How I Met Your Mother: Tailgate

Happy New Years Everybody! This year, I plan to keep up the blog, still tinkering with things and making sure I talk about some of the new mid-season shows starting up soon. But first things first, let's talk about How I Met Your Mother and it's New Years themed episode, "Tailgate.

What Happened, Yo!:

-Marshall decides to continue his tradition of tailgating the Vikings game with his dad by tailgating at his father's graveside. While there, he recounts the events of the previous night, New Year's Eve.
-While preparing to unpack the baby room on New Year's, Marshall convinces Lily to call her dad (who is at a board game convention in Chicago) and tell him she's pregnant. But when she tells him, he only says "great, thanks" before hanging up.
-Later on, Lily and Marshall have a disagreement when Lily learns Marshall plans to read their child a book about the unexplained, entitled "Enigma of the Mystical" every night.
-While he tries to convince her that these things are real, eventually Marshall learns that she's resistant to this because while Marshall's dad taught him to believe in all this stuff, her dad was never there for her, so she never did. Marshall apologizes and they reconcile.
-Meanwhile Robin and Kevin are watching Sandy River's New Years Eve Special. Robin is glad that she doesn't have to produce it, because Sandy picked the girl he's sleeping with, while Kevin tries to get her to resolve to get behind the camera again because he thinks she misses it.
-When Sandy's producer Tina quits and dumps him, Robin is called to fill in for the rest of the special, but is frustrated when he becomes a drunken wreck over this break-up and leaves mid-broadcast to get Tina back, making Robin have to go after him.
-Sandy seems to succeed in getting Tina back, but ruins it right away by suggesting a 3-way. Robin gets him back to where the special is, but he soon leaves again, forcing her to step in for him and ring in the new year.
-We learn that this was the first step towards Robin becoming co-anchor of World News, but that story is yet to come.
-Meanwhile, Ted and Barney are outraged by the long wait and expensive cover fee at MacLaren's, and decide to finally start their own bar Puzzles, where all drinks are 2 dollars, and Barney plans to sleep with girls in the VIP room (Ted's room.). Kevin wants to be involved so they make him bartender.
-Things go great at first, but rowdy customers cause expenses to go up, causing the prices of drinks to go way up, until eventually drinks are 50 dollars, and Ted, Barney, Kevin, and Doug (Who had been the bouncer at MacLaren's, before they had to hire him as a bouncer at Puzzles) are left alone. So they all grab a beer, put on Doug's wet New Years hats and watch Robin ring in 2012.
-Back at the tailgate, Marshall's hopes of a private moment with his dad are squandered by the appearance of his brothers (who want to do the same thing), and people from a nearby funeral who want to see a game.
-Marshall eventually realizes though that his dad always let people in on the tailgating if they wanted it, and decides that maybe private moments are overrated.
-And lastly, Lily experiences an enigma of the mystical when her dad shows up on her doorstep. It turns out that after his seemingly non enthused reaction to her pregnancy, he immediately dropped what he was doing and drove all the way from Chicago to New York to congratulate her. They share a nice moment.

I Liked This: After the poignancy of the last episode (which I did enjoy), How I Met Your Mother switches gears to deliver a very funny one (with two touching moments at the end). I was glad to see the return of Puzzles, and I enjoyed the Cheers-esque theme they composed for it (Especially Barney's line about banging chicks in Ted's room and Kevin's awkward "And I'm the bartender" addition to the end). The return of Doug was well handled too. In fact, all of the minor, recurring characters from past years who popped up tonight had good moments. Especially Sandy Rivers. I liked the set-up for Robin to eventually become an anchor again and get closer to that positive future we know we'll have. As I mentioned above, I found the end of the tailgating plot and Lily's dad's appearance both to be very touching and a good way to end the episode. The tailgating story was also a good use of the frame story, and I enjoyed the way it popped up from time to time and Marshall constantly being interrupted.

But...: Marshall and Lily's storyline was pretty disconnected from the other two storylines, so it didn't make much story sense for Marshall to be bringing up the other two stories while he "talked" to his dad. And until the ending, Marshall and Lily's story was the weakest of the bunch. But these are minor quibbles.

The Bottom Line: Tailgate was a nice, lighthearted episode to come back from the holidays on, and a solid start to the second half of season 7.

Grade: Totally Awesome! (Great)

Memorable Moments

-http://www.puzzlesthebar.com/ is a real thing and is worth checking out, as is all HIMYM Tie-in Websites.
-Kid Marshall: "Is there anything you don't know, Dad?" Marvin: "No, I know most stuff".
-Lily's dad tries to sell his new game Shoplifter. "I don't see why people aren't getting this. Shoplifter does not promote crime. It celebrates it".
-At MacLaren's, the New Years hats are 15 dollars. 20 if you want one that isn't wet.
-Ted has a dream for Puzzles.: "A bar where no one is overcharged. Where everyone feels valued and respected. Barney has one too.: "A bar, where I can get chicks drunk and bang them.
-Ted: "Oh, and check it out, we worked out a theme song for Puzzles!" Kevin: "While I was carrying 100 pound kegs up four flights of stairs? Awesome."
-The Puzzles theme song: "Puzzles is a place where people go, to feel like they belong".  "Gonna take advantage of dum drunk girls". "No we're not". "Bro!" "Cuz' that would be wrong. A place where wit and wisdom bloom". "A place to bang chicks in Ted's room". "Not gonna happen". "We'll talk about it". "At Puzzles, we all fit together..." Kevin: "And I'm the bartender! (Ted and Barney stare at him) I'll go get the other kegs."
-Marshall's attempt to restart the story getting interrupted three different times from a man burying his aunt is the funniest use of the frame story.