The Captain returns, and Barney feels left out.
Remember last week, in “Bad Crazy,” when Robin kept flashing back to the same plot over and over again, with just one new detail each time? Remember how annoying that got? This week made better use of the multi-perspective flashback that the show frequently employs.
What made this week work is the crazy changes in the story that came with each change in perspective. It all begins when Ted gets an answering machine message from the Captain, and Ted is convinced that the Captain finally wants to exact his revenge for stealing Zoey from him. (As well as, Ted thinks, the subsequent love of the Captain’s life, Betty, also known as the “Boats Boats Boats” girl.) To quote Ted: “Well I get why he’s mad, I did stick it to his wife… Repeatedly!”
To explain his fear, Ted begins to tell the story of how he went with Lily to an art gallery opening, and ran into the Captain, who was incredibly rude, but invited Lily, Robin and Ted upstairs to look at the painting he’d recently acquired. Ted believes it’s a ploy for the Captain to get him alone and kill him, and it turns out he might be right, as the Captain brandishes a harpoon gun and promises not to kill him as long as he doesn’t steal the newest love of his life, gesturing to a picture. Ted looks at the picture and realizes it’s Betty.
However, Robin tells the story a little differently. Turns out Ted had “eaten some sandwiches” pre-art show and therefore had misremembered the night, hallucinating the Betty picture and thoroughly embarrassing himself at the art show (Ted’s mal-timed “manners!” comeback replete with the “high five” that knocked the full tray of food out of the waiter’s arms was absolutely hysterical.) The Captain wasn’t rude at all, he was hitting on Robin the whole time, luring the gang upstairs in order to seduce her in a red satin robe.
But Lily is the only one truly able to tell the story as it happened. Robin had gotten plastered before the show and had vainly imagined that all of the Captain’s actions were advances toward her. (Also, the harpoon gun was actually a remote, which made the scene in which Ted cautiously removes it from the Captains hands all the more funny.) Instead, the Captain’s focus in this flashback was on Lily, whom he criticizes by saying her opinion on art means nothing as she is “just” a kindergarten teacher. Lily has struggled with the fact that she never did anything with her art degree for a long time, so the comment hit her hard, so hard that she stole an expensive crystal ashtray to punish him (like they do in kindergarten, apparently.) In the end, it was Lily’s number the Captain was calling for, to thank her for suggesting that he buy the painting which ended up earning him $4 million dollars, and to offer her a job as an art consultant. Renewed and excited, Lily accepts.
It seems that the reality of Lily’s life — marriage, homeownership, motherhood — has caught up with her, and she’s realizing that she needs to actually be serious about following her dreams before it’s too late. Though this feels a little sudden – one minute she’s realizing feelings she apparently has not brought up for some time, the next minute her dreams have come true in this new job – it’s good for Lily to finally find her place and her passion.
Conversely, Barney clearly still has a lot of growing up to do. His insistence to be a part of the storyline even though he wasn’t there stems from his need to remain the crazy one in the group, even as his life is settling down. No matter how many strides Barney has made from his playboy past, he still has a stretch ahead of him before he can be fully happy in his marriage to Robin.
Tidbits:
-“Lily… had invited us.. to an Art GARFUNKEL gallery opening concert”
-“I had this weird sinking feeling” (“We both did!”)
-I just love everything about high Ted – his piercing scream every time he saw the Captain, his poor timing and delivery, his clumsiness – all brilliant.
-Barney isn’t that upset about the Captain’s supposed interest in Robin because it could mean a “super enlightened forward thinking relationship” where they let others into their marriage “but just girls not dudes except maybe one time just to see what that’s like.”
-“Could you please hold a minute?” “Dropping anchor!”
-Marshall and Lily had already worked out that Lily could sleep with other men but only for $4 million dollars. “If you tell me you slept with the Captain for anything under $2.8….”
-“You have architecture, Marshall has the law, Lily has art, robin has pleasing me sexually”
-“I know that we role play conjugal visits but I can’t do that for real!”
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