How I Met Your Mother recap: The Burning Beekeeper

The episode starts with Marshall and Lily telling Lily’s dad, Mickey, [played by Chris Elliott] that they are throwing a housewarming party. Lily tells Mickey that since Marshall has been working long hours, she out together all the preparations for the party and she assumes that Mickey will ruin it. He swears that he’ll won’t ruin and that he’ll be “charming and convivial.” He then tells Lily and Marshall that he’s starting a business where he’s going to keep bees and sell their honey. Marshall then asks Mickey where he’s starting the business. Mickey replies, “In the basement, there’s like 10,000 bees down there.”

Shoot to Robin and Ted arriving at Lily and Marshall’s housewarming party with kugel from Zabar’s. Ted goes to heat it up in the stove and sets the timer for five minutes. Then, we hear Ted telling his kids that if they ever throw a housewarming party not to worry about one thing going wrong…they should worry about EVERYTHING going wrong. Ted then says that it took those five minutes for EVERYTHING to go wrong at Lily and Marshall’s housewarming party. Ted then says he’s going to go room by room as we see what went wrong.

Shoot to the living room where Lily is asking Marshall if he thinks the party is going well. He praises her for pulling off “the party of the century.” Marshall still asks if can help in anyway but Lily tells him since its his first night off work in a long time, she wants to just relax. Then, Marshall’s boss, Garrison Cootes [played by Martin Short] comes over. Marshall asks him how he feels having a night off from work. Cootes tells Marshall that they both have to leave and be back in the office in 45 minutes. Marshall reminds Cootes that this is his and Lily’s housewarming party. Cootes replies, “Well, Mother Nature is having a housewarming party to but hers ends with humankind at the bottom of a rising ocean passing through the digestive tract of a stingray.” Lily then tells Cootes that she bought vegan spring rolls for him and he quickly goes in search of them. Meanwhile, Mickey overhears that Marshall has to leave the party to go back to work. Lily begs Mickey not to talk about the bees then puts on some music. Lily suggests they crack open the bottles of wine she bought for the party but remember that they’re in the basement. Mickey volunteers to put on his “beekeeper suit” to get the wine and then tells Lily and Marshall that they should “be thankful for the bees because they’re keeping the mice at bay.” Lily’s reply, “We have mice.” Mickey replies as he leaves to get his suit, “Not now you don’t, you’re welcome.” Ted then comes out into the living room and Cootes asks him if he’s a “ vegan?” Cootes then begins yelling at Ted for eating all of the vegan spring rolls. Ted tells Cootes that he didn’t eat the spring rolls but Cootes calls him a liar and starts screaming even louder. Then, Robin comes out of the kitchen as Ted asks Cootes what he’ll do to him if he did in fact eat the spring rolls, “Are you gonna hit me?” Ted dares Cootes. They start egging each other on as Lily spies trouble and tells Cootes that they also have “hummus and veggies.” Cootes then forgets about Ted and goes in search of the hummus and veggies. Ted tells Lily that he won’t let Cootes push him around as Barney enters the room noticeably drunk. Ted then apologizes to Lily.

Shoot to Barney, who’s drunk, who starts shouting that he loves his penis. Robin tries to calm him down but he can’t stop saying it. “If I could kiss it, I would. I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t tried,” Barney continues. Robin then tells Barney how “uncomfortable I am with this conversation.” Barney then replies that “she’s magnificent” and tells Robin that all penises are girls, “like ships and lake monsters.” Barney then leaves as Marshall puts out the Gouda cheese wheel. Robin is about to take a bite when Lily tells her not to eat it, pushes it on the floor and stomps on it. She tells Robin that the whole party is ruined. She then tells her about the basement full of bees and how Ted and Cootes almost got into a fight, Robin asks Lily to look around and see that everyone is having a good time and that it’s a great party. Just then, Mickey runs out of the kitchen, in his beekeeper suit on fire.

Shoot to Ted saying that now he’s going to talk about what happened in the dining room. Barney is eating all the vegan spring rolls as a woman [played by Rebecca Creskoff] next to him is telling him that her son’s Bar Mitzvah is next week and she wants to know who catered the party. She then tells him how ever since her divorce all she’s encountered are lying men. “That’s why it’s so refreshing to meet an honest guy like you, Special Agent Gary Powers,” she says to Barney. She then tells Barney to meet her in the upstairs bedroom in two minutes. She leaves then Cootes enters and Barney tells him that he just ate the last vegan spring roll. Cootes can’t understand how they all can be gone when the party just started. Barney tells Cootes that some guy ate them all and Cootes asks Barney to point him the direction of “this scoundrel.” Barney points to Ted and Cootes goes after him like we saw before.

Shoot to Marshall telling Lily that he can’t believe that Cootes is making him go to work. Lily tells him to go talk to him about it. He tells her that Cootes will probably scream at him and she knows that he’s not good at people screaming at him. Already frustrated because she thinks the party isn’t going well, Lily tells Marshall to suck it up and go confront Cootes, He then goes to do so as Lily goes into the kitchen. Barney is in there and tells Lily that Ted ate all of the vegan spring rolls. Meanwhile, Marshall is about the confront Cootes about asking him to leave his own party but sees that he’s already screaming at Ted so he grabs Robin and asks her to yell at him so he’s prepared when Cootes does. Lily then comes out of the kitchen still worried that the party isn’t going well and sees Ted and Cootes starting to fight and goes to break it up. Then, Barney also comes out of the kitchen and asks Robin if they could go somewhere to go talk about “something that’s very dear to me.” Robin agrees to go with him as long as the “something” isn’t his penis. He says that it isn’t and they move to another room of the house. Cootes then comes in the room looking for “hummus and veggies.” Marshall asks him if they could talk in the kitchen. Cootes, who takes the “hummus and veggies” with him goes with Marshall into the kitchen. We see Ted apologize to Lily for almost fighting with Cootes as Lily tells him that she won’t be able to stand one more thing going wrong. Then, Mickey walks over to Ted and Lily in his beekeeper suit and tells Lily that his bees have escaped from their enclosure in the basement. Lily then asks what the smell emanating from him is and he tells her that he doused himself with kerosene since all beekeepers do it. Lily then asks him to take off the suit. He goes into the kitchen to do so as Lily tells Ted that she doesn’t know if she can handle a life full of one crisis after another. Marshall then brings out the Gouda wheel, which Lily goes and knocks on the floor before Robin can partake. Meanwhile, Ted tells Marshall that Lily told him that he has to leave the party and go back to work. Marshall then tells Ted that he doesn’t have to go to work because he and Cootes “worked out a compromise.” Mickey then comes out the kitchen and tells Marshall how great the party is going. Ted agrees. Suddenly, someone in Mickey’s beekeeper suit sprints out of the kitchen, on fire, and runs out of the house.

Then, we hear Ted say that he’s now going to tell his kids about what happened in the kitchen. Ted is yelling at Robin for yelling at a 90-year-old woman who was going to steal the last kugel when they went to Zabar’s earlier. Robin defends her actions saying that “sometimes in life you have to be assertive.” Robin then yells at Ted for never standing up for himself. Ted then leaves the kitchen as Mickey enters, puts on his beekeeper suit and goes to the basement. Barney then comes in followed by Lily. Lily then tells Barney that the woman he was speaking to her earlier, their neighbor Geraldine, slept with a guy recently who then didn’t call her so “she hunted him down and cut off a certain part of his anatomy with a cheese knife, so whatever you do, don’t sleep with her.” Barney tells Lily that Geraldine is waiting for him in the upstairs bedroom. Lily starts freaking out and then bumps into the Gouda cheese wheel, which falls on the floor. Lily leaves the kitchen but Barney stays, picks the Gouda wheel off the floor and tries to clean it off with the kerosene Mickey left there. Then, Mickey bursts back into the kitchen from the basement after fending off the escaped bees.

Shoot to Marshall asking Cootes to go with him into the kitchen. Marshall tells Cootes that he’s not going back to work and leaving the party. Mickey, still in his beekeeper suit, makes a comment and Marshall asks him if he and Cootes could be alone. Mickey then leaves the kitchen. Marshall tells Cootes that he’s working himself to death and has to let loose and “get a hobby” but Cootes replies, “Mother Earth doesn’t get a night off and neither do you.” Marshall then shoots back, “Well, then I quit.” He then takes the Gouda wheel out to the party, past Lily and Ted.

Shoot back to Cootes, who is still in the kitchen. He starts talking to Mickey and tells him that maybe Marshall is right that he needs a hobby. Mickey suggests beekeeping. Cootes tells him that he doesn’t know the first thing about beekeeping. Cootes asks to try Mickey’s beekeeper suit on and Mickey leaves the kitchen to give Cootes some “privacy.” Cootes smells the kugel that Ted put in the oven, he opens the oven, the beekeeper suit ignites and Cootes runs screaming out of the kitchen and out of the house in the fiery beekeeping suit. Luckily, as he runs out of the house, trips and lands in the snow, which extinguishes the fire. Marshall and everyone else runs outside and Marshall asks Cootes if he’s okay. He replies, “That was amazing. I flew through the air like a fireball and look not a scratch.” He then asks Marshall for a beer, tells him that he doesn’t have to go back to work but asks if he’ll be at work on Monday to which Marshall replies, “Of course.” As Marshall goes back in the house, Cootes says aloud, “Did I forget to close the basement door?”

Shoot to Marshall walking in the house and seeing a swarm of bees. He calmly shuts the door.

Shoot to Barney and Geraldine in bed after having sex. She tells him how wonderful he was and how she wants to spend every waking moment with him. She then goes on about how her last lover was horrible in bed and starts blabbering on. Meanwhile, Barney sneaks out of the bed but opens the door to the swarm of bees. He quickly closes it but when he turns back to Geraldine still babbling on, he opens the door, leaves the room and closes the door. The next thing we hear is Barney screaming in pain.