TVSquad

(S03E17) Interesting ending to this one, huh?

I'll get to that after the jump, for those who are spoiler-phobic. This was an episode full of story and character development, and some glimpses into the personalities of all five members of the HIMYM gang. And it was pretty damned funny. The show's starting on an end-of-season roll, and with some big emotional and interpersonal issues coming to a head right now, the last few episodes are looking very promising.

Now, about that goat...

... OK, let's sort this out:

1. The goat was eating Robin's washcloth.
2. Old Ted said that Robin didn't live there on his 30th birthday, "there" being his apartment.
3. Old Ted then went on to say that must have been his 31st birthday.

Uh... what the hell?

I almost missed that sequence. I thought Old Ted had said that the goat was eating Lily's hand towel. It took my ever-observant girlfriend to point out to me that the hand towels were Robin's, not Lily's. So, that means that, for some reason, Ted and Robin will be living together one year from now. Will they merely be roommates, with Robin moving in after Marshall and Lily finally move to Dowistrepla? Or will they be living together in the biblical sense, back together even though their entire romance was ill-conceived to begin with?

Pretty much the entire episode was about Barney trying to figure out how not to tell Ted about sleeping with Robin. He broke "The Bro Code," and he wanted to figure out a way to make himself feel better. The most ingenious part of it was that he hired Marshall as his lawyer, not only so he can find a loophole in the code, but so that he can tell Marshall and claim lawyer-client confidentiality. Anyway, it gave us a chance to see Barney use his über-shredder and talk about going to war with Portugal and his company's toy company in Pyongyang. It's fun to see Barney uncomfortable, twitchy, and Sky Mall-obsessed.

It seemed that Robin was the cooler customer when it came to trying to deny her tryst with Barney never happened. But she broke as soon as she saw the pic of her and Ted on vacation from last year. It's interesting that Ted said to Robin that he wasn't mad at her about the slip-up, but he was furious with Barney, so much so that he wants to break off their friendship (he even said he should put him in that "box of things I've grown out of," or whatever he called it). I'm guessing because, like Ted said, Barney's done a lot of rotten things, but this is about the lowest he's sunk. But I also think that, despite the fact that Ted's with the unseen Stella, he still has a flicker of a flame for Robin, which is an issue we're going to explore if this show ever gets a fourth season.

Other fun stuff:

• Barney and his ancestor Barnabas will share this week's Best Barneyism of the week. Barnabas started The Bro Code way back in 1776, and he created the rule about not making eye contact during a devil's three-way. But Barney is perpetuating it, even giving the proper sign for it. So they both get to share the award.
• Notice that Washington and Franklin looked away from each other after Barnabas stated that rule. Ick. That's something for George to think about as he travels to "Me, DC."
• I could swear that Franklin was played by the guy who played Mr. Pitt on Seinfeld, Ian Abercrombie.
• Though the jokes about "hitting it" (with a clown, in Lily's case) and "penetrating the barrier" were kind of silly -- we knew they were talking about 30th birthdays -- it was still great to see NPH's nervous reactions. My favorite? Ted: "Do you want my Xbox?" Barney: "Ted, she has a name!"
• Alyson Hannigan looked especially cute this week. I was intrigued when Lily was equally disgusted with and curious about Robin's night with Barney. "That's so gross! Was it amazing?"... "Did he have... devices?"... "Was he all smooth down there?" Marshall seemed to be justifiably horrified by his wife's line of questioning.
• Ranjit pops up again, and rightly roots for Ted to wail on Barney.
• Barney chose the wrong end to protect on that free shot, didn't he?
  
• Loved how Barney and Robin recounted how each would have reacted under normal circumstances after a Barney conquest. But we knew Robin couldn't take it the extra step Barney did: "Robin, guess who nailed the Metro 1 News chick last night? High five!" To her credit, she did return the high five.
• Barney's nude pics go in his mental "bpeg" folder. Nice.
• I can see how Robin knows how to tell goat turds from muskox turds -- she did live in Canada -- but how did Marshall know what goat turds looked like?
• The other Bro Code rules we heard -- a bro must always say yes, a bro must always provide protection, a bro must always alert another bro to a girlfight -- were well demonstrated, especially Ted becoming a transsexual Russian just to help Barney get laid.

Man, I'm really looking forward to next week's episode. Even if Brit Brit comes back -- which was confirmed by CBS today; she'll be back on May 12 -- this looks like we're in for some pretty intense episodes. Intense and funny, which is how HIMYM should be.