I thought last week’s episode was a turnaround for the How I Met Your Mother crew, but after this week, I’d say the season is finally picking up speed. After finding out her mother would not be making it to her wedding, Robin can’t seem to stop crying, which is very un-Robin of her. Barney takes on the challenge of putting an end to her tears even though no one gave him the challenge to begin with.
In an old-school How I Met Your Mother style episode told almost completely in a flashback of when Barney decided to take on “The Robin,” challenge, we cleverly see Barney meet Ted’s future wife.
Flashback to McLaren’s Pub, Lily and Robin realize Barney always meets his challenges because he is the one to choose them. They decide to give him their own set of challenges such as, picking up a girl while talking like a dolphin (he actually pulled it off), pick up a girl wearing a trash bag and avoiding the letter “E,” and pick up a red-head at the bar who thinks she’s waiting for Ryan Gosling. To their surprise, he pulls off all the challenges. Frustrated, Lily sends Barney to pick up diapers at the drugstore. Robin takes a cue from Lily and asks for Samosas on his way back from the store. When it starts to sound more like an errand rather than a challenge to Barney, The girls throw in, “while picking up a girl at the drugstore.” Challenge, accepted, of course.
Meanwhile, Marshall is still convinced Ted and Robin are not platonic and still have feelings for each other. He tries to convince his friend he and Robin still have a chance at working things out. Ted admits he has been considering giving it another chance. A chance that would involve telling Robin how he feels by stealing the blue French horn again, but he’s afraid of being rejected by her again. Marshall convinces Ted that Robin is constantly changing her mind about things and his chances with her can be successful if he tries. Later, Ted’s old boss (Bryan Cranston,) calls offering him a job in Chicago (more like begging and threatening to spam his Facebook wall if he declines.) Ted promises to think about it, but later rejects the offer when he walks in on Robin eating olives, which flashback to the pilot episode, Robin hated olives, but since then has changed her mind about them. Ted tells Hammond Druthers, he still has business in New York. However, he decides not to immediately go after Robin because as explains to Marshall, “It happens when it happens. What’s the rush?”
Unaware, of the task Barney had been sent on, Ted has no idea he’s about to lose Robin to Barney. At the Drugstore, Barney tries to pickup on The Mother and is of course unsuccessful (I was so worried so many Bro Codes were going to be broken.) Instead, she gives him advice that changes his bachelor path. She first tells him he’s a good guy and is going to get through whatever he is dealing with, but when Barney follows up on why she thinks he’s sad she tells him, “I think you were in love and you messed it up.” Barney confesses feeling guilty of giving up on Robin so easily. You see kids; Barney had been staying busy with other girls so that he could ignore that painful fact. She then changes his bachelor ways by saying, “Do you want to keep playing or do you want to win?” To which Barney declares, “I want to win!” Then goes on to craft, The Robin.
Flash-forward to the present, Robin tells Barney he completed his challenge, I assume both of making her fall in love with him and of getting her to stop crying. At the same time, a sad Ted watches what he could have had.
It warms my heart to see how Barney met The Mother and to know she had everything to do with how Barney decided to write, The Robin. It also made me happy to see a classic-style episode where the group was together and the focus wasn’t only on the wedding. It’s almost like I had been missing my own friends!
Photo Courtesy CBS