instructor who blocked Guns N Roses' Slash in the group photo, the hippie chick Strawberry who threw red paint all over the hibachi chef at the Japanese restaurant and then ran out screaming "Meat is murder!," and then there was Karen.  We've heard of and seen the craziness that is Karen and Ted, but their break-up on the flight to Paris (in which Marshall was supposed to be seeing Lily for the first time in 2 months) might have been their greatest hit.  So, Lily might have had a point about Ted and his random "skanks."

Or so it seemed.  Then Ted took Lily down another leg of memory lane -- the one that showed how he, Lily and Marshall ended up taking their first photo together.  Back in college, Ted and Marshall were trying to decide how they wanted to pose for their first roomies picture together, but Lily stopped by to go to a movie with Marshall and Ted invited her into the photo.  When Marshall questioned it suggesting that they might not last, Ted suggested that they could and Lily was in the photo.  Meanwhile, Barney was still taking good photos even up against Robin's "gotcha" tactics.  And then one year later it happened, Barney finally took a bad photo.  Go Robin!

How I Met Your Mother airs Mondays on CBS. If you missed last night's episode, watch it for free at cbs.com.