SPOILERS AHEAD, so proceed with caution, you Mother lovers!
Season Nine, Episode 15: “Unpause”
Written by: Chris Harris; Directed by: Pamela Fryman
This week delves into HIMYM lore when Barney gets so drunk he answers questions honestly. (Who knew he was even capable of that?) Meanwhile, Lily and Marshall unpause their argument to disastrous effect. And we learn the names of Ted’s children (They’ll literally try to appease us with any random thing).
Quick Breakdown
In 2017, Ted and The Mother prove that they are the most insufferable couple ever as they spend yet another weekend at the Far Hampton Inn. (Do they actually just live there in the future? Does Ted buy her the Inn as a wedding anniversary present or something?) This time, the Mother is super preggers and going into labor (supposedly a week early). But it’s just now 2:00 a.m., and as Ted reminds us, his mother warned him that “nothing good happens after 2:00 a.m” (which is also the name of a season one episode, if you’ll recall).
In the present, Barney is still complaining about Marshall’s slap — his face still has a giant hand mark on it. Lily is trying to get Marshall to go back to the room because they need to unpause their huge argument (They’re notorious for pausing and unpausing arguments), so Marshall stalls by buying another round of drinks. But as is ominously revealed, it’s 2:00 a.m. on Sunday morning (16 hours before the wedding — or one month or so in our lives). Lily forces him to go upstairs and unpause their argument.
Ted and Robin try to get drunk Barney up to bed as well, because he’s regressed to Jabba Drunk (the highest known level of intoxication for Barney, when he begins to speak in gibberish reminiscent of Jabba the Hut). Suddenly, Barney begins speaking clearly, volunteering random thoughts that are out of character for him. Ted asks him who’s taller between them, and Barney replies that Ted is because he, Barney, wears lifts in his shoes. Ted then realizes that Barney has reached a new level of intoxication: Truth Serum Drunk. Things are about to get interesting for Ted and Robin.
In the bedroom, Marshall is prepared for the worst. But before unpausing the argument, Lily needs some lovin’ from her Marshmallow. Knowing that their argument will resume when they’re finished, Marshall pumps himself up for a long night of lovemaking.
Ted delves right into quizzing Barney, finally asking him what exactly he’s done with Ted’s mother (but he asks for it in baseball terms). Barney answers with, “I got thrown out trying to stretch a single into a double.” Robin then asks the question that’s very much on her mind. She asks him why he keeps saying “ring bear” instead of “ring bearer,” flat out asking him if there will be a bear at the wedding. But Barney returns to Jabba Drunk, and they must feed him more scotch to get him back to Truth Serum Drunk.
He answers questions about record number of women he’s slept with (in one night: four; in one family: three). But when he answers a question they’ve put to him often over the seasons (“What do you do for a living”), he seems to respond with his usual dismissive, “please.” Until Ted intuits that there’s more to that “please” than first appears.
A long time ago, Barney was a hippie, and a Jerky Bro stole his girlfriend from him. So Barney transformed (Darth Vader style) into a revenge-seeking bro (see the season one episode “Game Night”). What we learn now is that he sought out a job with said Jerky Bro, and that job involved the acronym PLEASE: Provide Legal Exculpation And Sign Everything. Essentially, Barney got a job signing “sketchy, legally-binding documents that could implicate [him] for God-knows-what,” for which he was paid 16 “craploads” a year (his suit budget is one crapload).
Meanwhile, Marshall has sexed his wife into sleep (with the aid of some of Barney’s sexual enhancement pills). As he creeps into bed, Lily flips on the light, ready to unpause. They yell at each other about their betrayals, Lily saying that they’re still moving to Italy anyways. She claims that she has never done anything as personally selfish as Marshall did. (Apparently, Lily’s far more recent dream to be an art dealer falls under the same umbrella as Marshall’s lifelong dream of a judgeship.)
Then Marshall throws out the wild card: Lily had been exceptionally selfish when she broke up with him at their wedding and moved to San Francisco. Lily tries to call him out, claiming they’d moved past that; but that was a pretty crappy thing to do. Lily storms off and makes a call to someone on the lobby phone who then drives by to pick her up (Any chance that person is The Mother?).
Ted and Robin begin to lecture Barney for his job, since he’s essentially that company’s legal scapegoat. But Barney has a Master Plan. Two months after the wedding, he brings in the FBI to take everyone down, thus completing his revenge for the theft of his girlfriend. With that question settled, Robin brings up the bear subject again. He evades a direct answer saying that Trevor Hudson will be the ring bearer and that he, Barney, works with Trevor’s mother. Robin sighs in relief and goes to bed, with Ted accepting the responsibility of wasted Barney.
In the future, Ted is helping The Mother get into the car so they can go to the hospital. He’s holding their daughter, whose name is Penny. And Ted is excited to get to the hospital so baby Luke can be born (I guess he got his Star Wars name).
Rating
A
After the big stall of an episode last week, this one at least gives us answers to many lingering series-wide questions (a very satisfying installment in this bizarre final season). I’m not sure if I expected resolution yet for Marshall and Lily’s fight, but Lily running away was a nice twist. Hopefully she realizes that she’s in the wrong, at least a little bit (or are you Team Lily?).
Now for some random thoughts and my favorite moments of the night…
“Screw tomorrow, we go big tonight.” – Everyone’s motto at the beginning of the episode (which is now my life motto).
“No distracting me with your calves.” – Lily to Marshall as they unpause their argument.
As they discuss Barney’s income, it’s revealed that Robin stands to inherit a vast fortune. Ted gets annoyed that he had to pay for every date they went on.
In the tag ending, a man in a dark cell drags along a chain intoning the name Trevor Hudson. Looks like Robin may not be in the clear after all.
