Why did Marshall lie to Lily about the slanted apartment floor? They're married and have known each other for a while. Lying to each other concerning the littlest things should be way, far back behind them.
Right after the bouncer tells Ted and Barney that there are too many girls in the club, while Barney goes on about "serious planetary crap going on here", you can see two more girls going in behind them. :thinking:
Review by Andrew BloomVIP 9BlockedParentSpoilers2016-03-11T03:55:48Z
7.3/10. Rewatching this one, I was ready to bash it. The slanted apartment story is a nice enough little B-plot, with the dutch angle selling it, but the whole ghost bit is pretty weak at the end of the day and hews toward the "no one in a sitcom can just tell each other the truth" cliche that drives me nuts. The resolution isn't ideal either, but whatever, it works well enough I suppose.
But what really had me about to turn on the episode was the way that Ted was acting. Ted has definitely been more Barney-like in the first half of this season. That's not necessarily so terrible; he leaned a little too far into the hopeless romantic side of things to the point where seeing him cut loose and experiment a bit was an interesting and realistic tack for the character.
But watching him ditch his date, steal from some random person, and kiss a married woman was pretty beyond the pale. Barney can get away with all of this to some degree because he's the comic relief and he's so ridiculous in his persona and tactics that none of it feels serious. But Ted is someone we're supposed to get behind, to identify with, and to root for, and it's really hard to do those things when he's being selfish treating other people poorly.
I had forgotten, however, Marshall's speech at the end, dressing Ted down and essentially ending his Barney-like adventures. It's a moment of realness and reflection, ("We don't need another Barney!") and show's a greater self-awareness about Ted than HIMYM necessarily always possesses. Call Ted out was a necessary course correction, and it retroactively makes the earlier nonsense worthwhile as a motivation for a change. The fact that he gets the yellow umbrella once he makes that shift and realization is the icing on the cake.
Plus, I love the conversation between Marshall and Ted because in addition to that kick in the pants that Ted needed, it feels very true-to-life. They joke around with each other after the heavy stuff, rib each other, and have a very lived-in friendship. One of the things that makes HIMYM an endearing show even when you're frustrated with some of the character choices is the way they get the feeling of friendship and interactions between buddies right. That moment feels real in both the serious talk and in the back-and-forth joking around, and it helps that moment hit home.