Precisely halfway through “Knight Vision”—the latest from How I Met Your Mother—I turned to my roommate and said, “I have no idea where this show is headed.” It’s been a shaky month of episodes that have covered less than a day of time. This episode was as all-over-the-place as the entire season has been.
First I want to talk about Marshall’s road trip—only because I think it is the worst thing to happen to the show. Daphne is upset with Marshall because he hadn’t told his wife about his judge position offer. There’s a series of funny scenes where she walks him through how to talk to Lily, where her voice takes the place of Lily’s. The biggest punchline was her/Lily exclaiming, “What the damn hell?!” Seriously, that was it. It actually turns out she is a lobbyist for big oil firms, and she and Marshall get in a fight. Then at the very end she reveals she used Marshall’s phone to text Lily that Marshall already took the position to be a judge and that they won’t be moving to Rome. That cliffhanger may make next episode pretty climatic for at least one storyline. Hopefully.
The other stories actually had some sort of substance, and I didn’t mind them. Ted’s plot, which lends the title to the episode, is about choosing the right girl to hook up with this weekend. Barney relates the choice to the scene in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade where Indy has to choose the correct Holy Grail or blow up and disappear. Ted keeps seeing visions of the knight telling him that he “chose poorly.” It was a clever way to frame the story and did provide a few laughs here and there. The most likable portion of the plot was Ted’s revelation to his kids* that if he hooked up with any of the three girls he was trying to hook up with that he’d never meet their mother.
(*Okay, real quick. I can’t be the only one annoyed that he isn’t “telling” this story to his kids anymore. I know it could get annoying, and did at some points over the show’s nine seasons, but it is the premise of the show. The voiceover, which has been pretty non-existent itself, has literally addressed the children a handful of times. End rant.)
While all of this is going on, Barney and Robin must contend with their minister, who finds out they have been lying to him. It turns out they’ve stolen all of Marshall and Lily’s stories for themselves to impress the minister. We get to see the classic Marshall/Lily meeting in the dorm story with Barney and Robin acting it out. It was a funny scene to witness, but only if you’ve been a diehard fan since the beginning. It’s mirrored with Lily retelling how Barney first met Robin because of Ted. This time around she and Marshall play the roles from the very first episode.
The entire episode was filled with funny moments that didn’t add up to a very high sum. At least this episode actually produced quite a bit of laughter this time around. So maybe this last season is on an upswing? Again: hopefully.