Diapers and samosas. Or was it mimosas?  Something from a million years ago at a bar, and how Marshall and Robin are so platonic that they wouldn’t hook up if everyone else’s lives depends on it, and Marshall tells Ted that Robin is still in love with him. Wait, isn’t she marrying Barney? The guy who just accepted a challenge to get a girl’s number while talking like a dolphin? I feel like maybe I stepped into this show about a decade too late. Oh good, Marshall is just trying to win a bet with Lily.

Barney’s next challenge is to pick up a girl wearing a garbage bag…and he can’t use the letter “e”. That works, so Robin plays interference. She tells a hot redhead (who I think might’ve been on Rock Of Love) at the bar that she is Ryan Gosling’s assistant he sent her over to tell the redhead to stay put and not talk to any other guys. Then, Robin challenges Barney to get the redhead’s number. So Barney tells the hot redhead that he is Ryan Gosling and a method actor who had to get plastic surgery for a role. And he gets her number.

Ted gets a call from Walter White who is an architect in Chicago and wants to hire Ted for something-or-other. Ted agrees to think about it, but I’m pretty sure he’s just humoring him. Ted calls back and declines the offer.

Barney’s next challenge is to pick up diapers from the grocery and a samosa from the Indian place while picking up a girl…who I think might be the elusive mother. She’s buying a comb, sees through his crap, and gives him some truth, but not her number. Barney realizes that he should stop messing around and be with Robin and writes her name in a book, and that’s that.

Reprinted from SurvivingCollege.com

The Farhampton Inn is haunted by a hooker pirate who has a sharpened hook, hence his name “Captain Hooker.” He froze to death, or died of syphilis. Lily doesn’t believe in ghosts but does believe in owls flying around with shirts over them which, to some, appear to be ghosts. Her real complaint is that the room sucks, which means she never got Daphne’s text about the job. So Marshall tells Ted to break into Lily’s room and delete her last text, no questions asked. He climbs a drain pipe up to her window, but it wakes Lily up. Luckily there’s a lightening storm and she’s afraid, so she asks Ted to stay and sing her a lullaby until she is asleep. He uses the time to search the room for a phone and hears a ghost. Or, Barney in the air vent.

Barney plans to have doves released after the ceremony, but Robin’s gun enthusiast family has planned a twenty-one-gun salute. So…dove pancakes for breakfast? Marshall then asks Barney to delete the last text on Lily’s phone, no questions asked. Which is why he was in the air vent. This also wakes Lily up, and then room service arrives with Robin underneath the cart to look for Lily’s phone and delete the last text, no questions asked.

When Lily goes downstairs to complain about the room service charges for food she never ordered, out comes the phone so she can call her lawyer. Which I guess is her husband. Barney and Robin burst into action, in different directions. This causes them to realize that they have difficulty working together. So they vow to work together to help Marshall hide something from his wife. Robin creates a distraction in a purple unitard with a gun, Barney sets a dove free to grab the phone, and Ted already got Lily to throw her phone to the ground and smash it with her foot, no questions asked.

Ted is fairly pleased with himself for solving Marshall’s problem. Because he never keeps anything from his wife, Marshall tells Lily about the judgeship. Lily then vows to kill Marshall in their haunted room, so circle of life and all that jazz.

Next week, Barney’s mother and Robin have a Scramble Off.

Tim Gunn is out of the poker game so nothing good is going to happen. Lily is pissed at Ted because he never gave her a wedding gift. Marshall tried dropping hints months later, but Ted never picked up what he was putting down. A year and a half later, Ted got engaged (which is news to me), and Marshall buys him a gift wrapping station as the ultimate hint. In return, Ted sends Marshall and Lily a thank-you note in a giant, elaborately wrapped present. Anyway, Ted is getting Barney and Robin three wedding gifts, and it’s driving Lily and Marshall crazy.

Turns out Ted did give Marshall and Lily a wedding gift (a coffee maker), and they never sent him a thank-you note. Hence the oversized thank-you note for the gift wrap station. Marshall is determined to make it right. But Ted really didn’t send them the coffee maker—Stuart and Claudia did—and now Ted has to make it right. But Robin was with Ted when he got the coffee maker, so Lily confronts Stuart who confesses to writing his name on Ted’s nametag.

Robin wins James’s lightly used wedding ring in the poker match to prove some point about how marriage isn’t crap. When Barney gives James his ring back, he realizes that being married means being part of a team blah blah blah, and Barney semi-disowned his brother. And his mother. And blamed it on Robin.

To make up for the lack of a wedding gift, Ted had a pizza delivered to Marshall on the highway. And Marshall sent Ted a thank-you note four months later.

Next week, Barney and Robin steal Lily and Marshall’s story about how they met.

Marshall and Daphne are still driving through the Midwest. Something about the Minnesota Vikings, and Lily keeps Daphne amused on the phone with random ramblings about the wedding, including a magical dress that made all of her bodily parts look better than the sum of their whole.

Ted scribbled down a speech that is really a “Things I Want To Do Before I Leave New York.” Which is ridiculous, because why would anyone want to leave New York? His list includes fixing graffiti typos, buying an entire (almost empty) bar a round of drinks, and saying goodbye to the Empire State Building (which does not make him an objectophelliac). He also unleashes fury on his upstairs neighbor and comes clean about destroying Lily’s magical dress in a Princess Bride-style fencing match with Marshall.

Lily does not take it well and forces Ted to wear an old timey swimming outfit, and to punish Marshall for his participation in the shenanigans, she asks Daphne to take a photo of Marshall wearing a cheese head. The last thing on the list is “scotch with Barney,” which should be so simple. Except it’s a $600 bottle of scotch. Or, rather, itwas a $600 bottle of scotch, until Lily and Robin started fencing Princess Bride-style and broke the expensive bottle, replacing the label and mixing a concoction of cheap whiskey with ketchup, chocolate syrup, and hand sanitizer for color which they passed off as the real thing.

Barney and Robin lock themselves out of their room while trying to find someplace interesting to have sex. Unfortunately the lobby is littered with old people, so James takes a hit and enters the pit of despair, answering all of the old peoples’ questions about gay.

Robin finds Ted’s list and Lily pretends like it’s her list so that Robin won’t know about Ted’s whole moving out of New York thing. Robin and Barney are eventually overwhelmed by the swarm of relatives, and Lily and Ted have a real discussion about saying goodbye to the bad things. This is followed by a series of clips from episodes I’ve never seen, and did Ted used to date Robin? Because that could be awkward. And then Barney’s all, “I saw you and Robin at the carousel,” so yeah. I guess it is a little awkward.

Photos: cbs.com

Reprinted from survivingcollege.com

Because I’ve never watched even a single episode of How I Met Your Mother, I thought it’d be a good, no, a great idea to recap the final season. I am told by an avid viewer that this show really is about a guy (Ted) telling his kids how he met their mother, and that after about forty-seven years, he finally gets up to the part of the story where he meets this elusive lady. I suppose that’s one way to write a sitcom. So here goes nothing. Or something.

Neil Patrick Harris is in the back seat of a car, talking about his wedding to an overbearing Canadian woman (Robin). They’re worried about how the families will behave, and it’s time to take bets on which one will ruin the wedding first. Or most.

Something about baby pictures of a cute kid who looks like an old man, and two friends (Lily and Ted) bickering in a car. NPH and Robin make a list of how crazy their cousin Mitches are, and suddenly realize they might be somewhat related. Aww! It’s going to be a Kentucky-style wedding!

Lily boards a train, I assume because she couldn’t stand driving with that Ted guy anymore. Some guy on an airplane (Marshall) chastises his wife about posting a funny baby photo on the Internet. Lily then meets a nice lady on the train who gives her a cookie that totally does not contain drugs or poison.

NPH and the Canadian desperately call everyone to sort out their family trees, and the Marshall gets kicked off of the flight with the baby that looks like a little old man. Meanwhile, Lily bonds with the other lady on the train over cookies and emasculating stories about men.  Something about a locket, and someone named Stella who left Ted at the alter. I think maybe Stella might be the woman on the train with the cookies? Maybe?

Robin’s grandmother explains how Mitch is related to her, and he was adopted because his real parents were eaten alive by sled dogs. So, she is not related to NPH and they can commence procreation. That’s sweet. They’re in love, but by the title of this show we know it ain’t gonna last.

The guy from the airplane whose name is Marshall can’t figure out how to get the baby photo off of the Internet that for some reason will cause a fight with his wife who is Lily from the train!

The wedding is at the Farhampton Inn and Lily tackles Ted in the lobby. Ted gives NPH’s fiancé, whose name is Robin, a box of photos from eight years ago of everybody happy and together. Lily apologizes to Ted for something I must have missed last season.

Episode 2: Coming Back

Lily and Ted check into the hotel. They explain to the innkeeper that they are there for a wedding, that Ted used to date the bride, but now he’s the best man. Marshall calls Lily to say that he has missed his flight, so Lily goes straight to the bar and demands continuous alcohol which is appropriately called “the Kennedy Package.” NPH’s name is Barney? Okay….

All of the airports are closed, so Marshall tries to rent a car and gets the last one—a 2006 Monstrosity Sport. But he doesn’t have a baby seat, so he agrees to give the car to his former seatmate on the airplane (she got kicked off of the flight, too) so that she can drive to the mall, buy a baby seat, drive back to the car rental station, pick up Marshall and the baby, and drive to New York. Yeah no, she doesn’t return.

Moscow. 1807. An old gypsy woman puts a curse on Barney’s great great great great grandfather that caused him and every subsequent Barney to have an insatiable taste for booty. Back to present day, the one couple that makes Barney believe in marriage is getting divorced. Unfortunately, Barney got them an erotic cake for their anniversary, which is kind of weird.

Daphne, Marshall’s seatmate from the airplane, eventually returns with the car, and wacky antics likely ensue on their road trip from Somewhere to New York. Oh, that cookie lady from the train is at the hotel with Ted. He says that one year ago today he was sitting there all alone and made a promise that he would be back, with her.

So I guess he’s the one telling the story and she’s the mother of his kids? So Barney and Robin are really getting married? I thought Barney was going to have to leave what’s-her-name for the cookie train chick. Huh. Well, this changes everything. Sort of.

Next week, the relatives show up to the wedding.

Photos: CBS

Reprinted with permission from www.survivingcollege.com