The writers' strike was tough on all of us. So it was nice of the HIMYM crew to give us a mythology episode right off the bat. That yellow umbrella really warms my heart.
Score this one 1/3 shaky, 2/3 legendary. Barney does some rather stale Barney schtick to convince Ted to go out with him on St. Patrick's Day, ditching suddenly lame Marshall and Lily (whose idea of an appropriate March 17 beverage is green tea). There's some business with Ted's phone calling Marshall's accidentally when he sits on it wrong. Pocket dialing, Ted calls it. I confess, I don't carry a cell phone — is that (1) an actual thing (2) an actual thing that HIMYM is exploiting for a catch phrase (3) not an actual thing?
Once Ted sheds his scruples and joins Barney plus hot chick duo in line at the club, the universe starts asking screwy. The doorman says the club is full of chicks and dudes are in short supply. (?) They order champagne on some stranger's tab, and get caviar on the side. (??) A bold hot chick invites them over for bellybutton tequila shots. (?? … oh wait, that seems to always happen on TV.) Ted calls it an "ethical-philosophical wormhole" — the worse they act, the more they get rewarded. But Barney soon has the whole bar shouting, "No tomorrow!" Do what you want with no consequences, he says. A free pass for one night.
Meanwhile Marshall is carrying Lily over the threshold of their new apartment, with Robin along to carry the housewarming gifts. But while Lily is running from room to room looking for freebies left behind by the former owners (skateboard! salad strainer! Hungry Hungry Hippos!), Robin and Marshall discover that the castle is more like a slanty shanty. Desperate to conceal this dream house defect from Lily, Marshall claims that their consternation is because they saw the ghost of a Confederate general "out for revenge on the Union cannonade that felled him."
Now it's been established that I don't like clubbing, on-the-make Ted. He's scuzzy. And here, as he's locking lips with a married girl and thinking that he came out ahead because he escaped with a black eye instead of being hauled off in the paddy wagon, I was wondering if the rest of the season was going to be Don Juan Ted instead of everybody's best friend Ted.