On tonight’s episode of How I Met Your Mother, Ted celebrated his thirtieth birthday. Having turned 30 myself this year, I know what Ted’s going through when he said he wants to get rid of the stuff he doesn’t have any use for anymore. Then again, for me that consists mostly of junk I’ve been hanging onto since college, paperback novels, VHS tapes and that sort of thing. For Ted, it includes one of this closest friends.
Who is this sad, self loathing idiot who climbed into bed with Barney Stinson?
It’s Robin! As you might recall, last week’s episode ended with Robin and Barney passionately making out while watching Robin’s old music video for her B-side hit, “Sand Castles In The Sand.” Tonight’s episode picks up with the two of them lying awkwardly next to one another in bed the following morning. The two decide that it’s probably best if they pretend last night never happened. Barney takes a quick peek under the covers to mentally save the image of naked Robin in his mind and then she gets out of bed and the two resume the whole “this never happened” plan. Just as Robin gets her robe on, Barney attempts to get things back to normal is by saying, “Hey Robin, guess who nailed the chick from Metro News 1 last night?!” She reluctantly high-fives him and we’re off to the bah-bah-bahs of the opening credits.
It turns out, pretending it never happened proves difficult for Barney. When he meets the gang at the bar, Ted asks Barney what it was like “penetrating that barrier.” He goes on to say that he and Barney were the first ones to hit it. Barney chokes on his drink when Marshall says he’ll be hitting it pretty soon. Lily says when she hits it, she wants a clown there. Yeah, Ted’s talking about turning 30 but Barney’s mind is elsewhere and the conversation rattles him. Then, when Ted brings up the surprise party they’re throwing him (Marshall let the cat out of the bag), Ted mentions Stella. Oh right, Stella! Yes Barney, we forgot all about her too, considering she was only in one episode and hasn’t been seen since. Seriously, they either need to get Sarah Chalke back on the show or else, stop mentioning Stella. It’s kind of hard to picture Ted in a semi-serious relationship with her when he’s never with her. Anyway, Barney thinks maybe with Ted dating Stella, it’s ok that he hooked up with Robin.
It’s all from SkyMall. Whenever I get upset I shop at SkyMall
So Barney needs to get this whole Robin thing off his chest. He tells Marshall he wants to hire him and asks him to come into his office. Assuming Barney needs him for some actual legal work, Marshall is reading over some contract and tells Barney he thinks this stuff might be over his head but he’s fairly certain that if these contracts aren’t executed precisely, we will be at war with Portugal. Seriously, what does Barney do for a living? (And what did they do to the drinking water in Lisbon? )
Barney shreds the contract in his crazy-poweful shredder (from SkyMall), offers Marshall a hot dog from his Pop Up Hot Dog Cooker and gets down to business. The second he tells Marshall he’s going to tell him a secret, Marshall protests. He doesn’t want to hear anything that he won’t be able to tell Lily. He covers his ears and does the la-la thing until Barney tosses a vase at Marshall (who lets go of his ears to catch it) and blurts out that he slept with Robin.
Barney wants Marshall to find a loophole in the “Bro Code” that lets him off the hook for sleeping with his best friend’s ex.
The Bro Code
The Bro Code is an actual book that Barney has that lists the rules of bro’s. Bro Code Article 1: Bro’s before ho’s. Bro Code Article 89: The mom of a bro is always off limits but the step-mom of a bro is fair game if she initiates it and/or is wearing at least one article of leopard print clothing. Bro Code Article 34: Bro’s cannot make eye contact during a “devil’s threeway” (two dudes.)
Barney claims he didn’t write the Bro Code book. He tells Marshall it goes back to 1776. It was written after Benjamin Franklin and George Washington had a dispute over who called dibs over a wench. Barnibus Stinson was there to offer to write the Bro Code.
Marshall can’t find a loophole in the Bro Code. In fact, he can only recall instances when Ted enforced the code, even if it meant saying he was a pre-op transsexual nightclub singer, handing Barney some condoms through a window or calling him up tell him to come down to the bar right away to witness two chicks fighting.
I just remembered, my mom is coming into town next month – MAYBE YOU’D LIKE TO NAIL HER TOO!
Barney picks Ted up in a limo and says they’re ditching the party and going to Vegas. He’s got the whole thing planned out but Ted just wants to go to the party. Barney goes to confess that he slept with Robin but Ted already knows. Flash back to earlier when, after looking at an old vacation picture with Ted, Robin feels guilty and confesses to Ted that she slept with Barney. He seems sad and maybe even a little disappointed but he’s not mad at her and tells her they’re still friends. I guess the Ex-code isn’t as firm as the bro code though because Ted’s not happy with Barney.
When he tells Barney he knows what he did, the partition between the back of the limo and the driver’s area opens and we see Ranjit, the cab-driver who pops up about once a season on HIMYM is driving. He chastises Barney for what he did. Ted goes on to argue with Barney over it and inevitably punches him in the junk. I suppose Barney had that coming.
The mood eventually turns serious though and Ted suggests that maybe Barney is just another thing he has no use for anymore and their friendship is over. Barney is devastated. Ted goes back to his apartment to enjoy his party without Barney.
The Goat
The whole story of Lily and the goat seemed oddly out of place in this episode and that turned out to be for good reason but we’ll get to that in a second. Lily brought a farmer in to her class to teach the kids about goats. The farmer turns out to be drunk and tells the kids about his plans to have the goat slaughtered. So Lily rescues the goat and brings it home so she can get it rescued. The thing poops everywhere and Ted hints once or twice that Lily won’t be so fond of the goat later on.
At the end of the episode, future Ted says the goat inevitably “locked itself” in the bathroom and feasted on one of Robin’s wash cloths. Then he says, “Wait, hold on, Robin wasn’t living here on my thirtieth birthday. When did this happen? Oh, wait the goat was there on my thirty-first birthday!” So this explains why the goat story seemed crammed into the episode but the real question is, how does Robin come to be living in that apartment by the time Ted turns 31? Does this mean at some time during the next year, she and Ted will be getting back together? Or will there be some other circumstance that brings Robin to reside in that apartment?
