himym - now were even - robinI would be lying if I said that I didn’t have a special attachment to this episode. You see, a few weeks ago I had to great honor of getting to visit the set of How I Met Your Mother with some friends and even got to see parts of tonight’s episode being shot live! It was a great experience and I realize how incredibly lucky I am… but I’ll get to that later. Really.

“Now We’re Even” was a really solid episode. We had emotion, tons of laughs, and multiple story lines that tied back, oh so nicely together.  And if that wasn’t enough, we also got the return of Ranjit, Ted & Barney in a mariachi, a horse in the bar, and Ted in the Green Dress (see: the Mermaid Theory) band The way HIMYM writers work they could come back to this episode for a whole season with stories. I hope they don’t but then again it would be nice to see how they got the horse into the bar.   I digress. But they totally should have stole a camel. Let’s take some things one at a time.

Marshall & Lily…and tonight Ranjit. While it’s extremely important that these two are around, they were little more than very funny filler for everything else that happened tonight. Is that bad? Some, especially if you read the tweeter, would say all filler is bad and they want to know the mother now. While I love those people, I know they will get there when it’s time so I’ve written those voice off. I still like to hear them and smirk a little, but I’ve moved on for the moment. I think it’s fine. Especially if it bring Ranjit back for an episode. At least 3 of my favorite moments of the episode involved Ranjit rolling down the window to be included in the conversation. The baby is getting close and will most likely be here before the season ends. I just enjoyed the ride with these two tonight. One critical moment with Lily, was when she went to Quinn for someone to talk with. I get that Robin is busy with the career thing but it starts to show a level of trust there. The fact that they talked at the strip club just made it humorous though. Should we read more from that?

Ted. Living alone and loving it… ish. I completely thought that there would be some inadvertent use of the Naked Man. Two things about Ted tonight: 1. It’s good to see Ted being such a bro to Barney, even though he didn’t agree to help get Genesis back together. Ted calling Barney out on the fact that he truly does love Quinn is important. Not in our overall story line because “we” all know or at least assumed this if you’ve been watching the last few episodes. Barney saying it to Ted is a step though. 2. Ted and Robin. We know that Ted said he didn’t talk to Robin for a while. I’m assuming the text doesn’t really count as talking to each other, but it’s still a step. Plus it plays more to the Ted and Robin drama which is there, in my mind to keep us looking away from things that once were between Barney & Robin. Or it doesn’t matter in the Barney story at all…thoughts?

Robin. Robin is a huge mystery lately to me. We all know she matters to the story and is EXTREMELY important. What we don’t know is her final place. Will she play back in to the Barney part? When? Are we finally done trying to make fans believe she and Ted still have a shot together? Either way, her role tonight was excellent. I started to get a little worried with the helicopter incident. Even for a moment thinking, they aren’t fixing to kill Robin are they? I know it would be an extreme, but who know? I also wonder if Sandy planned the whole thing for some odd reason. It’s just a thought in the back of my mind but it wondered in just the same. Finally, probably the most mad I was in the entire show was when her dad still wasn’t proud of her… “I’ll keep trying”. What a jerk. Still, it make Robin who she is and who we love.

Barney. If this season has been about the development of anyone it’s Barney, hands down. While being the same fun loving guy, he is now showing a lot of emotions. Not quite to a Ted level yet but enough to make you see he is a different guy. We’ve known for a few episodes (see: the Broath) that the job will come into play in Barney & Quinns relationship. How could a guy not be bothered by that… even Barney?  Plus we know even more now that Barney is looking for a solution to the situation and Quinn has already said if she wer’re married that should would stop stripping. At very least we see where this is leading… or at least where the writers want us to believe it is leading. Is anything really straight forward anymore or am I too much of a conspiracy theorist.

Where will the end of the season take us from here, who knows? Should we have garnered any clues or take suspicion from any misdirection tonight?

himym - now were even - band

Legendary Lines

Marshall: Did you say you have to pee?
Ted: No but I do have to pee…

Barney: I liked the 3 way between Bill Cosby and Papa Smurf
Ted: He Smurfed the Smuf out of her

Barney: The truth is, I’ve spent the last 5 years, trying to inception your wife
Marshall: That movie only came out 2 years ago
Barney: What movie?

Robin: Sandy, you were IN the harassment video

Ted: actually is epiphany (AH-piphany)
Barney: No Ted, this is THE piphany

Ted: If all nights are Legendary then no nights are legendary…

Barney: You just lost 5 points for sas.

Robin: Hey, Dad. Are you proud of your little girl?….Okay, I’ll keep trying

 

Moments of Awesomeness

  • Ted being honest about not getting to that later…. “They had one song, it didn’t suck. The end”
  • Make every night LEGENDARY!
  • Barney for President 2032!
  • Mariachi Band! That would have been a great story to see more of.
  • Ranjit!  This is probably the most I have ever seen him speak. Nice.
  • When someone asks if you are afraid of helicopters you say yes… the helicopter scene got to me a little. If it would have been after 2am it would have been bad for sure.
  • I want to commission a painting of Big Foot playing quarterback for the Vikings
  • The Night We Reunited Genesis … this one would have been awesome.

New Jersey (You guessed it…what was bad)

  • Despite not advancing… there was nothing bad tonight.

 

Lingering Questions

  • Was I the only one that started to get emotional when Robin was in the helicopter? And even for if it was only a second, though… Are they fixing to kill Robin?
  • Was anyone else a little surprised that Barney didn’t have a little more of a comment for Robin after her safe landing?
  • What did you think of “Now We’re Even”?