How I Met Your Mother - 7x16 - The Drunk Train

...wait, what? What the hell is going on here? No, really. I can't tell anymore. Are we bravely forging forward to daring new story lines, or cynically sliding backwards into tired tropes? After the Rebound Girl/Symphony backsies, I can't really work up the effort to try and figure it out. So, I guess I'm just along for the ride from now on. No longer getting my hopes up, but still utterly, helplessly confused. I knew if I did this long enough, my sex life and my TV viewing would start to intermingle...

That doesn't mean I can't appreciate the intermittent courage that seeps through. If anything it's obvious that, for some reason, TPTB are have decided this is the year to throw crazy shit at the wall and see what sticks. Perhaps not coincidentally, it seems this is also The Season of Robin, for better and worse (that is to say, better for us, worse for her). Almost every major emotional high and low point (mostly low) is her, and this ep is no exception.

Not unlike this, but replace the hot girl with a homeless guy
and the cup was filled with -- you know what, never mind.

So, Barney and Ted keep trying their hand at the Drunk Train, a combination last train of the night and Last Call at roughly 45mph. I can't speak to the existence of a Drunk Train, but I can tell you the Drunk Ferry I spent many years on was nothing like that. I mean, it was somewhat littered with drunken Jersey Shore rejects (before there was a Jersey Shore) from stem to stern, but the clientele was mostly somber drunks, from all walks, depressed and tired, schlepping home. It was fun people watching. As long as you didn't make eye contact. Also the Drunk Boat was really, really tiny. I love tiny boats.

Pictured: Shakespeare and Crack's research lab after
watching this episode.

Anyway, Barney and Ted keep striking out until they Beautiful Mind that in order to make the Drunk Train work for them, they need to be drunk as well. I won't comment on needing to lose a couple hundred brain cells to converse with drunk guidos, but I will ask where the hell they found a marker board at Marshall and Lily's house? Regardless, it's a moot discovery because just as they are finally about to score, Barney sabotages their game because it turns out he's secretly in love with this other girl, Quinn.

Who? Already? Another girl? What? See, a few nights before the Drunk Train, Ted spent three hours pretending everything this girl he just met said was fascinating (a hilarious gag, albeit uncomfortably familiar, ahem), and Barney got stuck babysitting her friend Quinn, getting insulted and shot down the entire time.

To be fair, this is a completely different shade of pink
lighting than at The Lusty Leopard

Quinn reads Barney like an open book and won't let him get away with anything. I mean, she does end up sleeping with him, but otherwise she dismantles every one of his lame ass come ons and drops some damning pop-psych bombs. And of course, he finds this alluring and fascinating, as any sitcom lothario is wont to do. But it turns out the reason she seems to know him so well is because she actually does. She's a stripper at Barney's favorite strip club, and they see each other all the time. He has apparently not realized this yet.

I don't know, I think I'd probably find this all sweet and cute, but after the whole Nora-Robin-Baby Fever roller coaster, I think I'm just Stinson-Emotional-Epiphany-ied out. I can't invest in this anymore, man. It just seems way too soon after Nora/Robin. It makes sense on a certain level. You can probably draw a straight line between his first relationship with Robin to Nora and back to Robin, and curve it into a character arc charting his emotional maturity, but it still rings false.

I think a big part of it is that it feels like too little too late. I remember being pissed that Barney did not at all mourn the end of his first relationship with Robin. The fact that he went straight to sociopathic bullshit like The Playbook, while Robin visibly suffered made me lose all faith in the ability of Barney to be redeemed as a human being. Now that they're arguably doing a Barney Emotional Arc right, I just can't bring myself to care.

Also, while I'm sure there's a great Barney joke about him never looking a stripper in the face, I can't help but be skeeved by the fact that he apparently literally never looked a stripper in the face and can't recognize her after spending the night with her. Ugh.

I wonder what percentage of proposals are met with that
panicked, deer-in-headlights stare.

So while all this is going on, LilyMarshall and RobinKevin spent the weekend at one of those cutesy bed and breakfast's that I cannot possibly believe are ANY fun at all. There's some bullshit joke about how Marshall and Lily's relationship is so successful because they never keep score but they secretly do and SNORE. No, the real SHIT, as it were, happens when Kevin busts out an engagement ring. Yes, less than six months into this weirdly creepy, chemically inert relationship he's proposing. They're happy for about five minutes, until she decides to act like a grown-up and remphasize the Kids situation. See, it's not just that she can't have kids, it's that she doesn't WANT kids. So there is literally no chance of them having children if they get married. Somewhat understandably, Kevin unproposes, and leaves Robin an absolute wreck.

She cries into Ted's arms, and he takes the opportunity to tell his emotionally vulnerable, ex-girlfriend, and current roomate that he loves her. He'll marry her. He doesn't care about kids. He wants to be with her.

Seriously Ted, has anything good for you ever happened on that roof?

Yeah, that happened.

I'm glad they're trying stuff. I love that they keep trying to shake out of their comfort zone. But god damn it, if you're going to do it, commit. No more fake outs, no more quarantining lifetime milestones into very special episodes. Really go for it. You have a straight line from here to the season finale. SPRINT, you fuckers. Just sprint. I'm begging you.