How I Met Your Mother – “Lobster Crawl”

Season Eight, Episode Nine

Grade: C+

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If you’re tired of the Barney-Robin shenanigans, raise your hand. Once again, we are seesawing our way through another season that focuses on the very unstable relationship between Barney and Robin. We get it, they’re pretty damn good for each other because they’re so compatible, but they both lack the will to commit to someone or something for longer than a pint of beer. It’s just tiresome watching the two go back-and-forth with each other, especially when HIMYM has set itself up showing how they’re about to get married. This is what you call some major stalling.

Ted’s story-line wound up being the best as he took on Marvin as his new project to make a scrapbook out of. It was nice for Marshall and Lily to allow him to babysit, but when they miss Marvin’s first time crawling they don’t want to miss any more firsts. Ted realizes that after he completed his architect project he needed to focus he energy on something else, which happened to be Marvin. This also made him realize how much he enjoyed being around a baby and how he’s still no where close to getting married and starting a family. Like I’ll continue to say, the heart of the show lies within Ted because he’s the only character that can deliver any emotional payoff. Why aren’t the writers plotting his story? I have no idea.

Meanwhile, Barney works on the Bro Bib while Robin throws herself all over Barney, trying to score with him one more time in order to put the idea to rest. He reveals that he’s been having a hard time since breaking up with Quinn and just needed someone to help him through. Patrice ended up being that person, the right one to go against what Robin has been trying to do since she hates her. But still, this story-line was tedious and there really weren’t many laughs throughout the episode, which is the whole point of a sitcom, right?