HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER: “The Rebound Girl” – RECAP

Would you ever consider adopting a child with one of your best friends? In some ways it seems like a wonderful idea. How I Met Your Mother spells out all the positives it can think of if Ted and Barney got a kid together, but it never hides the fact that it’s a crazy idea and these two have no business being parents, at least right now. It’s human nature to do crazy, irrational things after a break up and also an infinite well of comedic material. Ted and Barney’s over enthusiasm for their terrible idea got a big laugh out of me every scene it was featured.

And of course you can’t go wrong with bringing an innocent child into the mix, even if it was just for a few minutes. Meet Hurrican Stinson-Mosby (“Mosby-Stinson,” Ted blurts out). It was the best way to show just how terrible Barney and Ted are as parents. Barney expects the pregnant Lily to have diapers and provides only napkins for the poor baby’s dooky-filled diaper, while Ted simply hands the baby over to Lily, saying the only thing they fed her was some root beer. The revelation that Hurricane was James’ daughter was an okay reveal, but James was mostly there to remind Ted that he needs to wait for The Mother (yawn, can we talk about something else please?).

I could continue on, talking in length about Marshall and Lily moving to Long Island, but I’m sure what’s really on everyone’s minds is the big cliffhanger between Robin and Barney. Robin is pregnant. As we all know she’s dating Kevin, but slept with Barney just a couple weeks ago. I was wondering if Robin could possibly find her way back to Barney still, and it looks like the writers have at least given themselves that exit point should they choose to take it. I’m sure in the next couple episodes we’ll discover who the true father is, Kevin or Barney. It’s a pretty ballsy move to make Robin pregnant while Lily is also pregnant. It’s not often you see two overlapping pregnancies on a sitcom.

Forget who the father is for a second; what about how Robin is feeling? HIMYM has made it clear through out the series that Robin is not fond of children, making this very cruel irony. It’s no wonder she was acting so psycho crazy (Great comedy work from Cobie Smulders, BTW. How many lamps did she knock over until she started yelling about everything? I think it was three.) over Lily and Marshall moving. They’re the only ones who can help her through a pregnancy she might not even want.

All in all I continuously come back to the same thought: isn’t this show supposed to be about Ted? In stretching out this love story, Ted has been pushed to the supporting character in his own story, making any mention of The Mother seem out of place and boring. How can the writers justify this? Occasionally he gets the have the A plot of an episode when it should be every episode. We’ve heard time and time again that Barney is important for Ted finding the mother, since it’s at his wedding that Ted meets her. Do we really need to put this much emphasis on it though? I miss having Ted be the main guy. I love the entire cast, but Ted’s story is what got me hooked on HIMYM in the first place. While I don’t believe this will happen any time soon, my hope is the eighth (and presumably last) season will return to focus on him.