‘How I Met Your Mother’ Breakdown: ‘Last Time in New York’

HIMYM Last Time

(SPOILERS AHEAD, so proceed with caution, you Mother lovers!)

Season Nine, Episode Three: “Last Time in New York”

Written by: Craig Gerald & Matthew Zinman, Directed by: Pamela Fryman

Finally, How I Met Your Mother is back in the swing of things. Misunderstandings, secret reveals, and funny callbacks abound in this week’s episode. This is the first one this season to feel like the show that we fell in love with.

Quick Breakdown

Friday 2 p.m., 52 hours before the wedding.

At the Farhampton Inn, Barney and Robin are having their hourly relationship drama (precipitated by a callback to the “ring bear” gag). This time, with the pending arrival of the old relatives (their shuttle has just arrived), the couple feels the need to have one last bout of sex before getting married. They fear that in 60 years they’ll be “all fighting, no sex.” So, they run up to their room.

Meanwhile, in the lounge, Lily (still drinking) is on the phone with Marshall, who is in the midst of rival state Wisconsin. He’s decked out in Vikings paraphernalia to ward off those awful Packers fans. Daphne (I guess I should start referring to her character name) is annoyed by all the Vikings talk and gladly gossips with Lily about her rehearsal dinner dress. The one in question was the perfect balance between slutty and classy, but she found it ruined by the dry cleaners and is now stuck with a second-rate outfit. I wonder why we spent two minutes discussing a ruined dress…

As Linus refills her glass, she returns to her conversation with Ted, who has a New York City bucket list. (He told her at the end of last season that he was going to move to Chicago after the wedding.) His list includes fixing the graffiti at 96th and Amsterdam (adding the appropriate apostrophe to “you’re a penis”); saying goodbye to the Empire State Building; and coming clean about what happened on April 26th.

It was on that day that he brought over a pair of swords to have a Princess Bride-inspired sword fight with Marshall. (Something they’ve been banned from doing since a mishap in 2005, in case your forgot.) The fight ends with Lily’s rehearsal dinner dress slashed in half. Of course, there’s got to be even more to this story…

“Son of a bitch!” Lily exclaims (in a callback to her favorite expression). Angered at the mishap, she makes Ted and Marshall wear something they don’t want to wear either. Ted has to don an old-fashioned, striped swimming outfit he had just mocked. Marshall has to wear a Packers outfit in Wisconsin.

Upstairs, Barney and Robin accidentally end up locked out of their room. To get a key, though, they would have to go through the lobby of zombie grandparents. As they debate alternative places to have sex, Barney gets hungry for buffet food. “Don’t say ‘buffet!’ It attracts old people. Same goes for ‘coupons,’ ’60 Minutes,’ and ‘Mandy Patinkin.’” Seeing an opportunity to hide (and hook up), they duck into the ice machine room. Unfortunately, James is already hiding there. At this point, the idea of being stuck in this location for a season is really starting to grow on me (I had a feeling it would).

The item on the bottom of Ted’s list is having a glass of scotch with Barney (whom he’s been avoiding). The scotch in question is a bottle of $600 Glenn McKenna 30-year. Lily recognizes the bottle as we flashback, again, to April 26th (in true HIMYM fashion — I knew there was more to this story!).

Lily finds the boys’ swords and engages in a mocking sword fight with Robin. They accidentally break that bottle of scotch, replacing it, instead, with a bottle of cheap whiskey (but not until after Robin enjoys a glass of the quality scotch). Lily keeps quiet about this, letting Ted believe his bottle of McKenna is untainted.

After hearing about their absurd fears, James sacrifices himself to the zombie elderly parents to allow Barney and Robin an escape route. They split up to find a safe place to have sex, and Robin runs into Ted and Lily and the list. Lily claims it’s hers (so Robin won’t discover that Ted is leaving). So, when Robin reads about the April 26th revelation, she accidentally spills the beans of what happened that day to Ted. Don’t you just love all these coincidences and misunderstandings?

Barney calls Robin’s cell, having found a safe place on the third floor. They duck into a room and overhear Robin’s great grandparents having sex. After their immediate revulsion, Barney asks, “In 60 years, that’ll be us, right?” They kiss and make up, yet again. Then they shout “Mandy Patinkin” to draw those zombie relatives to them.

Lily steals a bottle of McKenna to replace the one she ruined (apparently she’s out of $100 bills). She then accuses Ted of avoiding Barney. She lectures him that he should be saying goodbye to the bad things in NYC instead of the good things. During a poignant montage of Ted’s past relationships, she speaks sentimental drivel about saying goodbye to heartaches.

Ted sighs and tells Lily to turn his list over. On the back it says, “Get one last life lecture from Lily.” In the hopes of finishing the only uncrossed item on his list, Ted finds Barney and holds up the bottle of scotch.

“I saw you and Robin at the carousel.” Barney states angrily. Surprised, Ted drops the scotch.

Rating

A+

This episode instantly felt like a classic episode of HIMYM. And with Marshall’s boring road trip pushed to the sidelines, the writers had more time to develop the stories at the Inn. Familiar callbacks to longstanding gags (and even those more recent ones) rewarded the true fans. And Ted’s goodbye to New York was a great lead-in to the dramatic moment with Barney that will no doubt consume next week’s episode.

Now for some random thoughts and my favorite moments of the night…

No Mother sightings, but that’s OK because this was an “old-school” episode.

“There’s gotta be some place to bang around here!”

The Mandy Patinkin jokes were especially great after the Homeland premiere on Sunday.

To get the scotch to look authentic, Robin and Lily mix in chocolate syrup, ketchup, and soap with the whiskey.

“I found Waldo.” –Robin declares as she finds Ted in that ridiculous swimsuit.

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