It was a necessary evil I suppose for Ted’s feelings for Robin to resurface on the show. While we all know that Robin isn’t The Mother, the two characters had very good chemistry when they dated in season two and were one of the reasons why it was the best season How I Met Your Mother has ever offered. They broke up then because they didn’t want the same things for themselves “five years from now,” and here they find themselves five years later single and sharing an apartment together. It would be disingenuous and weird if the show didn’t shove the two into the forefront for a week or two. On the other hand: seriously with these two again? Thankfully for first-time writer George Sloan, he had a little help from a freakishly tall gentleman in making “No Pressure” entertaining.
So Conan O’Brien is a MacLaren’s patron apparently. Did you see the cameo/read about it all over the internet? He had his back to the camera having a beer with his much shorter friend at the bar starting in the second act, only turning his head as Barney blew past him to search for the elusive Eriksen adult home video. This role as an extra was announced all the way back in June, long enough where most people would completely forget about it. Well played sirs and madams.
Okay, on to the stuff that will make some people upset! “No Pressure” opened with Future Ted telling his incredibly patient children that the first time he told their mother that he loved her was in the rain (as she held a yellow umbrella) after having a horrible lunch and not being able to see Wedding Bride III. Always the romantic that guy. Apparently before that the last time he told a woman that he loved her was Robin, on the roof in 2012, which we saw at the end of last week’s episode. Ted immediately regretted it, but Robin the next morning kissed him, and he suddenly didn’t regret it so much. She unfortunately had to go to Russia for the country’s annual Butter Festival for an entire week, immediately. The two kissed goodbye and agreed to talk about it when she returned. Ted summoned Marshall and Lily to head to the bar at seven in the morning to talk about it, which is okay because it was a really crazy situation. No judgment here. Perhaps it was a weekend?
Because Barney rode the drunk train the night before (not a euphemism) and had crashed at Marshall and Lily’s, Stinson had the Long Island house to himself to look for the couple’s sex tape. Instead he discovered a box of papers with various bets made by Lily and Marshall on the gang’s future. Barney, rightfully appalled but strangely not fixated on the fact that Lily thinks he will be murdered, rushed to MacLaren’s to confront Lily and Marshall on the bets. When Ted read that Lily wagered that him and Robin would not end up together, he got upset, but Lily expertly changed the subject away from herself and back on Ted and put the question in his head of why him and Robin hadn’t happened by now. Once Barney commuted to Long Island, found the sex cassette tape and returned exactly 46 minutes later to Ted’s apartment to watch it (because Ted was the only one he knew that owned a functioning VCR), Ted thought he was looking at the one obstacle.
T-Mose is probably right: Robin is in love with Barney, and I would be willing to write down a bet and put it in a box that she will be the bride in his wedding. But for now, that looks unlikely to the characters. Barney revealed to Ted the events from “Tick Tick Tick” where Robin chose Kevin over him. After Ted told Barney that Kevin and Robin broke up the night before and that he was interested in being with Robin again, Barney casually claimed he was cool with it and kept his composure. It’s probably not true, but Ted remarking that Mr. Stinson was growing up is definitely accurate, considering that the next scene wasn’t Barney breaking a very expensive television set in the alleyway.
Marshall and Lily exhibited incredible timing by barging into Ted and Robin’s apartment right as Barney had put in their sex tape. In a funny sequence, Lily tried to convince Barney to watch it because she had previously bet Marshall he would, while Marshall attempted to exhibit his most upsetting sounds and facial contortions that he makes while having intercourse to get Barney to not see it. Freaking out and being completely overwhelmed, Barney smashed the VCR and destroyed the tape, as well as the B story.
Once Robin returned Ted took her out to the infamous restaurant with the blue french horn, making sure he didn’t show his face to the waiter. Back at their apartment Robin admitted that she doesn’t love him back. When she brought up that they still had their “we’re going to marry each other if we’re still single when we’re 40 years old” deal, Ted wouldn’t have it. If the door is open he feels that he would always go for it. After Mr. Mosby told Marshall after the conversation that he was “happy” that he can finally move on, Marshall had to tell Robin she had to get the hell out of that apartment. She has a decent paying job and gets to go to Russia every once in awhile; it’s not as if she’ll be homeless. Homewrecker.
The final two scenes of the episode almost ruined the otherwise good episode. In the penultimate, soundtracked by Florence and the Machine, Ted walked out onto a raining street to witness a bunch of women in yellow umbrellas walk by him as Saget Ted in voiceover claimed that he was happy that he was free from the burden of thinking he still had a chance with Robin. Cut to Lily in bed with Marshall, asking him to pay up on the Ted/Robin wager. “Not yet,” Marshall said, provoking several grunts and “oh come on“‘s, undercutting Ted’s cathartic moment from five whole seconds ago. I’m assuming they edited out the next line of Marshall’s in which he said, “We might have to drag the show out for more than eight seasons, and since we just painted ourselves into a corner by saying Robin is the last woman Ted says he loves before meeting the mother, we’re going to need to keep mining the Ted/Robin pipe until it’s sucked completely dry. Oh man what if we go on for ten seasons and Future Ted has to say ‘Oh yeah, I forgot I also loved some other broad’ or he dates Robin for another three years? Will we be able to show our faces in public? Well I will, because I made the muppet movie.” Or something like that.
Things To Say And Think About At The Russian Butter Festival
- “Yeah but he just wants to bang me. I want something real.”
- Were the bets the real reason why Lily sabotaged all of Ted’s previous relationships, as we learned in “The Front Porch” back in season four?
- The different interpretations of Ted and Robin’s kiss in the minds of Ted and Lily were very simple yet very funny
- Ted *would* still have a VCR
- “Which I didn’t tell her because I go camping…in secret.”
- Damn that Patrice. Seriously
- “Do you think that if we did it and I did a reallyyy good job that I can turn that into *my* baby?”
- “My God they’re placing bets on our lives! And I’m sorry but Ted cannot pull off bald.”
- “Marshall with a landing strip: even money”
Roger Cormier has been retweeted by Dan Harmon on two separate occasions.
