The last time walking STD Barney Stinson had to deal with the end of a long term relationship, the man went HAM in “The Playbook”, a season five episode in which the writing staff of How I Met Your Mother took all of the ideas that they came up with on how to hook up with naive, twentysomething ladiez but couldn’t use while Barney was with Robin and jammed them in one 22 minute container that reeked of herpes. (The DVD of said episode is locked in a glass case and guarded by the finest of lasers in the lobby of Maxim HQ through the end of time.) In “Nannies”, after his engagement with Quinn drove off a cliff engulfed in flames, The Suit was up to his old dirty tricks. But because it would be pathetic for NPH’s character to dominate another entire episode with his night moves after growing up through the years into a real multi-faceted boy with a John Lithgow father, he found that reverting to his sleazy old ways would not ultimately be satisfying, and his actions directly affected an equally important storyline involving Marshall and Lily leaving their son alone with a nanny for the first time.
Also he sexed an old lady.
We’ll get to that later sadly. Before that, in the open, Barney announced both his presence and something he invented calledBangtoberfest to the MacLaren crowd with both his loud, confident mouth and real live shirt gun. Ted was a lucky recipient of one of the shirts.
Robin said Barney needed time to heal. Barney countered that he dropped seven grand on merch, so he’ll be keeping that foot on the gas pedal. One scene later he announced that Bangtoberfest was not working out as well as Rocktober or Hocktober when the NHL isn’t in a labor dispute. Despite getting the woman to agree to go with him, his ploy as a kind cop or judge with a thick Boston accent (?) willing to “get people off” was old, and therefore unsatisfactory. As Barney dejectedly put his head down on the bar table, Lily was distracted by an online nanny directory, continuing her search for a caretaker, because she did not trust her dad Mickey with lil’ Marvin. Why? As an example we witnessed a 1988 incident in which Chris Elliott took young Lily to the OTB. Asking what her birthday is to maybe find some sort of lucky number or two to change his abysmal luck, Lily tragically/humorously said it was today. Mickey didn’t seem to feel guilt over it, instead wondering if that would help him. Also, he burned the East Meadow house down because of some pesky Chinese fireworks, and apparently dying from fire related injuries is bad for young children.
Mrs. Buckminster was the perfect potential nanny for Marvin, but her weekly fee was so high that it caused Marshall and Lily to openly weep. A young lady from Marshall’s home town named Julie Jorgenson was the next best thing. Julie and Marshall engaged in a funny word play bit when Marshall knew her father, George Jorgenson. Her brother, Morgan Jorgenson, just joined George Jorgenson’s organ shop. It was called George Jorgenson’s Organs, but now it’s George and Morgan Jorgenson’s Organs. (All Morgan’s idea.) They just opened a new shop in Oregon. “What’s that one called?” “Piano Town.” Indeed.
Unfortunately for the Ericksons, Barney had been working overtime ever since he discovered the existence of heynannynanny.com(which is a real website that exists, documenting all of the lies he has told over the years, including his infamous Lorenzo Von Matterhorn persona which made its debut in “The Playbook.” It’s all connected people.) Stinson tricked Miss Jorgenson and a bunch of other father’s daughters from the website into believing that he was a rich single dad that had fallen in love with her. To make up for screwing the Ericksons over, Barney paid Mrs. Buckminster’s fee and had her deliver both herself and the exact racetrack with the double loop de loop that Marshall had when he was a kid to their door the next morning. It was then, at the end of act two, that Lily announced that she couldn’t bear to give Marvin away to anyone and walked off to the baby’s bedroom. Well then. Marshall wasn’t much help.
Upon waking from a long nap, Lily discovered that she was no longer holding Marvin, but a toy monkey. It turned out Mickey had taken care of Marvin all day and knew what he was doing with the kid, feeding him and taking him to the park and not killing him. He had swapped out the boy from Lily’s arms while she was asleep with his big burrito, and then later the burrito for the monkey, both Indiana Jones style. It turned out that he wasn’t the world’s worst father until Lily’s first day of preschool, which is when he started going to the track to kill some time he had suddenly acquired. (The line “How am I going to make it to three o’clock without her?” was really sweet, and needed to be sweet, since the next beat of Chris Elliott looking at his newspaper and starting his gambling habit that would make his daughter hate him for 20+ years was really fucking depressing.) Six months after that day, what gambling addict’s thumbs had metal pins in them?
Is this Get a Life all of a sudden? Because that would be cool. Also cool was seeing pictures of the future with Marvin, his parents and his grandpa with the weird thumbs.
While the Ericksons had a happy ending, Barney didn’t earn the proper amount of karma to offset his douchery and was attacked by all of the nannies that he tricked. There were ten of them, all really, really pretty. He got his ass kicked, but I still think it wasn’t enough.
To monitor his actions, he hired Mrs. Buckminster to scold him whenever he settled for his “get you off” line to get women. She claimed that what he was doing to “young women” was simply “not appropriate.” She made a move on him and then they had sex five times.
Does that make her a prostitute? Also wow.
Oh, and Ted and Robin competed over which one was in the better, happier relationship but it became obvious that they were lying to the people that meant the most: themselves. Nick has feelings, and Robin hates men who show feelings because what kind of a dude does that? And Victoria is apparently a slob. And apparently eats bananas.
It was all designed to make the upcoming breakups of the two relationships somewhat organic, and to get Cobie Smoulders to say “Ha burn” and to commit to shouting “DAMMIT!” upon hearing that Victoria keeps her tampons at Ted’s apartment, which won him the battle for the better relationship, but not the war. Those kids know what’s coming, but it isn’t going to make the pain feel any better. Except a Gunsandammovember, or a Caprasmus.
Things to Say While Holding a Baby Who Pooped His Pants For Nine Minutes and Forty Two Seconds
“I had no idea ‘Naked Man Runs Back Into Inferno To Rescue Potato Salad’ was Mickey!”
“Ya better than this Bahney.”
“I’m available.” “Dad, we know.” “I wasn’t talking to you.”
“Somebody who is not in the middle of a race should probably go talk to her.”
“If you’ll excuse me that blonde at the bar looks as loose as my rear molars.”
“Off with you dear. Go make better decisions!”
Things to Ponder While Burying Your Head Inside the Safety of an Old Nanny’s Bosom
So does Victoria not flush sometimes or all the time? I hope she at least washes her hands when she bakes.
Was Marshall and Lily screaming at the camera, stopping to catch breath, than screaming again way too over the top? I wasn’t a fan of Robin winking at us viewers last season. You can’t just decide that fourth wall isn’t there after seven years. You mean you were pretending not to notice us this whole time? Is that supposed to make us feel good?
I figured out the whooshing time shift interstitials pan across the location where the conversation is presently taking place. Am I an idiot for not figuring that out for this long?
Is it at all possible that Mickey and the fireworks accident was a meta joke about how viewers keep whining and asking when the show will “get to the fireworks factory” and reveal the titular mother? If it was intentional, that would be some Dan Harmon level type shit and would give Mother 10,000 internet points, which would ironically buy itself another year of foot dragging.
Roger Cormier doesn’t want you to fix this. He just wants to be heard.
