It’s very late and I’m on vacation so the bulk of this will have to wait, thought I really want to know your thoughts on some things.

First off, I thought the episode was solid. Great flashbacks, worked pretty well on continuity I thought and kept me laughing all the way through. Barney’s awesomeness and inability to take a bad photo was great. Marshall’s love for games came through even at Lily’s party too and that really made me laugh. A ton of great moments and quoted but I wonder what stuck out to you.

Secondly, Did the one year from now birthday shot tell us anything? To me it says that Ted isn’t with the Mother yet…has he "met" her, possibly (or possimpibly, whatever) but since it’s just the 5 of them I would say that Ted isn’t with a "the one" girl. No Don either… and you would think that after a year it would be acceptable. He could just be out of town but I would put my money on him being gone within the year. Also, it may be a small detail but Marshall & Lily are in the same place. No baby either..I had heard once that LAME might have a baby but I hope not since it would change the show dynamic a lot! Did you see anything else? Reading other items of interest in? It’s in my nature to search for these things, but I miss a lot. What did you see?

Finally…music. I loved Marshall’s happy Birthday Lily (Lori?) song…that guy cracks me up. But the French Rap song… just awful. Well placed, but it was so bad it was comical. Btw. It’s "Briques" by Les Cautionneurs . I can’t find the song for sale but it could be under a different name, I’ve left you the Amazon and iTunes band links above if you want to search and report back. I’m horrible at French and draw the line for listening to music at something that horrible where that combines the worst elements of rap and a language I don’t understand. Wewe? Bonjour.

I’ll do my regular roundup soon but for now, what did you think?

    I thought this episode was pretty well written and executed. I realize sometimes many reviews get really technical and overanalyze, but at the end of the day my recaps can be boiled down to 1 point. Did it make me laugh. And tonight it did.

    Ted was completely Ted tonight. His pursuit of Maggie was from start to finish caught up in who Ted is at heart. I loved the way he had her neighbor call him as soon as the window opened, and the moment when his class show their love for Architecture by all raising their hands because they really DO want to hear about it for an hour. Especially, when he realizes how cool Maggie’s love story was and decides (again) that’s really what he wants in his life.

   Marshall was phenomenal tonight. I echo a lot of his sentiments. I do still wish I could dunk a basketball. And the call backs are always good. Lily’s nymphomania is always brought up at the funniest moments.  The basketball court scene had to be one of my favorite Marshall and Lily moments of the series. The closing scene (what I call the Re-Return) was so very funny. I got really excited when I first noticed old Marshall in the background. Even then, the whole premise of the Marshall not fulfilling his original expectations and being the corporate sellout all being ok because of his love for his wife was great. I love how she really his his life. Maybe I’m just a softie for that kind of portrayal of marriage, becasue it’s true for a lot of us. I just love good Lily and Marshall subplots.

    Barney in the overalls and Robin’s frustration at not being able to keep Jim’s mind off of Maggie was played very well. Both had funny scenes. I’ll even admit that the writers had me at the end. I thought that Barney was really fixing to open up to Ted about “where he was” and how much he really did miss Robin and having a relationship…then, same old Barney. Very funny all over.

    I’m always curious if anyone else had some favorite lines or moments that I didn’t mention. If so leave them below. I also left a few unanswered (in my mind) questions below the jump…some people don’t like too may spoilers.

    What did everyone else think?

Moments of Awesomeness:

• Robin’s really bad joke about the movie Se7en was hilarious to me… “What’s in the box!?!”
• Vanilla Thunder, love that call back from the 1995 Slam Dunk champion (see The Possimpible for more info)
• M.A.G.G.I.E – make adjustments go get it energized. I so love that Ted ends up talking relationships with his whole architecture class. How Ted.
• Barney’s overall speech was so good. I suppose they are called overalls, thus you could wear them over all, not sure I could pull off the overall/suit look though.
• Did I mention that I loved the Re-Return? 

Mother Music (Check out the growing list of How I Met Your Mother Music):

• Grizzly Bear – Two Weeks (find it on Amazon or  ), plays near the end as Ted tells the second greatest love story he has ever heard
• Informer by Snow plays for 15 year old Marshall as he write the note to 30 year old Marshall (Amazon or )

Questions Raised:

• If Maggie’s story is the second greatest love story he had ever heard, who is number one? His? Marshall and Lily? Someone Else?… I’m just curious.
• Was that Wendy in the Re-Return? I miss Wendy.
• Would you ever be that desperate to take off overalls?
• Does Ted’s re-re-re-realization that he is ready to start chasing his forever girl mean anything or is is just another moment…

Legendary Lines:

Ted: I hate Barney Stinson.
Random female in NY:  Me too!

Barney: No one could get laid wearing these…ha ha… Challenge Accepted.

Barney: Ted, you have 10 minutes to get down here or the window is closing
Ted: 10 minutes
Barney: Yep, because we’re bro

Marshall: I barley grazed the bottom of the net and now my legs hurt so much I can’t even fall down.

Robin: He’s not telling you hello, he’s just telling you what he feeds his horsees.

The Re-Return:

Marashall writes another letter to his 60 year old self… and ask for a sign if time travel is possible in the future. He gives a date and time to show the sign.

Lilly comes up with some free wings that someone said were too hot.  Marshall adds to his letter, “Old Man Marshall, as long as you are still Married to Lily you’re doing just fine.”

Then we see it was Old Man Marshall from the future is at the bar.

• The slap on Thanksgiving again?
• Barney didn’t have many good moments this week, only cowering in fear…poor dude. I wouldn’t hang around for that.
• It’s nice to meet part of Lily’s family, and for Marshall and Lily to get some focus in the story

With this in mind what did everyone else think?

Moments of Awesomeness:

• “There is a clown demon under the bed” game…coming to a store near you
• The Re-return commercial
• the Erickson family dinner and video prayer
• Ted lying about still being in love with Robin so he can get the slap. It almost had me for a second.
• Loved the final scenes of  of the episode, they were the best laughs of the night. Still…what mental torture.

Legendary Lines:

Robin: I have never slapped Barney…above the waist.

Barney: This is basically Hell on Earth

The Re-Return:

The Slap Bet Game Commercial. A hilarious departure from the normal re-return, but in a great way.

    Tonight’s episode was pretty funny. And while, I think (or maybe I should say hope) that the writer’s haven’t finished with Robin and Barney, it appears they are trying to throw us that way…moving on. There was so many great things about this episode.  Mainly Barney tonight. You see kids, when a man is as funny, original and awesome…oh wait, I’m not old Ted. Either way, his plays and winks were hilarious. There were so many catchphrases that I can’t even count. Reminds me of last week (the rough patch) when he was in the fat suit (that most people hated) and randomly threw out the line “catchphrase” at the end of a sentence. And though I would have loved to seen the entire Lorenzo Von Matterhorn play, I thought the Scuba Diver was awesome. And I’m wondering if the playbook will make it’s self to the published world much like the Bro Code and Bro on the Go…

     I think in a way they are still working on Robin and Barney though. While Barney was definitely the focus of tonight, the Robin’s career focus subplot could either play a significant part (as indicated from the last scene), be a one off later in the season, or server as a segway back into the relationship. On the record, I think the last option is a long shot, but I still think it’s an option. The best thing that came from that in my opinion was the frozen waffles bit.

    So instead of the long drawn out commentary I’ll get straight to my favorite lines, moment and such. IF you think I left something great out then there is a great place to let me know in the comments section below. Overall for me, this was a really great episode with a ton of laughs, but enough about me, what did you think?

Legendary Lines:  

Barney: Correct! Circle gets a square!

Robin: My playbook? Bro… it’s a two volume set. Right here.
Ted: It’s a great read actually.

Marshall: Lawyered…of Nature!

Marshall: In that case, frozen waffles are…frozen waffles.

Robin: I will bang your heads together like coconuts.

Barney: And it…is…on.

Ted: For those of you keeping score, the Ted Mosby works!

Mother Music:

• Rondo Alla Turca by Mozart (the sequences from Barney’s Playbook)
• Nino Rota’s What Is A Youth from the 1968 film version of Romeo & Juliet  (Barney finally succeeds with "The He’s Not Coming" play)

Moments of Awesomeness:

• Frozen waffles, the whole gag (forshadowing?) of Ted & Marshall ribbing Robin about fining “the one” was great. Frozen waffles was the best though.
• All of Barney’s plays. And especially the wink after they work. What smorons.
• miltswanca’s
• Barney… period
• I love that Barney says Al-Qaeda stole the playbook.
• The twist ending to the Scuba diver. It was obvious where they were going, but still pretty funny to watch it play out.
• Lorenzo Von Matterhorn…in fact wikipedia did say this until they discovered it was part of the episode:

    Lorenzo Von Matterhorn was born somewhere in Switzerland in the spring of 1974. The exact date and circumstances of his birth are unknown since he was immediately placed in a basket and tossed in a river. Young Lorenzo rode the pristine Alpine glacial melt waters for hundreds of miles until a young Milanese woman discovered the basket along the banks of the river Po. Some say it was this first early journey to Milan that fueled both his love of exploration and fashion. The woman would raise Lorenzo as her own, naming him Lorenzo after her father and giving him the surname Von Matterhorn to reflect his Swiss heritage as well as his uncommonly large penis.

    Shortly after his family moved to New York City in the late 70’s, Lorenzo began rescuing stray puppies and other cute animals. As someone who had been abandoned himself, Lorenzo recognized both the pain of loneliness as well as the power of hope. One evening, while nursing a particularly cute Cocker Spaniel back to health, Lorenzo noticed the rest of his brood howling in unison. Curious as to their abilities, he spent the next several months developing their voices and then entered them as a musical act in a local festival under the name DOG STEVENS. They took first place, and went on to become one of the most successful animal musical acts since The Beatles.

Read more: Who The Heck Is Lorenzo Von Matterhorn? Don’t Ask Wikipedia…

The Re-Return:

Like I said earlier, the ending is quite intriguing and I don’t know where it will go… Ted and Barney try to convince Robin that the love of her life will walk through the door of MacLaurens. As each guy comes in she knows they are full of it… “The ironic part” is at work she meets Don.

Robin: Damnit Marshall

This was such a funny episode, or maybe I just enjoyed Barney’s line from above and the re-appearance of it. So many great lines, one offs and call backs. It really reminded me of so many of the really great episodes from Seasons past. I really thought everyone was at their best tonight. Lily was anti-annoying. And oh my Barney and Robin played their slightly changed characters well. Clearly, the fat guy and the old lady have never been who Robin and Barney were(are?) which could make this episode feel way out there and too far off. But I felt like it’s just Ted’s way of embellishing the facts to make a point. (Warning: Spoilers start here)

Now does this mean the Robin and Barney will never be right for each other like Ted & Robin or just a not now thing, working through the rough patch?…I take that thought a lot from Ted’s last statement. Then again , Robin does bring up the deal with Ted, but I think that more of a decoy and a red herring.

I will say it’ll will be nice to see Barney be more Barney again. One of the final scenes where “old” barney walks back in and turns the head of every hot chick in the bar, did make me cheer a bit, even though I wish they would have done more with B&R. In fact, my only criticism of this episode is how they ended B&R. Yes, you could see it coming, but still it’s like they are together and miserable, apart and happy and still cool with each other. I’ll reserve my complete judgment for now because who knows where they next few episodes will take us…just saying.

On the positive side, the Neil Young jokes were amazing. That was a great argument and needed to be done. And let’s talk about the stakeout. The Stormtrooper jokes, Ted’s porn jokes, Alan Thicke, Danger will Robinson, we needed a van, ( I could go on)…the point is it all worked so well.

I think this episode (and last) gave us some little things to look forward to. I do feel like we will see another slap sometime soon, and I take it from the re-return that we may get another Robin Sparkles moment… maybe not. But at very least I’m anxious to see where R&B end up by the end of the season. And who knows, we might even get some more mother clues.

That’s all I got, what did everyone else think?

Legendary Lines:

Barney:…Do not humanize the enemy Ted!…

Lily: Are you sure? I mean no biggie, we can just swing by the back alley and drop these off in the dumpster.
Marshall: I see six of the words you just said on this video label.

Barney (while eating wings): Sorry Ted. I’m my own wing man tonight.

Marshall: We have two alpha dogs in our relationship.
Lily: Sure we do sweetie.

Ted: Ok, now yours just quoting the video…were you in that video, were you the guy with the farmer tan?

Marshall:  Ok Barney’s ordering…five of something.

Old Ted: That was the moment we learned that relationships are hard work, but eventually everything will work out…and that was the moment we unlearned that other lesson we had just learned a few seconds earlier.

Barney: I’m not happy, I wish I was, nothing would make me happier than being happy…

Mother Music:

• Murder Train by the Foreskins (it was composed for the show but I’m begging them to release it!) – plays during Lily’s planned fight of Barney & Robin
• the Peter Gun Theme  by Henry Mancini – Barney walks into the bar as all the women eye him and proclaims, “Daddy’s home”
• I also noticed a short instrumental while the plotter watch B&R from the station wagon. Getting more info!

Moments of Awesomeness:

• Barney’s Help message recorded over “Archisexture” because he knew Ted would watch it, and let Marshall watch it too…btw, was I the only one expecting a reference to Ted Mosby the sex architect on that movie?
• Legen, wait for it…. dsofthefall. Legends of the fall! (an no  it was not OK. LOF sucked)
• Murder Train
• Lily as a diabolical planner was great and their arguments… Star Wars, Old Girlfriends, Dirty Dishes and the Canadian/American War!. Well played.
• The was Ted sensors and exaggerated the story to the kids. “They only let themselves go a little bit, but to use they seemed like this”… well that and Porn is vile and bad into his tripping story.
• Marshall’s favorite 70’s t.v. show, The fat guy and the old lady.
• “Catchphrase” . Probably one of my favorite moments is when Barney is talking and Robin is sitting there with her fingers in her ears saying, “Shutup, shutup,shutup,….”
• The station wagon scene was LEGENDARY! That kid of back and forth comedy is amazing and HIMYM can do it so well, they just don’t always do it.

The Re-Return:

Alan Thicke and Robin say goodbye, and he lets’ it slip that he and Robin were also in a failed Canadian T.V. variety show, which he mentions would be quite embarrassing.