In the last season of How I Met Your Mother we saw Ted and the gang go through some highs and lows. Ted was involved with the fan-hated Zoey; Marshall dealt with the loss of his father, while Lily dealt with the pressures of trying to get pregnant (which she finally did in the season finale). Meanwhile, Robin navigated a new job, and more details of her pop star days were finally revealed. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of last season was Barney, who sort of became more important than Ted as he searched for his father, continued his antics of being awesome and fell for a girl named Nora.
So where exactly did we last leave off? The season finale flashed forward to sometime in the future to the wedding where Ted finally meets his wife. We find out the groom of the wedding is…wait for it…Barney! Gasp.
“The Best Man” opens with Future Ted telling his children everything is about timing and says that the how he met their mother story is nowhere close to being finished. He then picks up the story at Barney’s wedding where they reminisce about their friend Punchy’s wedding back in the original (September 2011) timeline. Confused? That’s not surprising considering the constant jumping around in time; just bear with it.
After the first five minutes of catching up, the show picks up at the wedding (Punchy’s, not Barney’s) where Ted is the best man and is trying to finally not to screw up a wedding speech. Marshall and Lily are hiding their pregnancy (due to some outlandish superstition), which results in Marshall getting drunk enough to where he will eventually ruin said wedding. As usual, Barney is running around trying to get laid and Robin, who is secretly in love with him, again, is extremely jealous.
The episode is a classic HIMYM plot where Future Ted hints at something that will happen, but it doesn’t actually happen until the last three minutes of the show, and the middle of the episode relies on situational jokes that are fun but barely advance the story. One of these involved a dance number with Barney and Robin. Of course it was entertaining; who doesn’t want to watch Neil Patrick Harris show off his dancing skills?