Why is Marshall holding two cups of coffee?

You know that Pirate Ship ride at carnivals? The one that swings back and forth, slowly building height and speed as it gains momentum until you’re finally at the point where every swing makes your stomach drop?

That’s kind of what it feels like to watch Barney and Robin. And as a big Barney-Robin ‘shipper, week after week of this will-they-won’t-they is driving me nuts.

But the best part about both that ride and this relationship is that even though it’s expected, the constant ups-and-downs aren’t unexciting. You don’t reach the fifth swing on the pirate ship and sigh, “oh we’re going to the right again? Yaaawn.” You don’t watch the crazy back-and-forth non-relationship Barney and Robin are in and not feel something. They kiss – up. Robin rejects Barney – down. Robin goes after Barney – up. Barney goes for Patrice – down. (And in this sense I mean up and down literally as well as metaphorically – every time something good happens in the show it’s hard for me to resist the urge to leap up and squeal embarrassingly.) You know the relationship’s going to happen eventually just like you know the path the pirate ship’s going to take – but that doesn’t make every swing along the way unexciting.

That being said, Robin was incredibly frustrating tonight. When she realizes that she now wants Barney because he’s something she can’t have, she decides the best thing to do is to try to get it out of her system, reasoning that when her doctor told her she was severely allergic to lobster, she had to have it, but her near-death experience after gorging herself on it totally dissuaded her from doing it again. So she employs several tactics to try to win over a clearly heartbroken Barney – playing the damsel in distress who can’t lift her own office supplies, surrounding herself by adoring men at the bar, surprising him at laser tag dressed as Laura Croft (where he uses her as a human shield to defend his league score) and concocting a plan with Lily to pique his interest by getting cozy with another girl, which backfires on both of them, as Robin invites weather girl Brandy to be her unknowing cohort in the plan and Barney picks her up instead, thus leaving desperate Robin and bi-curious Lily in the dust. When she realizes how much Barney’s hurting (he refuses to have sex with Brandi in front of the weather green screen even though they could do it several states at once!) she decides to discontinue her chase – but then shows up at his place in only sexy lingerie and a trench coat, embarrassing herself when she realizes Barney’s on an innocent date with Robin’s annoying not-best-friend Patrice.

I suppose I understand where Robin’s coming from. She’s coming out of a long term relationship, she’s confused about her feelings for Barney – especially given the horrendous crash and burn of their first go-round, and she’s not used to this new sensitive Barney who might not be as capable of having meaningless sex as he might have been pre-Quinn – especially if it’s with the girl he’s only just sworn off. But Robin at least belatedly realizes that something’s wrong with him and it’s hard to not be at least a little bit annoyed with her selfishness.

In the second storyline, Ted is in between projects and has offered to help take care of baby Marvin while Lily’s father Mickey is out of commission with a cold. But Ted gets carried away, being there for Marvin’s first and second crawls and then taking Marvin on a lot of other firsts – his first spaghetti, his first visit to Santa – and when he dresses baby Marvin in a Cleveland Browns onesie, Lily and Marshall send him packing. But Lily and Marshall realize that all of this is Ted’s way of filling the void he felt after completing the GNB tower that had defined most of his career. So they invite him to baby Marshall’s swim classes (which Ted signed him up for, and apparently has some sort of heavy involvement in because his face is on the lollipop reward tub by the pool) and use it as an opportunity to get Ted a meeting with an architecture headhunter. It’s never really clear why they have to drag him all the way to the pool and let him get in his bathing suit in order to do this – why can’t they just ask him over to the house? –nonetheless they’re successful, at least, in getting Ted going again.

Tidbits:

–Whatever happened to that woman with a beard or man with boobs that Lily and Marshall saw in the hallway in this episode? Classic HIMYM totally would have picked this joke up later on or used it as a subtle clue that later reveals a huge plot. Think Marshall’s season 2 episode 7 (yeah, you know it – the “Swarley” episode) date who sees the creepy hunchback following her around on the street only for it to end up being a love-crazed Lily attempting to covertly spy on Marshall. Times have changed, my friends.

— Marshall trying to explain why it’s totally ok to bring an infant into a bar: “It’s a restaurant that also has a bar… ergo we are good parents.”

–Lily, trying to get baby Marvin to crawl: “If you ever want to see these boobs again, CRAWL ya sonofa me!”

–Barney’s funeral for his tie, Cornelius – a beautiful, touching moment. He was so close to retirement!

–Bro bibs – great idea. I’m also impressed Barney had the foresight to create one that perfectly matched Ted’s overshirt – right down to the shape of the messily opened collar.

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