SPOILERS AHEAD, so proceed with caution, you Mother lovers!
Season Nine, Episode 18: “Rally”
Written by Carter Bays & Craig Thomas; Directed by Pamela Fryman
The Olympics are over (finally!), which means TV can return to its regularly scheduled programming (just as Sweeps Month wraps up). HIMYM returns for its final episodes with this week’s “Rally.” We’ve reached the actual day of the wedding (but there are still five more episodes after this until the wedding/finale itself).
Quick Breakdown
Never one to forget the New Year, HIMYM opens with Ted and the Mother popping champagne in a private car. They cheers to the best year of their lives, after Ted talks about how great the Mother’s book that was just published is. In that moment, it’s hard to tell if he’s referring to the past or future year as the “best,” but it’s a sweet moment regardless. “We go big tonight!”, Ted exclaims while chugging his first glass and pouring another. The Mother says they haven’t even gone “medium-sized” in forever and Ted should take it easy. He tells her to relax because he made a vow never to be that hungover again.
The vow was made the morning of the wedding, when they tried to revive Barney from his alcoholic coma. When he finally woke up, two hours later, all he could remember were some flashes of those two hours involving a bucket of water, a growling bear, clunking down some stairs, and a lesbian kiss between Robin and Lily (how’s that for a preview of the episode?). But when Ted and Robin find him, curled up with a fire extinguisher, they are unable to even get him to awake.
Sunday 8 a.m., 10 hours before the wedding.
The group gathers around Barney’s unconscious body after moving it to his bed. Robin is worried that they won’t be able to get him awake to take the wedding pictures in two hours. Ted reminds them that Barney has that freak super power where he can’t take a bad photo. (How could we forget?) Unfortunately, when Ted flashes a quick pic, Barney looks as out of it as ever. “Barney may be dead,” he intones.
“I vow I shall never again get that drunk in my life,” Marshall says, claiming they are far too old to binge drink. Wise, old Future Ted, though, knows exactly when he’ll break that vow. In 2020, Marshall is running for New York State Supreme Court, but he is losing to Brad Morris (played by Joe Manganiello, who’s campaign photo resembles his promotional pics from Magic Mike). With loss imminent, Marshall gets blotto drunk. But four hours later, he actually ends up winning, making a speech about being Commissioner of Gotham City to the press.
Still at a loss for how to save him, Ted is eager to point out the irony of the situation. The only one who could cure Barney is Barney himself with Stinson’s Hangover Fixer Elixer. At Columbia University in 1941, (known alcoholic) FDR commissioned a top-secret scientific experiment to create a cure for the common hangover. Hungover Past Ted is quick to point out to Barney that he is twisting the true story of the Manhattan Project run by Dr. Robert Oppenheimer. So Barney’s “distant relative” must be Barnert Stinsonheimer. “Somebody’s read their history books,” Barney is proud to say. The Too Many Manhattans Project faced many setbacks in the experimentations, but Dr. Stinsonheimer found the magic formula using funions and Tantric soda (and a family secret ingredient) to cure the hangover. The formula even won the Bro-Bel Prize. The funny thing is, the cure actually works, and Barney has used it on everyone over the years after their most epic nights of drinking.
But since no one knows the secret ingredient, making the elixir would be challenging at best. Ted offers up another solution right out of Barney’s wheelhouse: Weekend at Barney’s (where Ted and Marshall would prop up Barney for the photos a la Weekend at Bernie’s — a film they already mimicked earlier this season). Robin vetoes the idea, and Lily takes charge. She sends Ted and Marshall off to find the ingredients for the elixir while they stay behind to try to wake up Barney.
First, they accidentally throw Barney down the stairs, but that doesn’t awaken him. Robin implements some tricks that her father used on her to wake her up as a kid — submerging his head in a bucket of ice water, forcing him to watch frightening clips of bears, and threatening to cut his skinny tie in half. None work, and Lily makes her vow this episode to never get that drunk again.
But in 2030, at Wesleyan University, Lily and Marshall are dropping off their son at school. They warn him not to go drinking in bars (especially while underage). After securing him in his dorm room, they proceed to get wasted on tequila shots at a nearby bar. When Lily sees Marvin enter into the bar she exclaims “You, Son of Me!” (in her “Son of a Bitch!” voice).
Meanwhile, Ted and Marshall successfully get most of the items needed for the elixir. All they need is grease (and the secret ingredient). But at the Farhampton Inn, the chef informs them that they cook organically and do not use grease. Ted sees bacon at the breakfast buffet, but the chef has already thrown out the grease and will not be making more unless someone eats all the bacon in the next 10 minutes. Marshall refuses to binge eat the bacon, pressuring Ted to eat it. He’s never eaten bacon because his mother told him he was allergic (to encourage healthy eating).
“I don’t even know if I’ll like bacon,” Ted says, while Marshall and the chef give the camera a knowing look. He takes a bite and “sees the face of God.” Soon, Ted has eaten the very large portion of bacon, and they are rewarded with a pint of grease. Before Ted, now addicted to bacon, can grab some of the fresh strips, his stomach gives out and he gives up.
In the bedroom, Lily says they have one more thing to try to get him awake: making out. Years of weird homoeroticism between them has built to this moment. Yet they barely lock lips before Barney is resuscitated like a drowning man. They beg him for the secret ingredient, but he reveals that there is no secret. It was a lie. (Who didn’t see that coming?) The elixir was Barney’s placebo cure for each of them (like the Felix Felicis that Ron drinks in Harry Potter or Dumbo’s feather), used to bring them back to life after experiencing some of the worst moments of their life.
With no cure in sight, Marshall declares Barney a dead man. Robin’s father will never forgive him for ruining the photos. So, the gang pulls off the Weekend at Barney’s, and Barney even earns Robin’s father’s respect. Barney is elated to learn about the Weekend at Barney’s play. But the gang discusses, when he’s not around, that they actually just cancelled the photo shoot and Robin’s father kicked Barney in the balls out of anger.
This is the moment when Ted declares that he, too, will never drink that much again. We return to New Year’s Day 2022, where the Mother is painfully hungover. Ted gives her a dose of Stinson’s Hangover Fixer Elixir, before their kids run screaming into the room and hop into bed with them. Such a tender family moment to end on.
Rating
B+ A-
I bumped up the grade solely because of the Weekend at Barney’s stunt. It just works too perfectly to be ignored. Yet the rest of the episode was solid HIMYM fun, despite some of the jokes not landing (the bacon bit was overwrought, the lesbian kiss far too awkward — Monica and Rachel had far better chemistry and timing in their lesbian kisses). “Rally” is pure fun, and the flashforwards all felt poignant while still being informative and fun. It’s far more interesting learning their futures in small bits and pieces.
Now for some random thoughts and my favorite moments of the night…
“My father’s recipe for a Bloody Mary trades out tomato juice for wolf’s blood.” – Robin
“We are not doing Weekend at Barney’s!” Robin puts her foot down. “But that’s the dream!” Ted exclaims before saying, “I can’t believe I just said that.”
“No good comes from hanging out in bars and getting drunk.”– Future Lily. “But every story from your twenties starts in a bar!”, Marvin retorts.
“Hey, will you toss me that bottle,” Ted says with a wry smile. Marshall tosses the two-liter of Tantrum, grinning as well. “Dude, you’re a grown man, why are you throwing a Tantrum?”
When Robin vows to never get that drunk again, we flashforward to Buenos Aires in 2016, where Robin and Barney wake up on a hotel floor. A baby in the room starts crying, and Robin goes to soothe it. Do Robin and Barney end up having a child?!? Nope, the baby belongs to the Hispanic woman staying in the room. She screams at these hungover Americans to leave.
In the tag ending, Robin awkwardly tries to get Lily to make out with her again; but Lily turns her down. Robin continues being awkward for another 40 seconds.
These tag endings this season really put a sour taste in my mouth (right before I try to rate the episode as a whole, no less).
