How I Met Your Mother: Episode 8.03 "Nannies"

The Condensed Version:

Barney immediately tries to get past his relationship with Quinn by hooking up with random girls. He ends up sleeping with a nanny – albeit a grandmotherly type. Marshall and Lily try to find a nanny, but are unsuccessful as Lily doesn’t want to leave Marvin with a stranger. Ultimately, they decide to allow Lily’s dad Mickey to be his nanny. Also, Victoria and Ted argue over which of them has a better relationship with their partners. However, Future Ted reveals that both relationships are doomed to end before the month is over.

The Extended Version:

Barney dubs October “Bangtoberfest” in an effort to get back on his game now that he and Quinn are no longer together. Determined as he is to start hooking up with random girls again, he doesn’t want to reuse his old pick-up lines – which causes some problems for him. Of course, as Robin later points out, Barney has a hard time with this because he is not over everything that happened with Quinn, but in typical Barney fashion, he is unable to admit that.

Marshall and Lily struggle to find a good nanny for Marvin Waitforit Eriksen now that Lily has to start working again. Lily’s dad Mickey (Chris Elliott) is back in the picture after blowing up his garage and burning his house down [thanks to a hairbrained scheme involving some fireworks]. He offers to help take care of Marvin during the day while Marshall and Lily work; however, they don’t trust Mickey to be alone with the baby.

Using a nanny website, they find – and really like – Mrs. Buckminster (Jane Carr), but can’t afford her salary. They finally discover a nanny in their price range that they like, but Barney interferes when he concocts a crazy story [and a baby] so that he can hit on the nannies from the same website. He steals her away, though when Marshall and Lily find out what he’s done, they confront him about it. Feeling guilty, he surprises them by paying Mrs. Buckminster’s salary so she will keep Marvin.

In spite of this, when the time comes, Lily finds herself unable to leave Marvin with Mrs. Buckminster because she is a stranger. She ends up calling into her first day back at work to stay home with Marvin. When she falls asleep, Marshall comes home to find Marvin gone. They panic, until Mickey comes in and admits that he took Marvin for the day – and did a great job caring for him!

Confused, Lily ends up learning that Mickey was a stay-at-home dad and actually took care of her until she started preschool [and he subsequently started gambling]. In the end, Marshall and Lily decide to let Mickey keep Marvin and be their nanny. We are then treated to a little future photo montage showing that Mickey ends up staying in their lives and helping them out with Marvin over the years.

Meanwhile, Ted and Robin argue over which of their relationships have more longevity. Ted thinks he and Victoria are farther along than Robin and Nick because Victoria keeps tampons at his place and they RSVP’d for a wedding in Jamaica six months away. Robin, on the other hand, thinks that she and Nick are doing better than Ted and Victoria because she has met Nick’s parents – and they invited her to go on a family trip with them to Hawaii over New Years.

As the episode continues, it is revealed that neither Nick nor Victoria are a good match for the two, and Future Ted states that both couples would be broken up by the end of the month [maybe soon enough to participate in Barney’s Bangtoberfest?]. Unsurprisingly, the episode ends with Barney “moving on” with another girl. The surprising part? The ‘girl’ is Mrs. Buckminster.

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Final Thoughts:

-I really enjoyed this week’s episode – and nothing really happened in it. Though we’re already seeing trouble in paradise for the last two doomed couples – which is so great. I’m loving how quickly things are moving along this season. The writers definitely brought their A-game this time around. Also: http://heynannynanny.com/ exists.

-Humorous that Barney is wasting no time getting back into the swing of things – though his final choice in the move-on-bang is a little random. Still, not wholly unexpected – nothing can really be too surprising when it comes to that character. Also: love Mrs. Buckminster. Hope she sticks around for another few episodes – if for no other reason than so the gang can find out about her and Barney’s tryst.

-I’m wondering if we are to take Ted’s “end of the month” declaration about his and Robin’s relationships literal. If so, we’ve only got two episodes to go for the month of October – meaning there will have to be at least one break-up per episode. If this is the case, should keep things exciting.

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That said, curious to see what kind of “tests” Lily and Marshall are going to put to the gang to determine which will be Marvin’s godparents. Don’t miss next week’s episode “Who Wants to Be a Godparent” airing Monday, October 15th. Synopsis: Unable to decide which of their friends would make the best godparents to Marvin, Lily and Marshall put them all to a test.