Ted and Robin are flustered to find out their upstairs neighbors are always having sex…err bagpipes as future Ted calls it.  Ted goes upstairs to discover they’re old and can’t tell them to stop, cause, hey, good for them!

Meanwhile, Barney reveals that he’s never had a fight with Robin and convinces Marshall to stand up to Lily and stop cleaning up the dishes after himself.  Using an elaborate speech and a horribly misogynistic dream sequence in which he makes out with Lily, the plan sounds pretty good to us too.  Marshall goes for it, completely butchers the speech (would it have mattered anyway?), and ends up in a multi-day fight with Lily.

With tactics like that, Ted is convinces there’s no way Robin and Barney aren’t fighting.  Inspired by his own bagpiping problem, Ted finds out from Barney’s downstairs neighbor that the two are fighting all the time.  Apparently everything worked with Barney’s “walk out of the room” and Robin’s “get naked” strategies until they were trapped on a ski lift where neither could employ their trick.  After that, the fight snowballed into every problem they’ve ever had.  They eventually come to Lily and Marshall for advice and soon our favorite married couple realize how small their problems are, make up, and celebrate with some champagne that they’re still the best couple.  Oh and they do a little bagpiping too.

Don’t worry, Ted and Robin work it out, but just have to deal with the fact that maybe not everything is a competition.  They don’t have to be the best couple…

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It turns out Robin, still a Canadian citizen, may be getting deported back to Canada when the guy from a bar fight she got into is pressing charges.  Turns out there’s a citizens test offered tomorrow and Barney is not willing to let his girlfriend get shipped back to Canada without a fight.  While Robin is already prepped on the actual facts for the exam (Presidents, Bill of Rights, etc), Barney decides to focus on taking the Canadian out of her and making her act American by teaching her such important things as forgetting about the Queen and learning Jim Varney, the comic genius responsible for the Ernest series.

After completing her training, Robin stops for one last beer at her Canadian bar, Hoser’s, and ends up on a Canadian bender that ends up with her going to a Brian Adams concert and passing out in a hotel in Toronto.  Barney “flies across the Atlantic” to rescue her and she initially doesn’t want to come back.  He takes her for some coffee at a Tim Horton’s where the cashier calls her American.  To put Robin in a better mood, Barney gives a negative speech about Canadian and gets his butt whooped.  After some free hospital care, Robin takes Barney back to America and decides she’s a little Canadian and a little American…dual citizenship time!

Meanwhile, Ted and Marshall get word that their favorite, disgusting pizza place, Gazola’s in Chicago is shutting down.  They apparently used to road trip there all the time in college and decide to do it one last time.  Ted is really looking forward to some alone time with Marshall, but is shocked to see he invited Lily.  No problem, they hey load up on cans of Tantrum, their classic road tripping energy drink and start.. until they have to stop in the first five minutes for Lily to pee.  

It gets worse when Marshall pulls over to stay in a bed and breakfast for the night.  While there, and maybe it’s just the Tantrum messing with his head, Ted sees Marshall and Lily morph into a singlular blob.  Ted tricks Marshall into thinking they’re going out for beers and kidnaps him in his robe and all and they head to Chicago, leaving Lily behind.  They get there, have the awful pizza, but Marshall feels so guilty, still unable to reach Lily by phone, he wants to head back mid-slice.  They get back to find out Lily was so comotose from all her spa treatments she didn’t even realize the boys left her.

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This week, Lily and Marshall experience relationship woes — not with each other, but with Robin and Barney, who are the latest couple in a string of potential double dates. Meanwhile, Ted tries to prove to Barney that the “college professor” look works on girls.

Future Ted voiceovers that once he became a college professor, he decided to update his look — by wearing tweed, or the “textile of the eunuchs,” as Barney snarks. Ted says that the ladies dig the professor look. Robin agrees, saying that her 10th-grade math teacher was sexy. But he’s in jail now. For tax evasion. (Among other things.)

Lily changes the subject by inviting Robin and Barney to a couples’ night. Future Ted tells us that since Marshall and Lily had been the only married couple for years, they’d been on the hunt for a couple to double date with. A flashback with shoddy continuity shows Lily and Marshall hosting a variety of couples’ nights at their place (including Ranjit and his wife) — and scaring away all their potential new friends by being overeager and more than a little creepy. So of course they’re thrilled that two of their best friends are now a couple. But Future Ted warns that Barney and Robin have no idea what they’re in for.

(Sketchy continuity note — the first flashback says “2007,” but as far as I recall, Marshall and Lily weren’t living in Dowisetrepla at any point in 2007. They bought the place toward the end of the year, but they didn’t officially move in until an early point in Season 4. This show is normally so good with its continuity that goofs like this bug me. Hopefully they’ll fix it for the Season 5 DVD?)

Flash-forward to Marshall and Lily frantically readying their apartment for their date with Barney and Robin. They plan cocktails, appetizers, and Marshall boasts that he has a great anecdote ready to go. The doorbell rings. Lily greets Barney and Robin, while an overly enthusiastic Marshall offers them a tray of Gouda.

Back at MacLaren’s, Ted tries his professor moves on a girl at the bar. She asks him if grading papers is difficult, and Ted replies, “No, you just gotta make it fun. For example, every time I spot a grammatical error, I do a shot. I’m trashed right now, and I blame our public school system.” The girl coyly responds with, “So… you live upstairs?”

Meanwhile, Robin and Barney leave Marshall and Lily’s place. As the door closes, Lily turns to Marshall with a huge grin on her face, and squeals, “Nailed it!” “Best night ever!” Marshall agrees. But out in the hallway, things don’t seem as sunny. “Worst night ever,” grumbles Barney. Robin pretends to shoot herself in the head, and Barney hilariously mimes wiping his face of the aftermath.

The next morning, Barney and Robin regale Ted with the horror that was the date with Marshall and Lily. “It was like we were on a date with a sad chubby girl our mom made us call,” says Barney. Robin chimes in that Marshall and Lily were obviously nervous, to the point where they weren’t even making sense. Plus, they kept trying to get Barney and Robin to eat, even though they had eaten a couple of ill-advised tacos before coming over. Ted asks if Marshall was weird about the cheese, and mentions that while Lily is the gourmet cook, the only thing Marshall is entrusted to handle is the cheese. Heh, poor Marshall. Plus, they freaked out whenever something went wrong, even something as little as the egg timer breaking.

Ted tries to stick up for Lily and Marshall, pointing out that they’ve been looking for couple best friends for a long time. “I’m sure it wasn’t that bad,” he says. Barney proves him wrong by showing him a website Marshall made after their evening was over. Ted takes the laptop and queues up a video montage of Marshall and Lily clearly having an awesome time while Barney and Robin look obviously uncomfortable. Marshall ends the montage by inviting them out again. “Oh, that’s no good,” says Ted. He asks why the two couples had such vastly different opinions on how the evening went. It turns out Barney and Robin gave them the fake “This was so much fun, we should do it again” kiss-off that single people do after a bad date. On cue, the girl from the bar exits Ted’s room, gives him the exact same spiel, and lets herself out. Ted slyly reveals that the professor look worked. Well, except that she ended up falling asleep on the couch instead of hooking up with him. Barney gleefully exclaims that Ted has become The Sexless Innkeeper. What is The Sexless Innkeeper, you ask? It’s a trick Barney has used in the past to crash for the night — basically “banging for roof,” but without the sex. Barney even wrote a poem about his experience, which I’ve captured verbatim for your reading pleasure:

‘Twas the night before New Year’s, and the weather grew mean
‘Twas 3 in the morning, and I was stranded in Queens
The tavern grew empty, the gaslights grew dim
The horse-drawn carriages were all but snowed in.

Ted interrupts at this point to ask why Barney’s narration sounds (and looks, to us) like it’s straight out of Oliver Twist. Barney replies, “Ted, it’s a poem.”

Last call was approaching, and my fortunes looked bleak
Then I turned to my left, and stifled a shriek!
She had a peach-fuzz beard and weighed 16 stone
She gobbled up hot wings and swallowed the bones.
I muffled a scream and threw up in my mouth
I asked, “Where do you live?” And she said, “One block south.”
I swallowed my pride and six shots of whiskey
And prayed to the Gods that she wasn’t too frisky.
Back in her cave, she prepared us a snack.
‘Neath her mighty hooves, the floorboards did crack.
But when she returned, she found a sound sleeper
And thus, she became The Sexless Innkeeper.

“And so are you,” Barney finishes, grinning at Ted. Ted vehemently disagrees, but Barney is resolute in his belief that the girl from the bar had no intention of sleeping with Ted. Robin notes that this is ironic, since “it’s usually the innkeeper who provides turn-down service.”

Later, at the bar, Lily excitedly tells Barney and Robin that they’ve booked a couples’ weekend in Vermont for maple syrup season. Barney and Robin decide that it’s time to break up with them. Barney tries to give them an outlandish story usually reserved for one-night stands, this one involving an expedition to find alien life forms living at the bottom of the ocean. Marshall, of course, thinks this is really cool, but Lily sees right through it. “All this couple-y stuff, it’s just not us,” Robin tells them. Lily and Marshall storm out, but not before Marshall hits Barney and Robin with a zinger: “I hope those underwater life forms are cold-blooded, because then you’ll get along just fine.”

Lily and Marshall go back to their place to cry and wallow in post-breakup misery. “I thought we did everything right,” Lily says. Marshall agrees, but then reveals that he sent them a photo montage. Future Ted explains that Marshall had been going overboard with the photo montages recently, flooding his friends’ inboxes with montages documenting mundane everyday life (although the cat-sitting that segued into a cat funeral got a huge laugh in my living room). “You have to stop sending those to people!” Lily exclaims.

Later, at MacLaren’s, Ted points out that Barney and Robin need to apologize to Lily and Marshall. So they head over to Dowisetrepla. But they’re too late — Marshall and Lily are already on a very successful date with a new couple.

A few days later, Robin and Barney are having a drink at MacLaren’s when Lily and Marshall enter. Things get awkward when they say they can’t sit with Barney and Robin because they’re on a date with the new couple. And Barney and Robin can’t join them because they’d just end up being a fifth and sixth wheel. Plus, Marshall and Lily are getting ready to go for a boat ride around the city with the new couple. “Wow, sounds like this is getting pretty serious,” Robin responds unhappily.

Cue a montage of Barney and Robin walking sadly by other fun-loving foursomes (while “All by Myself” plays in the background) as they realize what they’re missing by not spending time with Marshall and Lily. Ted walks in on them at the apartment… only unlike in previous walk-ins, they’re not making out. Instead, they’re drowning their sorrows with ice cream and potato chips. Ted sits down to explain their problem. “You’re a couple,” he counsels. “And no matter how hard you try to fight it, couples need other couples. That’s why you miss Marshall and Lily.” So Barney and Robin resolve to win the other couple back.

At Dowisetrepla, Marshall and Lily have just wrapped up a mean game of Twister with the new couple when there’s a knock at their door. They open the door to find a path of egg timers, which lead outside to where Robin and Barney are waiting, in the rain (!). And in a very cute moment that parodies every romantic comedy ever written (and a few episodes of this series), Barney and Robin apologize to Marshall and Lily, and the foursome reconcile.

Finally, back at Ted and Robin’s apartment, Ted has written a poem that he shares with Barney:

‘Twas the night before this one, and hours to kill
I sat in the tavern, grading parchments with quill
A busty young lassie flashed me a grin
Her guard said “classy,” but her eyes whispered “sin.”
She said, “You’re a teacher?” I said, “Yes, indeed!”
“I must have you!” she moaned, “I’m turned on by tweed!”
With haste we did scamper to my chamber anon,
We fell to the couch, and bro, it was on.
I unlaced her bodice, our passions grew deeper,
And thus ends the tale of The Sexless Innkeeper.

Barney scoffs and says that Ted made that up… until a hot girl exits Ted’s room and asks the “professor” if he’s coming back to bed. “I love being single!” Ted says. Just then, Robin comes out of her bedroom and asks Barney if he’s ready to go to brunch with Marshall and Lily. Wide-eyed, Barney watches Ted go back into his room as it finally registers that he’s become the “Ted” of their gang — tied down with a steady girlfriend while his best friend hooks up with random hot girls. “What have I done?” he gasps.

So what did you guys think? I know it was a filler episode, but as a whole, I wasn’t really feeling this one. I liked Marshall and Lily better when they weren’t really into the whole couples-nights thing, so that entire plot line didn’t work for me. I wish they could have devoted more time to Ted’s storyline, which I found to be much funnier. I did love the songs that went with the photo montages, the poems, and the shout-out to brunch as a “couple” activity. Plus, any episode with a Ranjit appearance can’t be all bad. Sound off with your thoughts in the comments!

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[Source: tvguide.com]

Fans of Barney and Robin can be happy to know that the show pretty much jumped right into discussing their relationship. We learn that despite trying to hide things from the overjoyed Lily, Barney and Robin have been having a secret relationship all summer. However, the two of them have been trying to avoid defining their relationship, hence hiding it from Lily. However, when Lily finds out, she’s determined to force the two to have the talk.

However, Barney is not willing to until Brad (the occasionally recurring friend of Marshall) asks Robin on a date and without the girlfriend title she has no excuse to turn him down. However, Barney shows up at their hockey date and ends up punching Brad! When the two return home, they end up being locked in a room by Lily and Marshall, until they define their relationship. They end up lying and calling each other boyfriend and girlfriend in order to get Lily to let them out. However, the two end the episode by heading to brunch (violating one of Barney’s rules of keeping a girl from becoming your girlfirned), and holding hands. All together now…. awww.

Meanwhile, Ted was preparing for his first day of teaching Architecture 101. He was nervous and trying to decide how to teach the class and ended up in the wrong room teaching in front of an Econ class. He eventually made it to the right classroom ten minutes late and ended up just being a professor and not worrying about style as much as the material. Apparently the mother was in that classroom… so did they mean Econ or Architecture 101? Guess we’ll have to wait and see. Bastards.

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We pick up from last week’s episode as Ted runs into his ex-fiancee, Stella, at the corner. It turns out Stella is actually with Tony (who she left Ted for). Ted plays it cool, but later fantasizes about Stella coming over later. Instead, he’s surprised to actually hear his door knocking… but it’s Tony. Tony has been riddled with guilt ever since he stole Stella at the alter and thought Ted looked sad during their encounter. His family has money and he’s willing to do whatever it takes to make it up to Ted.



Tony starts off by offering Ted a job as a professor of Architecture at Columbia, which he turns down. Tony then lands Ted an extremely high paying job to design a “murder house” for a rich guy. Ted seems unwilling to design a murder house for some reason. He tells Tony to stop worrying, he did him a favor. Who wants to be with a woman that leaves a man at the alter anyways? Apparently those words hit Tony hard, because Stella next shows up at Ted’s door. Tony left her and she wants Ted to talk Tony into coming back.

Meanwhile, Barney got a speeding ticket and when the whole gang tells their stories of how they got out of tickets, Barney is convinced he can do the same. He repeatedly speeds in order to get pulled over to try and get out of tickets. After many failures, he gets pulled over by a woman that he’s convinced he can get out of the ticket with. Barney ends up getting arrested and makes his one phone call to Ted.

Ted receives the phone call while standing with Stella and agrees to talk to Tony if she gives him a ride to bail out Barney. After doing so, Stella convinces Ted that the woman meant for him is on her way to him as fast as she can.

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Mosbius Designs is up and running. Well, kind of. Ted’s architectural firm has an assistant but no clients. The best thing about this week’s episode, though, is now there is only one person who doesn’t know about the whole Barney loving Robin thing and that person is Robin. Seriously, she has to find out this season.

Robin is nice enough to let Ted use the apartment as his office to get started. Only one small problem, he isn’t getting started. She keeps nagging him to call clients, to get work but all he does is pick out “the official pen of Mosbius Designs” and work on the brochure. Yes, he even goes so far as to hire an assistant. There’s no mention of this assistant is paid but I think it’s more of an internship type thing. And don’t worry about the assistant being the mother because it’s a guy and he ends up sleeping with Robin, not Ted.

I mean, she’s home all day with him so there was bound to be some attraction. That also means that he’s not as committed to Ted anymore so Ted fires him. The kid accidentally put a picture of Robin and him on the cover of the brochure. That’s a pretty friable offense. Without a job, though, the kid isn’t quite as attractive so Robin dumps him and Ted rehires him. This continues for a bit and the whole time, Barney is freaking out.

He wants to talk to Lily but she’s been missing from action for quite a while because Barney told her this joke about peanut butter and jam. No, they didn’t actually say the joke so if anyone knows it, I would love to know what Lily would take so much offense to that she wouldn’t hang out with Barney anymore. I mean, this guy has done some things a lot of women would be offended by (except he’s hilarious, not to mention awesome, and so it’s okay). It’s so frustrating but whatever. Barney ends up having to talk to Marshall about the problem and while Barney thinks he’s doing some big reveal, Lily already told Marshall everything. I’ve been told that’s what married people do.

Marshall wants to help but he’s so preoccupied with trying to keep his job that his mind is kind of frazzled. There have been tons of lay-offs at GNB and Marshall works hard but still isn’t noticed. Barney tells him he has to get a thing so people will like him more. They have a food guy and a toy guy and so on, all guys who are expendable but who are loved by their peers because of the things they offer. Marshall doesn’t have a thing and therefore he is expendable. At least he was until he became….Sports Guy. He runs a fantasy baseball league, which for some reason involves him carrying around a very real 18,000 dollars in cash. Who knew in a fantasy league you used real money? Apparently Marshall didn’t know because he’s losing his mind between his actual work and his “sports guy” work. There is one ingenious solution, though.

Marshall hires Ted’s assistant to take over his sports stuff so Robin isn’t sleeping with him anymore, Barney is back to pining, and Marshall keep his job and still be sports guy. Wins all around. Ted even called a client and stopped being afraid of failure. Don’t you just love when everything works out in the end and characters actually evolve? Me too.

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Is there anything worse than finding out that your friends hate something about you while you remained oblivious to the whole thing?  Good thing on How I Met Your Mother, there’s interventions.  Their first intervention came when they attended their friend Stuart’s birthday party, which actually ended up being a meeting to get him to quit drinking.  Ted and his friends took it from there, staging interventions every time they didn’t like something someone in the group did from Marshall wearing a tall hat to Lily’s fake British accent to Robin’s spray tan obsession.  None were ever too serious though, until the day that Ted came across an intervention banner and letter addressed to him, regarding his friends’ strong feelings that he shouldn’t rush into marriage with Stella.

I should mention, before continuing tonight’s recap, that once again Neil Patrick Harris stole the episode.  His intervention, in which his friends wanted him to stop using magic tricks involving fire, was laugh out loud funny.  He also spent most of the episode in an old many costume, in an attempt to prove to his friends that he could sleep with a 22 year old, even though he looked 83.

Moving on…

So one might think that this anti-marriage intervention would make Ted angry but instead, it validates all the fears he’s been having and he decides that he doesn’t want to leave Manhattan after all.  He literally begins unpacking his boxes and putting things away.  This prompts Marshall and Lily to unpack THEIR things, feeling that their best times have been in this apartment.  Who would want to live in a place with crooked floors near a sewage plant anyway?  Just when you think that Robin won’t crack, she does and decides that she can’t go to Japan after all for her news anchor job.

The four head down to the bar to celebrate when they witness a disturbing site: old Barney making out with a hot young French woman.  Ted delivers an inspirational speech telling everyone that they SHOULD move on with their lives and one year from tonight, meet up again and celebrate with a $2500 bottle of scotch, the most expensive item on the shelf.  They do reconvene one year later but it seems that even though their lives have changed, the friends are still in Manhattan and in each other’s lives full time.

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