Episode Report Card Cindy McLennan: B | 2 USERS: A- YOU GRADE IT Buddy Booty
By Cindy McLennan | Season 4 | Episode 12 | Aired on 01.12.2009
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.With Robin now living in Marshall and Lily's old room at the apartment, she and Ted can't keep a civil tongue in their heads when they're around one another. While trying to work out their differences, it occurs to them that they never had trouble spending lots of time together when they were a couple. The only difference now is – they're no longer having sex. There go the tongues. Marshall drops in one day to use the bathroom, and catches them in bed. He's uncomfortable using the office bathroom, so he goes to Ted's when he has to "read a magazine." Robin insists Marshall find a new "reading room," but since he's on to her secret trysts with Ted, Marshall blackmails them. He'll only keep the secret if he can keep his key.
Marshall can't keep a secret to save his life, so soon Lily and Barney know all. Lily's stunned and cautions the pair about not screwing up their friendship. She's afraid someone will get hurt. Of course that someone is Barney, who spends most of the episode smashing TVs found in MacLaren's dumpster. Meanwhile, Robin and Ted fall into old couple patterns and feel weird, but keep on keeping on.
At GNB, Marshall finds the 8th floor is now vacant, so goes there to "read his magazine" until he's surprised by a demo crew which, strangely enough, was one of the more tasteful parts of his storyline. I'm serious! The rest of it that didn't involve him watching Ted and Robin have sex, revolved around those Heidi and Spencer people and that Kim Kardashian talking to him from the cover of his magazine. That he was taking. To the men's room. I'm just saying.
After Barney cleans Ted's apartment and buys him a dishwasher, Ted twigs to the fact that Barney's in love with Robin, and that it's Barney who'll be hurt by the "friends with benefits" relationship, so he ends it. Meanwhile at GNB, Marshall announces to Barney that he finally had the courage to use the office rest room when necessary and he feels like a new man. This inspires Barney to come clean with Robin. Isn't it romantic? He confesses his love to her, but is so awkward when doing so that she either doesn't catch on, or intends to maintain plausible deniability.
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Want more? The full recap starts right below!Welcome back from hiatus! Our holidays were lovely; I hope yours were, too, but let's get right to it, because it's so nice to have some new TV again. Okay, so Saget!Ted is telling his kids that in the winter of 2009, he and Aunt Robin were having a rough time adapting to one another as roommates. There's lots of bickering. Robin uses all the milk and leaves the empty bottle in the fridge. Nobody's taking out the trash, washing dishes, changing the toilet paper rolls, blah blah blah slobcakes. Robin harshes on Ted for using dated references when he compares her to Ogre from Revenge of the Nerds and I can't imagine what she's talking about, because that's practically a new film. I was in high school when it came out. Is it even in wide release yet? (Bitch.) Tempers and voices continue to rise until Robin observes that when they were dating and practically living together, they didn't drive each other this crazy. Robin and Ted seem to be forgetting that they tried to live together when they were a couple, and couldn't make it past a few hours. Maybe they blocked it out. Robin finally figures out the problem: "Men and women need sex to live together. It solves all disputes." Ted compares this to Barney's theory of world peace and we flash back to...
MacLaren's: Barney says, "I said, Madeleine, every single international conflict essentially boils down to sexual tension." Ted's not convinced, but Barney is completely sold on his new pet theory. When Ted asks about the crisis in the Middle East, Barney replies with, "Gaza Strippers" and I get the chills. I mean, this was a cute exchange in its entirety, and this episode was certainly in the can before the latest flare up between Hamas and Israel in Gaza but still? Goosebumps. Next, Ted suggests Apartheid, and Barney responds, "Apart thighs -- what else you got?" and I suddenly feel like I opened up the door to the war room at the wrong time. Not like that! It just feels like just like the writers started riffing when they were working on the script, never came up with anything better, and threw that in. Then Ted brings up the Cold War. Barney says, "Mrs. Gorbachev, take down those pants!" (minute 1:52). Okay, that was funny -- you know... to those of us who were in high school when Revenge of the Nerds came out. Returning to the present, Ted laughs and suggests that he and Robin should just start having sex again. Robin scoffs. And...