How I Met Your Mother: “Splitsville” (Episode 8.06)

The Autumn of Breakups continues in the latest How I Met Your Mother. From the perspective of moving the overall plot along, this episode did its job. Yet something was missing. A lot of the jokes felt like they belonged in the series, but some of the plot felt out of place.

Basically Robin realizes Nick is dumb. Like, really dumb. They haven’t been able to have sex for three whole days thanks to Nick pulling his groin playing basketball. Now all he does is talk about stupid topics and it’s driving Robin crazy. This is something that would have happened to Ted in the earlier seasons: he starts dating a very attractive girl and is in love only to realize she’s “not the one” a few weeks later. Seeing Robin go through the realization was a fun way to put the spotlight on her.

The rest of the gang is going through their own problems as well. Marshall started a basketball team in the Midtown Professionals Basketball League and is distraught over Nick’s injury because that means their chances of winning the championship are slim. He puts all of his time into exercising and he and Lily also haven’t had sex in a while. How long? Since before the baby was born. Now she’s over-sexed and wanting to hear about the others’ escapades. While both aspects of the Eriksens’ story was funny, I feel the basketball league could have been an episode all in itself. Marshall has carried a lot of the weight this season and it’s only a matter of time before the writers reward him with his own centric episode.

Ted is also in the league with a group of architects. Needless to say the team sucked and so did this storyline. It was just a way for Ted to get involved with the story of what really mattered: Robin breaking up with Nick.

She can’t do it because she loves the sex and eventually Nick will heal. Barney devises a plan involving Robin’s over-attached co-worker Patrice. He sets up another countdown website that will make Patrice believe she is Robin’s BFF and that does not go over well with Robin. Barney’s crazy schemes have been memorable and this one is no different. However, when it backfires he marches down to Splitsville (the name of the episode and the desert restaurant where people go to split up) and professes his love to Robin so she can break up with Nick.

The problem is that he is faking it. Or maybe he isn’t. We all know the two are going to get together in the end, but this didn’t seem like the beginning of their rekindled relationship. In fact, the episode ends in a way that makes me believe it will be quite a few episodes where we deal with Ted finding his wife or Barney and Robin getting back together. This episode was the funniest in the breakup trilogy (slightly ahead of Ted ending things with Victoria), but I hope the show doesn’t digress from here. It should keep moving the plot along quickly and rewarding the fans who have stayed around for nearly a decade of the world’s longest love story.