How I Met Your Mother - 7x03 - Ducky Tie

So what do you know: Victoria. Didn't see that coming! This week we tie up some threads I didn't even realize were loose, and pull at some others I never thought they'd get around to trying. And yet, how could they not? So we follow Ted as he tries to make up for his philandering ways back in Season 1, gains a little insight and knowledge about his past and future along the way, and still manages to be the only cast member on this show not to have seen Lily's boobs. For shame Ted. Consider it punishment for cheating on the nauseatingly adorable cupcake lady.




I love episodes that play fast and loose with the timeline. Of course, they also make it hard as hell to figure out how to summarize. So I'd love to say "We pick up where we left off last week", except we technically don't. We open the episode an indeterminate amount of time later at MacClaren's at the usual table with the gang, where TED, in turn, picks up where WE left off last week: spotting Victoria putting out cupcakes for the Architect's Ball, and Ted somewhat silently freaking out.

A brief Rashomon interlude between Ted and Robin gives us enough extremes on what happened next to synthesize a probable middle course, though I personally love to think that Robin's reaction to running into Victoria was exactly as Ted described, complete with overly elaborate "water under the bridge" pantomime. This is why I love Cobie Smulders people. They give her and Robin the most humiliating moments to act out in front of the entire world, and she just dives right into them with full gusto. No shame. I love that.

He literally just finished claiming his conscience is now
as clean as those dishes. Anyone ever tell you what a
cockpunch is, Ted?

Anyway, Ted apologizes straight off the bat for his unforgiveable behavior wayy back in "Nothing Good Happens After 2AM" (And Marshall, I don't appreciate being made to feel old by pointing out how long ago that was). For her part Victoria seems to appreciate it and is cool. She mentions that she has to leave early because her assistant isn't around to wash all the cake pans and she has to leave early in the morning. In what has to be the LAMEST attempt to make up for lying and infidelity I've seen since Bill gave Hillary a box of Cubans (hey-oo! This is timely stuff here people. I haven't watched the news since 1997), Ted offers to wash her dishes to make up for CHEATING ON HER.

I mean, to his credit, he pretty much admits it's a lame gesture, but Victoria seems cool with it, and takes him back to The Buttercup Bakery to wash dishes and have flirty talk. Things are going well until they attempt that ridiculous "drumroll" non-kissing thing, and totally end up making out. Victoria pulls out and bomb-drops that she's engaged. Sort of. Almost engaged. Whatever, the gist is, she's super-taken. They hash out a will they-or-won't they thing, and she ultimately decides to go back to her Le French Beau. Who she met while she was in Paris. While she was going out with Ted. And waited a whole two days after breaking up with Ted to hook up with. It's not remotely the same thing as what Ted did, but I did like that they let us know that the long-distance thing was pretty hard on her too.

Ted takes her to the bus, and they say goodbye, but not before Victoria lays down some hard truth's y'all: this thing with Robin and Ted and Barney all hanging out and being bestest friends? Totally weird and a powderkeg. Basically, she's saying they're all idiots and all but saying that, at the very least, Ted is still in love with Robin. FutureTed, with the help of hindsight, pretty much confirms it.

They're all each other's mole buddies

Pictured: a 12th-level intelligence

This entire saga is continually interupted by the "present"/framing story, wherein Marshall and Lily may or may not be caught in a elaborate, multi-layered scheme of Barney's to see and/or feel Lily's pregnancy-enhanced boobage, via an intricate combination of Hibachi challenges, secret plants, and Pavlovian conditioning. In the end, Marshall and Lily manage to "win" by flashing Barney, mid shrimp-toss, causing him to forfeit his claim on a technicality. I'm not entire sure that was winning guys. He still got to see the boobs, though not touch them. Dude was playing a Xanatos Gambit the entire episode. I wouldn't be surprised having to wear the Ducky Tie all year as punishment for losing wasn't all part of a larger plan. You can never trust that "sooneofabeach!".

--

I kind of appreciated returning to the Victoria storyline, even if for only an episode. The show never shied away from showing that what Ted did was deplorable, but I guess it was also nice to know that Victoria got a happy ending after all. And if anyone was in a position to point out how emotionally dangerous their little threesome arrangement is, I guess it was the woman who first got hurt by Ted's attachment for Robin.

After the whole "I'm mad at Barney, but not at Robin" debacle...and the one-episode "No, I want Robin"/"No I want her!" relapse in Twin Beds (ohhh! that's what that episode was about!), I kind of assumed they writers wouldn't go back to that well. Most sitcoms don't like to spend a lot of time expressly pointing out how weirdly incestuous the cast relations are, so it's nice that the HIMYM producers are trying to take a more realistic tack on this unspoken elephant in the room. I mean, dude, it's WEIRD. It's not like any of them had a casual relationship. They were all madly in love. Well I mean, the guys were in love with Robin. And Robin was in love with them. And it's pretty obvious Barney's in love with Ted. I'm not entirely sure what kind of a geometric-shape that would be, but it's weird.

Add this to the "Barney's mystery bride" and the "Robin's secretly back in love with Barney" piles, and we've got the makings of a legendary emotional and social meltdown. Maybe. It's still a sitcom. And one that's often not as risk-prone as one might hope. But the foundations are there, which is more than most shows.

That reminds me, no mention of Nora?