For the last 8 years, beneath all the other fluff, all the flair, and all the laughs, How I Met Your Mother has been about one thing: watching Ted Mosby try to get laid and laughing at the poor decisions which keep him from succeeding. Tonight’s episode, Knight Vision, brings that story right out into the open, giving us a night where all Ted wants to do is have a good time with a girl charmed by the wedding bells, but instead continually makes poor decision after poor decision.
This episode begins with Barney presenting the top three options for Ted to hook-up with that weekend, but Ted forgoes all of them for the first girl who talks to him, a cute blonde by the name of Cassie. Unfortunately, that is a very poor decision, as Cassie has tragedy after tragedy occur, and Ted is stuck satisfying her emotional needs instead of the needs he’d rather take care of.
While this is going on, we find out that Barney and Robin lied to their minister about how they met, stealing the story of Lily and Marshall’s relationship. The revelation of this lie causes the minister to refuse to let them get married in his church, meaning they now need someone new to do the ceremony.
The third plot of the episode involves Marshall and Daphne discussing how Marshall will tell Lily that he can now be a judge, with Daphne helping him to find the appropriate way to break the news.
This is definitely the funniest episode of the season so far. The scenes where Marshall is imaging Daphne’s words as coming from Lily are hilarious. It’s dubbed perfectly, and Lily’s expressions are spot on with the way Daphne is talking. A great bit of comedic acting by Alyson Hannigan.
Josh Radnor also shines above his usual level in this one. Watching his internal turmoil at dealing with Cassie and his interactions with the Grail Knight is a true treat, and usually we don’t get to see Ted do quite so much. This episode has the sort of focus on Ted that every episode should have, and it greatly benefits from it.
One of my favorite parts of this episode though is that neither Barney’s mom or his brother show up at any point. Their ridiculous shenanigans in the last episode were just terrible, and I have no interest in seeing Robin feud with them any more. I know that will be back at some point in the season, but I’m glad we at least had a week reprieve.
