I would recap last night’s episode of How I Met Your Mother for you, but I just can’t seem to remember how it went. Did Barney and Robin hang out? Or was it Ted and Robin? Did Marshall fall into the frigid ocean? Is Zoey pregnant? Gee, if only I could remember…

How I Met Your Mother has come up with some clever plot devices over the years when it comes to the fact that the stories are being told to a couple teenagers by their dad twenty years after the fact. Some of them have really worked, like replacing pot with “sandwiches” and the occasional glimpse at how and when Ted finally meets his wife. This week, Old Ted really struggled to remember how an argument went down between Lily and Barney, and I’m not sure how I felt about it. I think it worked, what about you?

At times the whole “No wait, I had it wrong, this is what happened” thing got a little confusing. I mean, do we really care who called who fat? But by the end we did, because the big thing Old Ted was forgetting was that Lily and Barney’s fight had actually taken place later when Lily was very, very pregnant.

Eeee! I never doubted that Lily and Marshall would actually get pregnant (fertility problems are too much of a downer for this show) but it was still nice to see Lily with the belly. And the fact that she was hanging out in a bar despite not being able to drink (a girl needs her onion rings, right?) gives us hope that the impending baby will not ruin the show. But if Lily isn’t knocked up by the end of the season, I am going to be one cranky viewer. You can only keep me waiting for so long!

In other news, we learned about The Mermaid Theory this week. Apparently The Mermaid Theory (which came with one of Barney’s awesome historic flashbacks) says that every man has a ticking clock, counting down to the time when a woman he once found grotesque (like a manatee) will suddenly look hot (like a mermaid). I liked the theory, in theory. The idea that Marshall hired a homely secretary but would eventually be attracted to her was good. (That’s why you pull an Ari Gold and hire a Lloyd.) But they lost me with the extras. I did not buy:
a) That Marshall can’t see that Robin is hot. No guy would see Robin in a manatee suit, whether he was married to her best friend or not. The idea should have been that Marshall avoided hanging out alone with Robin because he knows she’s hot, not because he would one day be desperate enough to think that. (And girls – you’re an idiot if you think your guy sees a manatee when he looks at your super hot BFF.)
b) The idea that a mermaid can become a manatee if she gets pregnant. I know it tied into the whole thing with Lily being pregnant, but come on. No one looked at Angelina Jolie when she was knocked up and saw a manatee. Same goes for Halle Berry.
c) Ted does not see Zoey as a mermaid because he thought she was hot when he met her. But the clock ticking to illustrate that pretty soon Ted will be madly in love with her was a good ending.

Ted going for a boat ride with The Captain was very funny, especially since the whole thing was set up with Marshall’s smile/dead eyes demonstration. Ted is at his funniest when he’s being incredibly awkward rather than a douche, and I think he was at his best in this episode. Plus Kyle MacLachlan nailed the creepy vibe.

What did you think of the episode? Did you buy The Mermaid Theory? Are you excited for Lily to have a baby on board? And who’s pumped for Alex Trebek to appear next week? (Me! Me! Me!)

Here’s some funny lines and moments from the episode:

• “When those things swell up to three times their normal size, so do I.” – Barney (of course) on why breastfeeding can reverse the whole pregnant manatee thing.
• Everything about Robin and Marshall’s date. Especially “cold weather sports” as a conversation topic.
• The Captain’s description of Ted’s phone sinking into the frigid ocean.
• Lily’s rules for hanging out with a married person of the opposite sex: Don’t go anywhere with candles, no sharing food, and no lying to the spouse about anything you do.
• Barney’s rules for hanging out with a married person of the opposite sex: No using the husband’s condoms, and “lubricant is community property”.
• Ted psyching himself up to jump off the boat with “You didn’t get a Good Effort medal from the Shaker Heights JCC Swim Camp because you didn’t have what it takes!”