This week, CBS Monday night is brought to you buy The Back-Up Plan, which means that Alex O’Loughlin is sitting next to Jennifer Lopez, touting his new movie on the network that he was unceremoniously dumped from. Twice. In very quick succession.
Sit back and enjoy the awkwardness, kids! It’s going to be a fun night!
Speaking of awkward, Ted tells the kids about the time that he made the big, crazy decision that changed his life. It starts with a visit from his mom, Virginia, and her boyfriend, Clint. Clint’s always telling Ted that his mother’s a very erotic woman. Ted’s extremely uncomfortable, but his mom loves him. In fact, they’re getting married!
Ted heads to the wedding and brings the rest of the gang. Clint keeps calling him “son” and gives him a picture he painted of himself and Ted’s mom naked. Without the guitar that story-Ted put on there for modesty’s sake. The rest of the gang declares it the best wedding EVER. Then Clint sings a song that he wrote for Virginia. Ted blacks out for most of it, after the part where Clint waxes poetic about the squeezing of her bosom, and the blood rushing, well, southward. When he comes to, the entire room is singing along, and Robin is tearing up. Barney starts picking on Robin for her sensitivity and will not let it up for days!
Ted can’t take being the single guy at his mother’s wedding, so he tells Marshall to make up an excuse and cuts out before his toast.
Seventy-two hours later, Ted finally shows up at the bar. He takes everyone for a ride. To the dream house he bought over the weekend. Ever see The Money Pit? That place was better. Barney wants to know if the Blair Witch haggled over the closing costs on the sale. It could be the stupidest thing any of them had ever done. Marshall thinks they’ve all done stupid things. To prove it, he tells the story of the time he dropped some bottle rockets in the toilet and put them in the microwave to dry them off. Robin thinks he was drunk off his ass, Barney thinks he was a kid.
This starts an exciting new game “Drunk or Kid.” For the record, it was drunk. Barney picks on Robin again about the crying, but Robin announces that she wasn’t the one who was crying after all. She agreed to say it was her for $500.
The inspector shows up and finds all sorts of things wrong with it. They think he’s being stupid because he bought it before an inspection. Round two of Drunk or Kid involves Marshall riding his bike down an extension ladder on the side of the house. KID!
Lily keeps pointing out that he can’t keep it. Ted had a plan…wife, house, kids. Since the universe is “being kind of a wad” about the wife and kids part, he’s taking on the one thing he can control. It’s not a huge mistake. They play Round 3 of Drunk or Kid. In it, kiddie Marshall drove his brother’s car down the wrong way of I-94.
Leaky pipes, rats in the basement, the house is a mess. Lily is still second-guessing the decision. Ted points out that freshman year, Marshall knew right away that he wanted to be with Lily. What if someone had been there to second-guess that decision? Marshall took the leap of faith, and it’s the best decision he ever made.
Barney tries to tell them it was Robin after all. They don’t believe him. The inspector comes back and lists off a plethora of problems. No termites, but I’m pretty sure he pointed out a hobo in residence. He could keep looking, but he thinks he could save them all some time by telling Ted that he shouldn’t buy this “Guantanamo Bay of a house” and they all leave before the wind knocks it down. Ted tells him that he already bought it, and laughing, the inspector heads upstairs to continue the inspection.
Marshall caught the hobo thing too. Ted knows there are problems, but he sees it for the house it wants to be and the house it almost is. Wait, that was Jerry Maguire. Still, he wants it. Then, the inspector falls through the roof. Found the termites!
Ted finally sees the error of his ways. He’s just sick of everyone moving on without him. He wants the life that fits into the house. To comfort him, Barney points out that everyone makes mistakes. Like Virginia. He shared a “moment” with her in 2006, and that’s why he cried at Clint’s song. The bastard stole Virginia! He wanted to be Ted’s step-dad! Now, all he has a special memory of a kiss between them.
Ted comes to realize that he will probably need to raze the house and sell the property at a huge loss. Lily hands him a sledgehammer and invites him to bash the living hell out of his bad decision instead. He can’t do it until Barney reveals that he got to second base with Virginia. They bash the hell out of the wall. Then, Ted tells them that there’s one more thing he has to do. He races out of the house and the gang doesn’t see him for another 72 hours. Even though, as Robin points out, he was their ride.
In the meantime, Ted dons a suit and heads to Clint and Virginia’s for the weekend. He never got to give them their toast at the wedding, so he makes up for it with a sweet heartfelt set of words. His mom appreciates it, but she’s pretty baked right now. If he’s not an apparition, she loves him.
As he returns to the house, Ted tells the kids that sometimes the best decisions don’t make any sense at all. He finds Marshall in the backyard grilling, just like Ted kept insisting that he wanted to on the weekends. The boys split a couple of beers, and Marshall tells him that Ted has never listened to him before about any of the girls. Why would he start now about the house? In Marshall’s mind, Ted’s heart is both drunk and a kid. Ted starts sharing his ideas for the place.
Ted tells the kids “time is funny, and sometimes a little magical.” As he talks, the wall starts fixing itself. And then the shelves are added, and then, the little yellow bus, and the black couch, and the two kids.
Hands down, one of the best episodes of the season!
