How I Met Your Mother season 9, episode 3, “Last Time in New York” begins with Ted and his New York City bucket list, and Robin and Barney trying to have sex to avoid their relatives and keep themselves young.
The episode also proves that just because they’ll place all 22 episodes in the wedding weekend time-frame, doesn’t mean we’ve seen the last of the apartment, the bar, or New York City.
This week’s episode kept the gang’s story lines in decidedly more contained plot lines than the premiere. Robin and Barney are trying to have sex in a thrilling place before their elderly relatives arrive, Lily and Ted are discussing his New York City bucket list, and Marshall continues his journey from Minnesota to Farhampton.
We’d like to take a moment in this How I Met Your Mother recap to mention that we did not see, nor even utter the phrase “the Mother” in tonight’s episode. We didn’t even realize it until “Last Time in New York” was over, but after nine seasons, she’s still a metaphorical character to the viewers, despite having her front and center in last week’s two-parter.
Moving on, Barney and Robin spend the episode worrying about their future together. Sure they’re young and lively now, running around playing laser tag, but where will they be in 60 years? These two always showed promise – to most viewers, at least. They share an adventurous spirit and appreciation for fine whiskey, and their rambunctious characters just fit. The stereotyping of things old people love – Mandy Patinkin, 60 Minutes – is funny and for two soon-to-be-newlyweds, it instills a fear in them about turning into a couple married for 60 years, as they think the romance will be replaced with resentment. But when they accidentally see Robin’s great-grandparents going at it, they’re fears subside.
Ted seems to be escaping New York, rather than simply moving onto Chicago. His bucket list includes items such as “cover up a piece of graffiti on the side of a building” (mind you, this meant changing “your a penis” to the grammatically correct “you’re a penis.” Offensive, but at least it’s correct.), “scotch with Barney,” “come clean about April 26,” (ripping Lily’s rehearsal dinner dress), “watch the sunrise on the Hudson [River]” and “say goodbye to the Empire State Building,” where it’s revealed he sometimes visits the landmark to, er, stroke it’s walls and speak to it. Ted also does what all apartment residents wish they could do sometimes – give his upstairs neighbor (“Gorgeous Woman” – that was a semi-letdown) a piece of his mind – her shoes must be with filled with noisy lead.
How I Met Your Mother started with these people in their 20s, young and foolish, brandishing swords and accidentally stabbing wives. It seems the show will end that way too. The swords make a reappearance, both as a flashback to the aforementioned sword fight/stabbing incident – that was nearly eight years ago – and in current-past day, when Marshal accidentally goes to decapitate Ted and ends up destroying Lily’s dress (that’s what happened on April 26).
It reminds us of the great storytelling and continuity that the show is now known for – but retold with a fresh twist. Lily and Robin end up dueling as well, breaking the special, $600, bottle of whiskey Ted was saving for a pre-wedding drink with Barney. But, in a twist of dramatic irony, we known that whiskey is – or should be – disgusting. But then Lily buys a new bottle and that ends up broken too… but we’ll get to that in a second.
Lily is saddened by Ted’s list of great things about New York and instead tells him to say goodbye to the bad things about the city. Cue a montage of the broken relationships, physical fights, and all the heartache that the city – and it’s inhabitants (and one New Jersey-ite: Stella) have caused him. Lily is poignant when she says, “Say goodbye to everything you really want to do for the last time,” and implores him to start a list of good things, like, “have the first scotch toasting Barney’s life. Because that’s a good thing. And the good things will always be there waiting for you.” Ted and Lily have always had the strongest brother-sister, teacher-mentor, therapist-patient, relationship. She’s there to give him the slap he needs to get back to reality, then the consoling speech to pick him up when he’s down.
In the end, Ted realizes he has been avoiding Barney because of the feelings he’s been harboring for Robin. Despite all this, when Ted approaches Barney to finally have that drink with him, Barney drops a bombshell (and Ted drops his whiskey). He saw Robin and Ted at the carousel when she went in search of the locket. Honestly, we thought we’d have to delete this entire “Last Time in New York” recap and just replace it with a few reaction GIFs of people going “WTF.” We were warned by Craig Thomas that this is a faux two-parter. Though, judging by the promo for next week, Ted isn’t in for a tongue-lashing. We’ll see.
MVP of “Last Time in New York”: Barney. “I never imagined a walker being used for anything other than walking.” Seeing him so enamored with Robin, and so unabashedly happy, is adorable.
A thought about the fashion this season: We absolutely love Robin’s blazer/blouse combo, and we think that’s a good thing because unless somebody spills a glass of wine on her once every few minutes, we may see the gang in these clothes for the majority of the season.