Hola Amigos, Jenn here. I’m hopeful that now post-holidays we will be able to get back to our timely and regular recaps. Thanks for your patience.
Fun episode tonight, but no story progression sadly. However I did enjoy seeing so much Marshall interaction with the gang after only really getting to see him in his B storyline for the first half of the season. Also I can’t believe Barney first lost the Slapbet 7 years ago. Where does the time go?
The episode open on Sunday 1am and Marshall is winding up to slap Barney, about to make contact with Barney’s face before Narrarator Ted take’s us a few weeks to fill us in on the backstory of this particular slap.
Marshal fills Barney in the his preparation and training for the next slap. Including going to Shanghi to meet the 3 masters of the virtues of slapacy: speed, strength, and accuracy. First, Marshall meets Red Bird (a Robin doppelganger) – the speed master. Marshall’s training involved slapping a tree, that slaps back. Next, Marshall meets White Flower (a Lily doppelganger ) – the strength master who lives on a hand shaped Slap mountain, which is the largest of the Slappalachian mountains. To get power, Marshall must get slapped by people who hate Barney to harvest the anger of others into his own slap. Finally Marshall travels to Cleveland to meet the The Calligrapher (a Ted doppelganger) – The accuracy master. The Calligrapger immediately gives Marshall a grammar lecture and wallows in single self-pity. However before Marshall can complete his training the Calligrapher dies because Marshall slaps his in the back to help him stop choking.
We’re back to Sunday at 1am and Marshall misses slapping Barney’s face because he wasn’t trained in accuracy and Barney flees to the woods where he stumble upons 4 women sitting beneath a willow tree with a tiger just as Marshall “said”. The gang follows and Marshall reveals The Calligrapher didn’t die right away and finished training Marshall who then delivers the 4th slap. This episode wouldn’t have been nearly as palpable for me if it wasn’t for the Re-Return (see below).
Legendary Lines
- Barney: You know what tie goes with that suit? The tie at the top of a hefty bag.
- Marshall: Don’t think of it as a slap, think of it as a high five for your stupid face.
- Robin: Oh My God you had a treeway!
- Marshall: I have a slapatite for destruction
- Marshall: Cleveland, it’s the city equivalent of being slapped in the face.
- Marshall: I wouldn’t call Janice easy on the eyes, or the springs of a bathroom scale…
- Robin: I love you. / Barney: Enough to take the slap for me? / Robin: No
- Marshall: That’s FOUR!
Moments of Awesomeness
- Barney oversharing his awkward sexual fetish
- Carl! (good to see you buddy!)
- Ted confirming that the slapping tree and slap mountain exist because he backpacked there in college
- Marshall kissing his hand and pressing it to The Calligrapher’s ear as he leaves
New Jersey
- SO much terrible CGI.
- Clearly we needed some major suspension of belief for this episode, but it was too much for my taste.
- The Calligrapher’s lingering death.
Callbacks
Barney’s scorned women from his past! So many great ladies! How many of those 6 ladies did you recognize? Sound off in the comments.
Re-return
Marshall introduces Boyz II Men who sings a lovely version of “You Just Got Slapped” with a montage of the previous slaps!
And Marshall reminds Barney there is 1 more
Re-return
Who is is the Mother going to meet next?
I really enjoyed this episode, i didn’t really mind that the story didn’t progress. I had few laughs and I am so happy to see more of Marshal! The whole thing with boys to men (or whatever are they called) and the slap song was to much for me…I didn’t like it, it had nothing to do with the whole thing, in my opinion. I am not looking forward to the Unpause episode, i hate it when Lily and Marshal fight. I’m afraid the writers made this argument really big and i hope they don’t split them up!