How I Met Your Mother: Stuff

(S02E16) You know, I always wondered how Robin Scherbatsky, a highly attractive and seemingly well-adjusted single woman in the city, managed to collect five dogs. As a single guy, when I discover that a single woman has more than three pets, I tend to "head for ze hills," as the saying goes. Why? Because it shows me that, while the woman is caring and nurturing, she's a bit too caring and nurturing. Does the phrase "substitute children" mean anything to you?

But now we know why Robin has all those dogs, and it makes perfect sense to me. Let's face facts, people: Robin is every guy's fantasy girlfriend, and if I were dating her, I'd probably want to give her a dog, too, and I don't even have any pets.

So, we had a pretty eventful episode. But let's start at the end: We got Slap #2! As much as we've been expecting other slaps, this one was so completely random it was hilarious. which brings me to the Best Barneyism of the week; for some reason, I found the robot part of his horrible one-man show to be just off-kilter enough to work. Bays and Thomas seem to be taking Barney out of his one-note, suited-up pig persona more and more every week. From what I can tell, they're setting him up to be one of those "onion" characters, where the layers get peeled away slowly as time goes on. I mean, as much as he did the horrible play to show Lily that it isn't always good to blow smoke up your friends' behinds, it was fun to see that he really got into it, to the point that he actually asked the gang to stay even after he proved his point. Yes, the story was a little offbeat, and you hope that Barney doesn't become a complete cartoon, but the B-stories are holding up so far, so why complain?

Ok, back to the boyfriend-dogs... We haven't seen much examination of the Ted-Robin relationship this year, which has been quite refreshing. But after letting loose with the "...and that's how I met your mother" bomb last week, you knew this week was going to be heavy with Ted and Robin. And, I've got to say, the writers managed to pull off a pretty funny episode without getting all bogged down in relationship melancholy. That was due to Ted's conversion of Robin's dogs into the boyfriends who gave that dog to her. So it was funny to see these guys nudge in when they were making out, or lick Ted's face, fetch Koosh balls, or say to Ted "guess what position we did it in?"

Were you expecting them to move in together after the big argument? I wasn't. I expected them to break up. Not that moving in is a huge surprise; it just delays the inevitable. I don't know about you, but it's pretty safe to assume that the death of the Robin-Ted pairing will happen at the end of the season. I guess it'll take a few episodes of them not being able to stand each other under the same roof for us to get to that point.

More fun:

• Marshall: "I never get picked for audience participation."
• Lily's squeamishness with the word "moist" was... interesting. I thought Barney's entire play was going to be him saying the word "moist," though the squirt gun was good, as it elicited the above quote from Marshall.
• Ted's girlfriends get him odd stuff, don't they? A mini-British phone booth? An odd lamp? Where do I find women like this?
• Oh, and women who leave $14 moisturizer laying around are whores. Got it. I'll keep that on file.
• The parachute pants debate of 2005 was funny, especially the fact that they called them "Joey Buttafuoco pants." See the stare Marshall gave Barney after ol' Barn said they gave him an appeal on the decision?
• Lily's play was the typically-awful stuff you see when a sitcom shows some off-off-off-off-Broadway show. Not that you can't go to a space eight floors above a sushi joint to see really bad conceptual drama in New York, but, for crissakes, it's a cliche going back to at least Seinfeld, if not before.
• Though I did like Lily holding up a mirror to Ted and calling him "Consumerism!"
• Even Barney wouldn't have given away the dogs. And Robin actually sent them to a real farm!
• "Ohh, they love dogs!" How does Lily know that lesbians love dogs?
• I think my choice would be "normal torso and mermaid legs." Don't ask me why.
• Can the Canadians out there tell me if that store Robin mentioned actually exists? I love it when she makes a reference to the Great White North, and the gang just feels sorry for her.
• Barney likened asking a friend to see a play with asking a friend to help you move, crash on your couch or pick you up from the airport, three aspects of friendship that Jerry, Larry, and company strip-mined fifteen years ago. But at least Barney's line is funny. "Catch a cab, book a room, hire some movers, and repeat after me: friends don't let friends come see their crappy plays."