by Grace Crawford

9×03: “Last Time in New York”

There’s an episode in season 3 of HIMYM called “First Time in New York.” In that episode, Ted and Barney pretend to be from out of town so they can scam on two hotties, who turn out to be from New Jersey and are therefore unbangable. It’s a story of two bros and their broings-on about town. It’s a happy time. A simpler time. Now, six years later, Barney’s getting married (in about eight months for us—sigh), and times are neither happy nor simple. They’re not particularly entertaining, either.

Barney and Robin worry that their married life won’t be romantic. Lily and Ted talk about a list of “last things to do in New York” that Ted’s been working his way through because he’s moving to Chicago (which I completely forgot about over the summer) and how he’s avoiding Barney because things are just too painful. And Marshall… is driving through Wisconsin, which I guess sucks for him because he’s a Vikings fan? That whole storyline was only in there so we could see what he was up to. It was pointless and we’re not discussing it anymore.

Threaded throughout all that is The Princess Bride, which, while being an absolutely stupendous film, is a terrible catalyst for action in a TV show. For one thing, a lot of people probably haven’t seen it. For another, it was a weird tie-in with zombies. And FYI, saying the name “Mandy Patinkin” doesn’t summon older peop— oh, hey, Grandma! How are things? Email me; we should chat.

And for a third thing, it made for a really awkward plot device. Yes, it was funny that Ted and Marshall got into another sword fight and ruined Lily’s dress. It was less funny, though, that Lily and Robin then got into a later sword fight, smashed an expensive bottle of scotch, and filled an empty bottle with the remainder of the scotch, some ketchup, chocolate syrup, and a big ol’ glob of hand sanitizer for consistency. And it was even less funny that, while Ted was punished for his crime, Lily got off scot(ch)-free. Just another case of Lily getting away with sh*t while imposing Aldrin Justice all over everybody else.

Yes, getting married and losing the romance is a legitimate concern. I mean, the feelings you have for someone now are part of the reason you want to marry them, right? What happens if you lose that? Mixing that with zombies (a.k.a. old people), however, is less legitimate. I get that everybody’s all about The Walking Dead these days, but literally everything is about zombies lately. It gets so tiresome that I almost wish for the sparkly vampires back. Almost. It did help that James was there, sacrificing himself to save Barney and Robin and fulfilling the “brother’s always gotta die first” trope.

I guess the big thing that grated on me about this episode was the fact that Ted was moping around again. I know I gave the last episode a bunch of sh*t for not being about very much, but at least it had things going on, even if most of them didn’t have any real significance. After seeing the Mother and knowing that everything is going to be okay in about 52 hours, it pisses me off to no end to see Ted all miserable over Robin. Again.

I just want to tell him, “If you can get through the next two days, you will meet the most important person in the world. You will marry her. You will be happy. You will have everything you ever wanted and never could with Robin. So suck it up and be a man, because I know you’re not moving to Chicago, and you’re not gonna end up with Robin no matter how much you want to. You’ll do better. Now grab a pair, because Robin’s great-grandpa upstairs has more balls than you do.”

But that’s not gonna happen. Because this is Ted, he hasn’t met the Mother yet, and it looks like we’re doomed to another twenty-ish episodes or so of moping.

This is gonna be a long season.

Final Grade: C+

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Items of Note:

• Man, Packers fans take their football seriously, don’t they? And what’s up with the cheese hats? (Also, I only know that it’s football because the Green Bay Packers are one of, like, four NFL teams I know. It’s all about the CFL up here. I don’t know why.)
• I did actually like Lily’s life lesson, but I had to take it with a grain of salt ‘cause she’s drunk off her ass and it’s not gonna mean anything to Ted anyway. These life lessons never seem to take with him, ‘cause he’s always going to go running in headfirst without thinking about the consequences.
• I don’t understand the significance of Barney saying dramatically, “I saw you and Robin at the carousel.” And I know we’re supposed to think it’s dramatic because it made Ted drop a $600 bottle of scotch right before the episode ended. But big whoop! Nothing happened. Yeah, Ted tried to help Robin find her locket so he could get with her. But nothing happened. Sheesh, people. Stop forcing the drama.

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