How I Met Your Mother: The Best Man

Can Ted get over the “Smosby Speech Curse”? Ace Wellington The Third gives us the deets!

How I Met Your Mother came back with a zip and a bang on Monday as it picks up right where it left off.  Ted is helping Barney through some pre-wedding jitters (Oh yeah, in case you missed it last season…the shock ending was that the Barnacle was tying the knot.  With who?  Who knows.)  Barney is worried about the tie he chose and if it was the “right” tie clearly referring to the secret bride.  He even goes so far as to worry if it will be the worst wedding ever.  Ted knows this not to be true because they have already been to the worst wedding ever…Punchy’s wedding.   This episode isn’t about Barney and his secret bride but rather about how Marshall ruined Punchy’s wedding. 

In the season finale, we learned that Marshall and Lily are pregnant and now we learn that they don’t want to tell anyone.   In order to hide the fact that Lily is pregnant, Marshall drinks for her.  He gets absolutely trashed.  But, before we get into that we need to hear a little more about Ted Mosby and his inability to deliver a best man’s toast.  Ted has given toasts at several other weddings and all of them have ended up being about Ted and his life.  The other thing you must know is that Punchy posted them all on the internet for everyone to see, even people from foreign countries have come to Punchy’s wedding to watch Ted give a classic “Smosby” speech and Ted is determined not to give one again. 

So, by the end of the episode Marshall and Lily have seen so many babies that they decide to tell the gang.  This is right before Ted gives his best man’s speech and he begins to cry after learning about the 6^th member of their gang.  Everyone starts cheering as he cries and Marshall stops them and lets them know that he’s crying because he’s happy that “She is having a baby!” and points toward Lily.  But unfortunately he is also pointing at Punchy’s bride (who Robin named Whatshername).  She exclaims, “How did you know that! No one is supposed to know!”  This caused the wedding parties to explode at one another and thus Marshall ruined the wedding.  

On a side note, this episode does expand on Barney and Robin’s love story.  Robin is still in love with Barney but doesn’t know how to express it as he is still in love with Nora.  The chemistry between the two of them is there and is one of the two things Lily says you need for a relationship to work (The other being timing, which everyone knows is not there).   I’m going to go ahead and call it right now that Robin is going to be Barney’s bride at the wedding and/or he is going to choose her regardless of who his bride is.  I am guessing this because the bride wants to see Ted before the ending of the show (I can only imagine this to be Robin).  The message in this episode is clear: you have to try for the things you want.  We all make mistakes, there will always be obstacles in our way, but if we try… at least we can say we did all those things with pride.   Ted almost gave up hope on his dream to meet the woman of his dreams…but there is one little thing he didn’t see coming.  Victoria.  (She is a love interest from season one that moved away to Germany).   I can only dream of the awesome implications. 

On a side side note, this episode was beautifully done.  The dance number between Barney and Robin was classic HIMYM but with a new and powerful push to keep the show fresh.  The camera work during the scene was wonderful and I hope they choose to do more of it in the future.

So, until next time…GIVE ME THE HIGHEST OF FIVES!