How I Met Your Mother- Episode 9.03 "Last Time in New York" Review- Things are getting tense; in a good way

“I saw you and Robin at the carousel”
Yep, I’m opening with that line, because man… Barney’s voice, Ted’s expression when he heard it and the sudden cut to black was more than I could handle. I was left with my eyes and my mouth wide open, as the shock briefly left me numb. Am I overreacting? May it as be, that was a bold move I wasn’t expecting after an episode that was mostly fooling around with some emotional dialogues there and there. It had been a good episode, but I felt it wasn’t as transcendental as the premiere, that was until Barney said that.

It’s worth noticing that this episode would have originally aired a week later and we would have seen first “The Broken Code”, which we’ll be seeing next week. I don’t know if the writers did something in the editing to adjust everything so there wouldn’t be any chronological mistakes or if CBS actually swapped the episodes so that it would make sense; either way it worked out great as it seems there will be no chronologic mistakes or such. Anyway, let’s back up a little:

As the promo showed us, this week featured the arrival of Barney’s and Robin’s old relatives and attempted to do some kind of parody out of “The Walking Dead” and even Barney calls their relatives “The Walking Old”. It mostly works because NHP and Cobbie Smulders are great actors and it’s a delight to see them overreacting to such simple matters like spending time with old people. But the jokes? Meh, the show has done better. The thing with the “ring bear” seems to be a recurring gag, so I’m guessing it will be quite awesome when it comes to happen.

As the old relatives arrive, Barney and Robin start sneaking around to find someplace where they can have sex, mostly because they are scared that, as they grow old, they might reach a point where they won’t even want to do it anymore. So we mostly see them trying to get away. They eventually meet up with James who helps them out, taking the bullet so they have the chance to find a room for themselves. James gets surrounded by the old people (someone asked him “I have a gay question for you! How do you decide, which one…?) and both Barney and Robin manage to find a room, but there is an old couple there having sex. Barney and Robin leave grossed out, but relieved that there is hope that they can be a couple that can remain with time. It was something they both needed, or at least Robin did: the premiere made it really clear that at least Robin is not convinced that they can make it, so I won’t be surprised if the season deals with this theme recurrently, let’s just hope it’s not all season long, it would be too repetitive.

Now with that out of the way, let’s talk about what I really liked.
The whole Ted storyline was great; for one we had the chance to see Marshal and Ted have a sword fight, one of the gags I loved way back in season 1, and we got to see Lily and Robin fight as well! But that’s not the only reason why it’s great (though it’s enough of a reason!), there’s a whole emotional environment about Ted’s choice to go to Chicago; Lily doesn’t like that she is the only one that knows and as such I’m pretty sure she will let it slide (some of the drinks Linus give her may trigger it or not). For now, she sees Ted’s list of things to say goodbye (including correcting a grammar mistake on a street graffiti, which was classic Ted!) and she tells Ted that instead of saying goodbye to the good things, that he should say goodbye to the bad things, including being left on the altar, being heartbroken by Robin, being beaten down, and many things like that. And that’s a really wise advise, and it so happens that Ted also had in his list “get a last life lesson from Lily” to which she replies “that’s hardly the last one”. What a great moment, I love how the cast is just so awesome. Though usually NHP takes most of the glory, Smulders, Hannigan, Radnor and Segel are all so incredible good at their roles that it’s always a pleasure to watch their scenes, and it’s even greater when the scenes are also so well written.

While all this is happening, Marshall is still stuck in his trip with Daphne, who seems to be hitting it off with Lily via phone, which will probably make for many funny situations while Marshall heads to the wedding. This week we got to see Marshall being punished (as he and Ted cut Lily’s dress with their swordfight) and he had to dress with Wisconsin’s team outfit (including a giant cheese hat on his head) and his expression of misery while he asks his dad for forgiveness is truly priceless. We didn’t get much of him in this episode, but it was quite good what we had to see.

In the end, I can tell you that this was quite a good episode overall, it has the larger impact one likes to see in a HIMYM episode, it strongly influences the one we’ll see next week, the acting is strong, and just one of the storylines is not strong enough, but not a drag either, just ok with some funny moments in between. Summing it up, I’d say that we’re seeing a great season of HIMYM so far, and I don’t think we’re being letting down in the following episodes, I can feel that there are pleasant surprises on the way.

Grade: B+

Stray Observations:
-No sight of The Mother this week, hopefully we’ll see her soon.

-Robin: “It attracts old people! Just like saying coupons, 60 minutes and Mandy Patinkin!” By Robin’s logic, I’m guessing that the majority of Homeland’s audience are old people watching just because Patinkin is involved (FYI, I checked, and no. Homeland is mostly watched by people in the 18-49 range).

-Great gags with Ted’s list: correcting the grammar on the graffiti (as mentiones above), say goodbye to the Empire State Building (literally), have a drink with his students, confronting her loudly (and beautiful) neighbor, buy the whole bar a round of drinks (the bar had like 3 people when he did) and come clean about April 27 (the swordfight with Marshall where they cut Lily’s dress). Man, I laughed so hard at those!

-Daphne: “Say cheese!”. That’s what I call timing!

-Next week: we’ll be seeing “The Broken Code”, which I think will be an episode to remember.

-Sorry if the review came a little short this week, I was extra busy in college this week, so hopefully I’ll do better next week.

Pablozky
I'm currently studying Psychology while also writing fantasy books (one already published in my home country, Chile, you can check it out on the facebook icon). I watch many different types of shows, including my favorites Revenge, Game of Thrones, Once Upon a Time and about 23 more. Currently writing articles and some reviews as well