How I Met Your Mother: “Where’s the poop?”

“Where’s the poop?” is Lily’s way of asking what someone is hiding, and there was a whole lot of hiding going on in last night’s episode.

First of all, there was Robin. She was trying to hide the fact that she wasn’t over Don. At all. She might not be pulling Cheetos out of her hair anymore, but the girl is still a mess. Then there was Ted, who inexplicably tried to hide the fact that he really did want to design the new Goliath National Bank building. Why? Because of his high moral standards? He already designed a GNB building once before, so he can’t have that big a problem with the company, however evil it may be. Besides, Barney and Marshall already work there, so he knows it would be legen…wait for it…DARY. Was he trying to hide the fact that being an architecture prof without having had much success at actual architecture is not all that fulfilling? Maybe a little. But it really seemed like Ted was scared of failing again, since he’d already put so much work into the project once only to have it fall through, and they didn’t really address that.

What I did love, though, was the way Barney went about convincing Ted to take the job. He used the exact moves he uses on women. He ignored Ted, gave him backhanded compliments. (“Ted, I admire your loyalty. You’ve had that hairstyle forever. You don’t care that it’s out of style or that it’s been co-opted by the lesbian community. You stick with it. To Ted!”) He talked himself (and Goliath National Bank) up by complaining about things that are actually awesome. All this was made even better by the fact that he used Marshall as a wingman. The two convinced Ted than GNB ended up signing another architect to make him realize he really did want the job. Good old Marshall, he spilled the beans to keep Ted from taking the job at half the salary.

I also loved how Ted made Barney take him out for dinner before giving him “the Yes”. It goes against basically everything Barney stands for, and showed how much Barney wanted them to be “bro-workers”.

I liked Robin this week, mostly because her drunk dial calls to Don were so dark and creepy. I like angry, bitter, drunk Robin much more than I like sad, sweats-wearing, Cheeto-eating Robin. Lily made her delete Don’s number from her phone, but Robin wouldn’t do it unless Lily and Marshall deleted useless numbers from their phones too. This was kind of funny, but I can’t relate at all. If I’m bored and waiting for the bus, I scroll through my contacts list searching for people I can delete.

Lily’s useless phone entry was for a karate class she took back when everyone was saying “Whaaaasssssup” all the time. I liked the “Whaaassssup” reference, but I didn’t think Lily getting beat up my little kids at a karate class was that funny. Marshall’s was much funnier. He was forced to part with the number of the guy who used to book gigs for his band. Yes, Marshall had a band. A funk band. Called “The Funk, The While Funk, and Nothing But The Funk”. Man, even the acronym for that would be lengthy. But, awesome.

I thought it was a solid, funny episode. I liked that they flipped things around so that Barney was using his moves on Ted rather than woman number 237. I can’t wait to see Barney, Ted and Marshall all working together, too…even if this does mean the introduction of Jennifer Morrison (from House) as a crazy activist. I don’t dislike Jennifer Morrison, but she’s never struck me as particularly funny. Will she be a good fit on the show? What did you think of “Unfinished”?