Barney’s bride is Robin Scherbatsky! There. Just had to go ahead and get that out there first so that you would be able to focus on the rest of the episode. Now that’s out of the way… let’s get on with what is, sadly, the last HIMYM recap of Season 7.
Never let it be said that a recap can even compare to watching an episode of “How I Met Your Mother”. While we all do what we can, it is impossible to cover all the little funny moments and extraneous details the HIMYM writers and cast expose us to – without resulting in a line-by-line of the episode. Don’t get me wrong, that is definitely no complaint – though it doesn’t make recapping such an awesome episode easy, it does make for some awesome television, which is what’s most important here.
The Condensed Version (Part 1 and 2):
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The Extended Version:
Part 1 – The Baby
We open pretty much right where we left off after “Good Crazy” [you can read that re-cap here]. Barney (Neil Patrick Harris) catches Lily’s voicemail telling him she’s in labor and that Marshall (Jason Segel) needs to get home STAT. The only problem is that they are both too wasted to drive [hello, it’s Atlantic City – and Lily did tell Barney to help Marshall chill out]. Barney concocts a plan to help them get back to the city, which involves him stealing a motorcycle (of course).
Obviously, that plan goes awry, but it does result in Barney finding them seats on a bus (filled with senior citizens) heading back to New York – only to learn that the bus is heading to Buffalo, not NYC, which is problematic for Marshall. Barney attempts to persuade the driver to make a pit-stop by the hospital for them so Marshall doesn’t miss the birth of his first child, but is swiftly shot down by the driver who proclaims that the bus stops for no one! (Unless it’s an emergency.)
The senior citizens take pity on the two, and several riders claim they’re having heart attacks and need to be taken immediately to the hospital. Lo and behold, the driver gets the hint and complies, resulting in Marshall making it just in time.
Concurrently, back in the city, Robin (Cobie Smulders) and Ted (Josh Radnor) are at the apartment with Lily (who is trying to wait out her contractions before going to the hospital), at which point Ted decides to show Lily (Allyson Hannigan) the video e-mail he made to notify everyone of the baby’s imminent arrival, which he kindly uploaded to lilysinlabor.com [this form of communication, if you remember 4.14 “The Possimpible”, which spawned barneysvideoresume.com, and 5.4 “The Sexless Inkeeper”, which produced itwasthebestnightever.com, is a much-loved method commonly used by the HIMYM characters].
“Boo!”
Lily is not a fan of the video, and requests that Ted and Robin tell her stories instead. [This segment is obviously designed to serve to fill the comedic side that we’ve all come to expect from HIMYM – which was pulled off spectacularly, as per usual.] Anyway, this storytelling includes such stories as: “The Worst Cab Ride Ever” – in which Robin and Ted are riding in a cab that gets hijacked by a man posing as a windshield cleaner; “Second Base with Neil Young” – in which Robin brags that she went to second base with Neil Young (but, as the gang pointed out, it wasn’t actually Neil Young); and the biggest story: “Where Does that Door Go?” – in which the gang find themselves itching to know where a the random door in MacLaren’s leads to (but actually ends in the gang just playing a trick on Marshall, as he is the last one to go open the door).
Eventually, Ted and Robin get to the point where they have to take Lily to the hospital, where she manages to hold off delivering until Marshall arrives [which is set very sweetly to Cloud Cult’s song “You Were Born”]. While in the delivery room, Marshall informs Lily of a promise he made to Barney in exchange for his help getting Marshall to the hospital in time. That promise? Their son’s middle name would be – wait for it – WaitForIt.
Fortunately [or unfortunately?], everyone agreed that it would be the coolest middle name of all time. And so, Marshall and Lily’s first child is thus named: Marvin WaitForIt Eriksen. Welcome to the world, Marv. [Remember when you were young and you knew you were in trouble because your parents used your middle name? I see some confusion – and hilarity – in this future prospect. “Marvin WaitForIt! You are in so much trouble!”]
Part 2 – The Relationships
While Lily and Marshall are busy taking care of their new baby, the second half addresses the rest of the characters’ relationships.
Robin exercises her right as friend to inform Ted that, despite what he says, he obviously doesn’t actually want to get married and start a family. [Thank you, Scherbatsky, for finally drawing attention to that fact. We’ve all been thinking it.] After a while, Ted does realize that Robin is right, so in an effort to change that, he calls up Victoria and makes plans to meet up with her at MacLaren’s.
The only problem is, Victoria shows up… in a wedding dress. It turns out, it was her wedding day, and she was intending to leave her fiancé for Ted. He doesn’t know what to say to her, so while she’s in the bathroom, he calls up Robin, who tells Lily and Marshall about the problem, so they all run downstairs to MacLaren’s to advise him. After they all do a shot, Robin convinces him to run away with her, basically.
The two hop in a car and take off for the sunset, only for Ted to realize that he is about to cause her to leave a man at the altar, and after having had the same thing happen to him, he doesn’t feel okay doing it to someone else. Of course, Victoria agrees that it’s not right, so he turns the car around to take her back to her wedding – only to change his mind and pass up the church. They grasp hands and ride off into the sunset – and the end of the season. [Can I just say: lame cliffhanger for the season’s end. We already know that he meets his future wife at Barney’s wedding, so we also already know that Victoria is not the mother. At least this relationship will occur during the break – and thus hopefully be over once the new season begins.]
Meanwhile, Barney reveals that he hasn’t spoken to Quinn in two days (because he was off in Atlantic City with Marshall), and he’s worried that she’s left him. He goes home to discover that, not only is Quinn still there, but she redecorated his place, too! How very sweet of her.
Still, Barney is just glad that she didn’t leave him, so they plan their first couple’s getaway to Hawaii. Unfortunately, they don’t make it out of the airport because Barney thought it would be a good idea to stash his exploding magic trick in his carry-on. Naturally, airport security was not happy with this plan, and so they retained him and Quinn to figure out why he was trying to bring explosives on the plane.
He refuses to tell them about the trick (because of the Magician’s Code, obviously), but in the interim, he learns that Quinn quit her job for him. She is no longer a stripper! When Barney still refuses to show them the trick, Quinn gets frustrated and threatens to leave him, which makes him change his mind.
He finally agrees to show them the trick, which does indeed involve an explosion. However, the situation goes from threatening to adorable in about ten seconds as the trick reveals an engagement ring. Barney proposes to Quinn, who accepts! Since they missed their flight anyway, they rush back to the apartment to tell the gang – who are very excited for them. Robin and Barney get a second alone to share a final moment together, where they good-naturedly tease each other, and Robin admits that she thinks Barney is “100% awesome”.
For the final scene, we flash-forward to Barney’s wedding, where it is revealed that the bride isn’t actually Quinn… it’s Robin Scherbatsky!
Well, that’s all for the season. Again, a lame cliffhanger on Ted’s part because we already know that Victoria is not the mother. It’s not that I dislike Victoria – I actually did like her and Ted together – but I do dislike wasting time, and that’s exactly what that storyline is going to be doing. As far as Barney and Quinn are concerned, we obviously know that he ends up marrying Robin instead, but as Future Ted opened this segment with “this is the story of the wedding that went horribly wrong,” it doesn’t seem to bode well for the two. Of course, the HIMYM writers love telling us these long elaborate stories without ever giving away a single clue about the mother [check out the top five episodes of Season 7 here]. The good news is we know they’ve already begun writing [read about that here], so I guess we’ll just have to wait and see what detail we’ll get to focus on learning next season (like maybe her hair color! *Spoiler Alert* I’m calling it now: her hair’s going to be brown). See you next season!
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Author:Hello! I’m Brittany, currently surviving as a graduate student. I am highly opinionated, but seldom a “shipper”. I love the entertainment industry – books, television, movies, music – and enjoy engaging conversations on it all. Currently, my favorite TV shows include: How I Met Your Mother, Awkward, Switched at Birth, Jersey Shore, and New Girl. Find me on Twitter at @ItEntertainsMe! |
