'Ring Up!'

Ted Dates a Girl Over a Decade Younger Than Him and Robin Tries to Adjust to the Power of the One Ring Her Engagement Ring

Cross Carly off the list - she's not the Mother

Finally! Ted gets back into the dating world, and out of all the girls in this world he hangs out with one who is much younger than him and thinks he had fought in Vietnam. Turns out she's into old guys. But the problem is that they have nothing in common, and Barney insists they sleep together (since he's a recovering girl-oholic and "detoxing", he wants Ted to bang the chick for him: a bro-nnection). When they do (she likes the Star Wars prequels... close enough!) Barney looks at the picture of the girl for the first time (and making the typical "compliments") but when he sees her face.... he recognises his half-sister Carly! And of course Barney goes a bit nuts, with a new high five! (I've had actually thought about this type of high five and wondered how it would work. Now I do!)

 

 Since the idea that his best friend just slept with his sister is sickening, Barney comes up with a more bearable idea: getting them married (Ted would be his bro-in-law!). But then Ted and Barney realise that because the fact that Ted had a one night stand repulses Barney, Barney is now cured of his girl-oholic-ism! I have to admit, this is a BIG change from the Barney we knew a few years ago, and many Barney fans are NOT going to like this, but this is part of Barney settling down with only one special person, and this phase had to be done anyway. I'm interested now that Barney thinks his old life wasn't that great - did Robin break some "curse" or something? 

 

And how's Barney's lovely new fiance doing? Well, she's just about as noticeable to the public as Harry Potter is in his Invisibility Cloak or Bilbo is with the One Ring: all the guys no longer take notice of her. Gone are the queue bans, free drinks, and guys singing and dancing for her - Robin's an engaged woman now. Robin gets really annoyed by the lack of attention, but Marshall explains that when he looks at Lily, she's all he really sees: the bright spot in the darkness that is the outside world. Aww! And when Barney and Robin look at each other the same thing happens (AAAWWWWWW!!!). I will tell you now, those couple of shots of each other are prime fan video material.

 

So what about Marshall and Lily's storyline? Not much better than the one last episode: Marshall borrows Ted's weird wrist band and he and Lily do it a lot as a result (since sex is hard to come by for these parents), then Marshall gets a big allergic reaction to the wrist band and that's pretty much it. I think the couple have become more detached from the rest of the group recently, and I think they need to become more involved with the main story soon.

 

The episode was enjoyable and provided many laughs, but I'm mystified even more to who the Mother is since Carly, who was a big candidate, is no longer in the running for that wonderful role. My bet now is the perfect girl from Love Solutions that Ted turned down, since her face was blurred in the pictures (season 1), but I hope she turns out with more significance.
 

 

Check out the promo below.

The next episode 'P.S. I Love You' (I like the sound of that) isn't going to be out for two weeks yet, but I hear that ******SPOILER****** a certain teenage Canadian popstar will reappear ******END SPOILER****** Squee!