Holy balls, yes! Shit is STILL getting real! Said shit is getting real at such a pace that the function of Real Getting plotted versus time is reaching an asymptotic curve! What I'm saying is, we're about thirty paces from officially being Balls To The Wall here. I mean, we are in
serious danger of veering into latter day
Friends territory here (and I don't think anyone wants to see that happen), but I am just so happy this show has finally decided to get up off it's ass and stop treading water. It's been like four seasons of nothing new happening, and in the span of three episodes everything's changed! Okay, producer dudes, don't break my heart here. Pull this off. Don't punt, don't drop the ball, don't
Friends this okay? Make me proud here!
I gotta say, this totally looked like another throwaway/filler episode, albeit an enjoyable one. A little Thanksgiving hijinks to lighten the mood and ease us through the winter break. I had been hoping for some immediate follow-up to Ted's ominous and inscrutable facial expression at the end of last episode, but was satisfied with their apparent untarnished Bro-hood this episode, especially since it leads to one of the most fucked up and brilliant ideas in this show's history: Ted and Barney decide to Bro-dopt a child and raise him together. But in a totally straight way.
 |
"I'm just saying I want to have really hot, sweaty sex with
you. Don't turn this into something gay. No homo." |
Now first of all, maybe I've spent WAY too much time online, but is there anyway that ENTIRE conversation was not specifically written to tickle
HoYay hearts everywhere? They talk about how they're the only lasting relationship in each other's lives, how they would totally be each other's first calls if they were gay, waxing about how girls are yucky and guys are awesome... I had to give that entire exchange the
slow clap. I mean, say what you will about the
predominance of bigots in so-called polite society today, but this is probably the first mainstream network sitcom that just went so out of their way to appease a demographic that seems to get little to no direct acknowledgement. It seems like
every show out there has a female character with barely veiled lesbian leanings, so it's nice to see the other half of the fandom get a little something for their trouble.
 |
That's when Ted knew all their jokes about Barney being
required to stay 500 feet from a school zone weren't really
funny anymore. |
Anyway, so yeah, Ted and Barney get super drunk and decide to adopt and raise a child together. Except they still think it's a good idea when they sober up. At least until Barney starts talking about pet cobras and banging the three nannies and...juggling the child? SagetTed was voiceovering during that part, but I can't imagine it was anything else. So after realizing that Barney is the absolute worst person ever to entrust with a child, Ted tries to get out of it, despite him and Barney having filled out an entire 1/654th of an online application form. Barney's not taking no for an answer, and shows up the next day with a baby in tow. Now, where he got the baby, why he has a baby, anything relating to the origin of the damn baby, takes a back seat in Ted's brain when he realizes how many hot women come swarming all over them because of the little tot (to Barney's credit, he does take care of the "we're raising him together, but are straight and single, ladies" thing right off the bat,
something two other smooth operators could've learned from). So they take the baby with them to Marshall and Lily's house in Long Island for Thanksgiving.
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He's like those teleporting car insurance agents, but the
pay's a lot better. |
Say whaaa? (I imagine you saying). Yeah, turns out that Lily and Marshall are once
again having second thoughts about selling her grandparents house. You know, this entire plot just made me double down on my theory that
The Slutty Pumpkin Returns was a hastily put together rush job. If you flush the idiotic "pregnancy brain" plot, you could easily have inserted the scene of Lily's grandparents giving them the house at the beginning of this episode and lost absolutely nothing of consequence. Anyway, spurred by how relatively (and, thanks to SagetTed's unreliable narrator, awesomely literally) smaller their Dowistrepla apartment seems compared to the house, Lily and Marshall decide to have Thanksgiving there, and, after a hilariously literal sign from the universe appears, pretty much just move there. Seriously, the only thing that would have made Clyde-the-rich-neighbors-offer to buy their apartment better was if he'd been named Uri Verse. It's French. Also? That extended joke where Marshall swears the universe was telling him he should become a Ghostbuster? So much love. Maybe it's because I will still swear on a stack of Bibles I saw a fully outfitted Ecto-1 driving down the West Side Highway a few years ago, maybe because it absolutely breaks my heart that that firehouse really is for sale, but man, I feel for you Marshall. Give me a call if you ever decide to follow that dream. Also, maybe ask Ernie Hudson if he's doing anything.
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| Single. Manly. Tear. |
So who's not happy about this whole moving thing? Robin. Absolutely incredulous that they would find their ginomous apartment too small, and shocked that they'd choose to live in "
Brooklyn's fart trail" where they can't even get a bootleg VHS tape at three in the morning, she spends the entire episode trying to convince them to stay. Ultimately, her trump card is...locking herself in the first available bathroom in the house until they decide not to move. That doesn't quite work out, and for the most part everyone ignores her, though Marshall does have a rather touching moment with her through the bathroom window. Those two don't get enough plots together. Whenever they do, we get magic like Little Minnesota. Of course, we also get random shit like that mermaid plot, so maybe a little goes a long way. Smulders reminds me why she's my favorite actress on this show (sorry, Willow) this entire episode. Her incredulous reaction is exactly what I'm like whenever I have this conversation with people, but she suffuses it with just enough sorrow that you know there's more going on. It's not terribly obvious, and let's face it, everyone looks sorrowful eating a cheese plate on the toilet by themselves, but it's there. And naturally we assume it's because she feels bad about Barney but...well, I digress.
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"I'm afraid the punishment for stealing one of my children
is a cockpunch, Ted." |
So Barney, Ted and Baby Hurricane
Stinson-Mosby Mosby-Stinson (awesome callback) arrive at Lily and Marshall's house just in time to a) confuse the fuck out of their hosts b) realize that Baby Hurricane needs diapers. Seeing as Lily's baby-waste-disposal system is still internal right now, Barney's in charge of going to buy some. He comes back with a stack of wee-wee pads and a beef-flavored chew toy from the pet store just in time to greet his brother James and his husband Tom, and
their children which includes Hurricane (nee Sadie). Turns out Barney invited his brother and his family over, forgot to tell Lily, and took their child to claim as his own for the day. For the most part James seems to take this okay, so I assume it was mostly cleared with him. I hope.
Quick sidebar: who is James' husband? That dude has the unnatural "looking out at the audience" eye contact of an amateur cameo, but I have no idea who he is. I gotta look that up.
Less quick sidebar: what is it about Wayne Brady's last couple of appearences here. He's a little off. And by off, I kind of mean the opposite of that. He's so calm, cool, collected it actually actively clashes with the vibe the rest of the characters put out there. If I didn't know he actually was an actor (and a comic actor at that), I'd think he was a cameo too. It's like he's brought in to give a speech, without ever really meshing with the rest of the universe. I dunno, I think I'm just reading too much into it. Anyway, James' family is super cute.
So now that the baby ruse is over, Barney takes the opportunity to excuse himself and go talk to Robin. He asks if they're still friends, tries to tell her about this latest zany scheme, and then Robin interupts to tell him she's pregnant.
Boom.
Changed. Game.
See what I mean? This totally has all the hallmarks of a late Friends "Rachel is pregnant with Ross' child" thing. Now while that wasn't as head-scratching as the whole Joey/Rachel fiascoes, it certainly isn't something you want to repeat. So there's danger here. On the other hand, DOOD! Shit is finally happening! It only took the better part of FIVE SEASONS, but finally we're getting movement here. Whatever Robin decides, will inevitably decide who Barney marries in the flash-forward. And it's strongly implied that that wedding is where Ted will meet The Mother. So we've got a (potential) straight line from here to the mother, which we haven't been teased with since the last time Cindy showed up. Not to mention that we're finally moving everybody out of the holding patterns they've been in for five years. Robin is finally going to have a storyline besides "dating random male guest star". Barney is on a path to marriage. Marshall and Lily are straight up moving into a house.
I don't know, this all has a long way to go, and could *so* very easily go wrong. But I haven't been this excited about the show in a long time.
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