Alternate titles of The Playbook: The Naked and the Bed, Sexronomicon, or, if you’re really brave, Of Human Bondage.
I’m starting to feel like I’m in a really slow break-up — The HIMYM writers and I both know what the end game is here, but we’re going to stretch this thing out as long as possible to futilely prevent additional heartbreak. Maybe because I know this season is designed solely to prolong the inevitable conclusion of the saga of Ted Mosby, or maybe because I’ve been disappointed so many times in the past, but I’ve come to expect a lesser quality from the show this season. And that’s why when any vestige of the show’s former glory comes back into play, I’m pleasantly surprised.
This week was no different, as the show began with four of the five characters hiding in various unidentified closets, effectively setting up the look-at-the-crazy-situation-the-gang’s-gotten-into-woah-woah-woah-let’s-back-up technique that, really, is the point of the whole show. I mean, we know Ted gets married and lives happily ever after — that was set up in the first moments of the show — we’re just watching for the minute little causes that snowballed into the final moment. (Although the Ted snowball has just been lying stagnant for weeks — more on that later.)
This week, Robin’s still dealing with the aftershock of her rejection and the discovery that Barney is dating Patrice. She won’t believe that Barney’s truly interested in Patrice and instead believes it’s an over-correction — he had a bad breakup with Quinn, the stripper, so now he’s flown to the other end of the spectrum with Patrice, the innocent motherly figure. She breaks into Barney’s apartment to try to steal The Playbook to show to Patrice and sabotage the relationship, in the process revealing even more secret compartments that hide the Bro Code and the autobiography of David Lee Roth (signed by “Diamond Dave” himself). But she can’t leave fast enough and finds herself stuck in Barney’s bedroom closet, hiding as Barney prepares for a date with Patrice. She calls in Ted for reinforcements, whose ploy to convince Barney that Hugh Hefner is in the lobby only buys Robin enough time to grab The Playbook before she is once again swept into the closet.
Robin blackmails Ted to come back for her purse with the red cowboy boots, which have turned up in Barney’s closet. (In this week’s B plot, Ted is upset that the gang keeps borrowing his stuff without returning it. Missing items include his Cleveland Chamber of Commerce mini-cooler, Weekend at Bernie’s special edition DVD, the pocketknife Robin uses to threaten Ted’s precious boots and the “Vote for Ted” campaign hoodie from Ted’s high school run for Treasurer.) Ted ends up hiding in Barney’s living room closet, and it turns out Lily is stuck in another of Barney’s closet — she uses Barney’s apartment to get solace while pumping breast milk. (After all, Barney DVRs all the Desperate Housewives episodes — even the reunion specials!)
In his own plot, Marshall’s hiding in his own closet from his mom, who’s in town visiting, and whom he has stumbled upon having sex with Lily’s dad in an effort to get back on the dating scene.
In the end, Barney burns the Playbook for Patrice, proving he’s finally growing up. Meanwhile, Robin has taken several emotional steps backward into crazy person territory, prompting one of the gang’s classic interventions (they even busted out the sign!) And as she walked into her own intervention unsuspectingly, I couldn’t help but pity Robin, as it’s an entirely uncomfortable situation.
My biggest complaint with this episode is a complaint I’ve had for a few episodes now — Ted is no longer essential to the story. He’s just been biding his time in the background as Lily and Marshal or Barney and Robin have taken the lead. While their plots have not been lacking, it feels silly for the show to be driven by anything other than Ted’s own life, and somewhere along the way that took a backseat. Though the writers tried to throw in a nod to Ted’s uncharacteristically stagnant love life with his over-correction, a woman whom he could only speak to over the telephone through the glass window at a prison, the nod was minor at best.
Tidbits:
–I’m really confused about how to feel about Patrice. She was introduced in “Splitsville” as this very annoying character who won’t leave Robin alone, but now it seems she’s just a really genuine and awesome friend whose biggest crime is that she fought off a burglar to save Robin’s purse despite Robin wanting to hate her. Did Patrice change somewhere along the line or was Robin just being an obnoxious jerk the whole time?
–I will say, though, there’s something indescribably amusing about Robin’s “Patrice is annoying” voice.
–Special edition of Weekend at Bernie’s: “How Bernie avoided the gurney, a cinematic journey”
–Barney’s play, The Honeybear: “He dresses up like Winnie the Pooh and next thing you know, his face is stuck in your pot.”
–I just love when pretentious college Ted shows up — as when Barney runs down and sees the Hugh Hefner Ted saw in the lobby: “That guy was black, Ted.” “I guess I just don’t notice that kind of stuff.”
–Ted needs further proof from Robin that they are in fact his red cowboy boots in Barney’s closet: “They’re red and they’re cowboy boots.” “That’s them!”
–This episode was just full of good one-liners:
–“You get the ornaments all year. I just need them for Christmas!”
–”Legend-wait for it-merry!”
–“Can you get my laptop? I want to change my Facebook status to ‘happy’!”
–“My bladder’s as big as your betrayal!”
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