The greatest difference between season 9 of How I Met Your Mother and the previous seasons has been the strained relationship between Lily and Marshall. Granted, for half of the season they were apart, but since they’ve been physically together, things have been far from the all-American couple audiences have come to know and love. With only a few episodes remaining in the series, it’s time for the stories to start wrapping up and it made sense that the first arc to finish would be that of the Eriksens. What was unsure was whether it would be a satisfying conclusion to their tale, which is what we find out on tonight’s episode “Daisy.”
At the start of the episode, Robin’s mother talks about her wedding day and the time leading up to marrying her father. With every detail, Robin realizes that Barney is more and more like her dad and begins to panic, thinking she’s just marrying her father. Eventually she realizes that probably isn’t the case and is a bit more comfortable about marrying Barney.
So that’s what’s going on with Robin. The much more interesting part of the plot, however, focuses on Marshall and his uncertainty about why Lily changed her mind regarding Italy. They find out that she went to the Captain’s on the night of their fight, so Marshall assumes that foul play was afoot. He sets off for the Captain’s and punches him in the face, only to find out that the Captain is engaged and there was nothing inappropriate that happened. Fortunately, Ted figured out the mystery, or so he believes.
Personally, I thought that the Robin aspect of the episode was a little over the top, especially with all the similarities being almost dead-on instead of just similar. They took it a bit too far, and while that was amusing, it took away the believability that would’ve made it funny. It’s also the same plot that they’ve used countless times: Robin has some reason to doubt she can marry Barney and then something happens for her to realize that things will probably be okay. If that had happened once or twice it would’ve made for some decent episodes. As is though, they’ve been milking that until long after it’s dry.
Thankfully, the part of the episode taking place at the Captain’s house was much better. First of all, having the Captain in the episode is great. He was one of the funnier side-characters that the show has featured, and everything I enjoyed about his character came back in great ways for this episode. In addition to that, we got to see Ted handle the majority of the humor and dialogue, which I am very much a fan of. When Ted gets into his pretentious detective mode, Josh Radnor is able to really let loose, and I love the chance to watch that. His jubilation at solving the crime and his Sherlock Holmes method of revealing what he thinks he’s found is hilarious. Another quality performance from Radnor and a great episode for Ted.
Caution: The next page contains spoilers.
