How I Met Your Mother

You’ve got to really trust a person to do something for them with no questions asked. You never know if the thing you’re doing is putting you in danger or will get you into trouble or just make you look ridiculous. Off the top of my head, it’s hard to think of many people I would be 100 percent willing to do that for. But for the gang in How I Met Your Mother, doing something no questions asked is, well, hardly a question.

What worked so well about the episode this week is that they effectively showed Marshall interacting with the rest of the gang even while he was away, a type of relationship that was sorely lacking in previous episodes. It served as a friendly reminder of who Marshall is and what his role is in the gang, and it also provided the ability for some really great jokes between the characters.

In this week’s episode, Marshall calls in all of the no questions asked favors he is owed from the gang in order to prevent Lily from seeing the text Daphne sent her telling her about Marshall’s judge job. Ted owes him for the time Marshall got him out of the mailbox (we later find out Ted got trapped there while trying to rescue a letter he sent containing a love note to a girl at the pharmacy whose address he overheard while she was talking to the pharmacist). Barney owes him for the time Marshall signed him out of the hospital, no questions asked, though Marshall was pretty easily able to deduce from the x-rays that Barney swallowed actual versions of the Lucky Charms marshmallows. Robin owes him from the time Marshall showed up in an alley to catch her as she leaped off a building in a unitard, chased by people in other colors of unitards. (“I never asked you who those weirdos were, why they kept calling you Night Falcon, or even what was in those darts they kept throwing at us!” Marshall reminds her.)

Barney and Robin also overcome yet another relationship hurdle – communication. After discovering that each of them has a different plan for the post-wedding celebration – Barney wanted to release 100 doves, Robin was going to have her family perform a 21-gun salute – the two realize they’re “lone wolves” and might not ever work together. But when their initial plans for stealing back Lily’s phone falls through (all by sneaking into her room late at night, even though her door lock is broken as part of a long list of problems with the room that the hotel has chalked up to it being haunted) Robin and Barney are able to work together to come up with a plan that eventually takes so long that it is rendered ineffective, as Ted ends up calling in his own no questions asked favor on Lily and forcing her to smash her phone.

However, I think the best moment came at the very end, when Marshall realized that he trusts Lily so deeply he has never had to use a no questions asked on her. Emboldened, he calls her and confesses. Though Lily doesn’t quite handle the news well (she threatens to commit murder in their haunted room) it’s a sign of how strong their relationship is and at least gives hope that they will be able to work it out.

Tidbits:

  • Things Marshall did that he told Lily about: fought a raccoon, turned their TV into a robot, accidentally tackled Russell Brand in a park… twice.
  • Robin’s, when Marshall asks her to delete the most recent text on Lily’s phone: “Just because you didn’t know better than to take a naked selfie while you were in the coldest part of the country…”
  • Marshall “First, I’m an Erickson. Cold has a… plumping effect.”
  • “Let’s prove that we believe in marriage by working together to help Marshall hide something from his wife!”
  • “So you’re saying you didn’t order room service and you didn’t order Prison Sluts 9?” “I’m saying I didn’t order room service.”
  • “I’m not paying for room service the hooker ordered.” “I’ve been there.”
  • “I think we need to be better about talking to each other about doing stuff.” “Can’t talk, doing stuff”
  • Ted, on his encounter with the mailbox: “I was a man in need.” Marshall: “I know, you were a priority male.”