TVSquad

(S05E01) Fans of How I Met Your Mother had reason to worry that, with last season's ratings success, the funny little show that they'd been watching for four years would get away from what made it fun.

Fungible timelines, comedic head fakes, the burgeoning relationship between Barney and Robin, and Ted's eternal search for The One were all there last year, but the show's syndication-friendly embrace of more self-contained stories forced a lot of that into "subtle reference" territory. But the fourth season finale reassured fans that Bays and Thomas are going to continue to explore these issues, even as the show approaches its 100th episode and beyond.

The fifth season premiere does a good job of reinforcing this. Everything's there, including Indiana Jones' bullwhip. And it's funny, to boot. And as Bays and Thomas assured me, the location of the Mother revealed in the finale is reinforced... sorta.

Look, all we know is that the Mother is somewhere in that lecture hall where Ted thought he was conducting his first Architecture 101 class. It turns out to be Economics 305, which solves the lingering creepy factor that Ted might be dating one of his students.

We're led to believe that the blonde who raised her hand in both the class and his dream might be the one, but it turns out to be a red herring, one of I'm sure many that Bays/Thomas and their staff have thrown in our path before and since. Could The One be the young lady who helped Ted figure out how to spell "professor?" Maybe.

But I get the feeling that we're not going to know for a long, long time, and that Ted's going to meet The One in such a random manner that we won't even realize who she is until the last episode, anyway. So, as I've said before, I'm going to approach this season as if we're not going to find out who the mother is. It'll free me up to enjoy the more interesting part of the show -- pretty much everything that's not related to the Mother search.

Which brings me to Barney and Robin (Brobin? Rarney? Robney?); I can't tell you how much I'm enjoying their dance around their mutual fears of commitment. They don't want to admit they're boyfriend and girlfriend, even when Lily locks them up in Robin's room until they have "the talk" (I especially loved Marshall's manic whip cracks when Lily deemed an answer not good enough... surprised he didn't clip Lily at least once). The most mature part of the episode though, is that Ted knew that they lied to get themselves out of the room, but Lily voiced what we all think: "They don't know that they weren't lying." Flugelhorn, indeed.

More fun stuff:

• No real story involving Lily and Marshall, but man, were both of them funny tonight. The scene where Lilly goes into butter pecan-fueled sobs because she thinks she lost Robney as a couple to "go camping" and "take cooking lessons" with was especially good. All Marshall could say was "So has the boat sailed on sex tonight?"
• The Best Barneyism could be "Or... Or...," right before he had sex with Robin. But how he managed to link the rules from Gremlins and make them fit so well to how he dealt with women takes the prize. Especially because it was said during a long-ago Tuxedo Night.
• "Robin's more than just awesome, she's aw... quite a bit."
• Marhsall told Lily to use her "inside woo" when she found out about Barney and Robin. But I liked how they brought it right back when she found them making out at Robin's place. She used her outside woo and was damn proud. She was so anti-woo last year; wonder what happened?
• Somehow, Ted wakes up from his nightmare and doesn't get freaked out by Barney rooting through his nightstand looking for condoms. I guess that's how the whole summer went, so he's probably used to it.
• I'm getting the feeling that Brad is Bays' and Thomas' all-purpose blank-slate character. He's a brunch fan, he disappears during Marshall's bachelor party and shows up shirtless, now he takes Robin to a hockey game and takes a punch from Barney. Whatever you need him to do, good ol' Brad will do it.
• Ted's refusal to believe that he was teaching the wrong class was utterly Ted in every way; douchey and not very self-aware. But at least it led him to just being natural in the actual Architecture 101 class instead of spending time trying to figure out what kind of professor he was going to be.

So we've set up a good start to the season. Let's hope we get more Brobin and less Mother, and we'll be just fine.

[Watch clips and free episodes of HIMYM at SlashControl.]