How I Met Your Mother - 7x14 - 46 Minutes

Alright, I think about a month since Symphony of Illumination, with Tailgate tossed in between, has calmed me down a little. I'm not so angry. I even kind of liked this episode, with very few reservations. It kind of hearkened back to Season 1, with wild drunken adventures, veering off in random directions, ending up with a legendary night. We got the return of Stripper Lily (always welcome). We even got acknowledgement that Long Island is a long fucking way off from the city, even though I have a feeling we'll still be seeing Lily and Marshall at the bar just as often.

So apparently the commute to Marshall and Lily's new house is 46 mintues. At least the train ride is 46 minutes. No mention is made of how long it takes to get from the train station to their house, if there's additional transportation required, how frequently the trains run, etc. But for the sake of argument, let's just say 46 minutes. That means that (supposedly) they're not going to be hanging out with at the bar as much, and they've left the group somewhat rudderless.

Into the power vaccuum steps Barney, and no one sees fit to stop him. To be fair, Ted's too busy being creepily depressed (and increasingly drunk) because Marshall's not taking his phone calls (no signal out in the 'burbs, apparently), while Robin and Kevin are still in the "I Will Say Yes To Any Activity So I Seem Cool" Phase of their relationship. That seems kind of odd, considering they've been going out for...what, four months now? Then again, since apparently they've only started sleeping together sometime between Christmas and now, maybe the entire relationship timeline is a little decompressed.

It went well.

The combined lack of spines between three people seems to pay off at first, as they befriend/annex Stripper Lily and her pimp/bodyguard/boyfriend "Better Marshall" (not actually a doppelganger) into their group. But soon the relatively bengin, but supremely uncomfortable, lap dances lead to seedy underground card playing, threats of violence, and eventually straight up robbery.

I can't decide if building the NYC skyline out of illicit poker winnings
is pretentious or awesome.

Surprisingly, it was all pretty funny. The long strange quest, with strange characters, and random detours mirrored Sweet Taste of Liberty, and it was nice to see Ted let loose a little without turning douchey, even if it was mired in J.D.-levels of co-dependence. I am a little disappointed the underground card game wasn't used as another showcase for Barney's oft-forgotten bout with his gambling addiction. The Chinese card game in Atlantic City still makes me giggle five years later. I would also like to thank Kal Penn for bringing awareness to an issue facing many young men today. It's not often talked about, due to social embarrassment, but many of us have to carry the secret burden in shame. Where the hell do you look during a lapdance??

If you stare too long at one spot, all the money stuffed in there explodes!

Wait, if all the power was out, how did the intercoms work?

Anyway, back in Long Island, Real Lily and Marshall are dealing with Lily's dad. Apparently when he came to deliver that giant teddy bear back in Tailgate, the reason he was so happy, was that he was expecting to stay and move back in to his parents house. Well, maybe that wasn't the explicit reason, but he's sticking around, and driving them crazy. He can't stop micromanaging how they're managing their household, seeing as it's been his home for a lot longer. When it becomes too much, they tell him to pack his bags, which leaves him just a tad revenge-y. So when Marshall blows out the lights trying to charge his phone, he taunts and scares the crap out of Marshall, who's stuck wondering around in the dark. Lily guilts him out of it, and Mickey uses his encyclopedic knowledge of every loose floorboard and dangerously-overheated appliance to guide Marshall to safety and get the lights on.

It was kind of funny, I guess. The Blair-Witch-cam seemed a decade or two stale, but maybe it's a reality show reference I don't get. The idea of an old house being a deathtrap to anyone unfamiliar with it has great potential, but overall I think it just suffered from the fact that I find the whole Long Island subplot boring, and I really, really can't stand Chris Elliot. He's one of those people, like Jack Black, who's entirely too good at his job of acting completely unlikeable.

In the end both plots tie together when the Manhattan gang, utterly scarred and defeated from the night's events, flee the city to take shelter at Lily and Marshall's, and everybody sits down for a pancake breakfast.

Really, who group hugs?