How I Met Your Mother – Recap & Review – The Time Travelers

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How I Met Your Mother
The Time Travelers

Original Air Date: Mar 25, 2013

Caitlin –Senior Staff Writer
caitlin@thetwocentscorp.com

What could make the infamous Robots vs. Wrestlers even better? Themed bots and wrestlers of a certain age. Yeah, okay, it’s Barney explaining this fact to us. But maybe we should trust him, as he’s apparently invited time travel.

Ted’s not too interested in the competition, so Barney brings future versions of them both (who look exactly the current versions) to convince him otherwise. Okay, so they’re (probably) imaginary. They almost convince him- until near future Ted arrives.

Apparently, while Robots vs. Wrestlers is awesome long-term, drinking excessively has a shelf life. Present Ted suggests just not drinking too much. It’s a reasonable idea, so you know it’s not going to be followed. I’m not going to try to keep track of all this and another version of Barney in text. All that matters is that eventually all the Teds and Barneys have their attention directed to the door of MacLaren’s. The person who enters should look familiar. It’s Coat Check Girl!

You may remember that, years ago, Ted and Barney went to a club where Barney accidently danced with his cousin. There, a coat check girl played by a pre-Glee Jayma Mays caught Ted’s eye. Now, seeing another chance, he starts to approach her, only to be called back by two future Coat Check Girls. It seems the relationship is going to doom one of them, though there’s no telling who. It might be the quickest death of a Mother theory yet.

Often, the subplot has almost nothing to do with the main one. Marshall has invented a complex and “girly” drink, but now it’s been credited to Robin, who orders it all the time. They turn on eachother, and eventually she traps him in the ladies room. Later, they have a dance off. And all of this shouldn’t have anything to do with the main plot, but it kind of does. Because none of it ever happened. There were never multiple versions of anyone, and Ted was in the bar alone.

Narrator Ted tells his kids that, if he had the chance, he wouldn’t go the Robots vs. Wrestlers. He certainly wouldn’t sit in an empty booth at MacLaren’s. Instead, he’d visit all the places and people that mattered to him most. And to top it all off, he’d visit his future wife just to get one early glimpse of her. It’s a bittersweet ending, and one of the best ones since this season. The end bit of all the Barneys and Teds singing “For the Longest Time” doesn’t hurt, either.

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