8x20 The Time Travelers

7.3/10. The Tyler Durden-esque twist to this one is trying a bit too hard. Maybe I'm just inured to the "none of this is really happening" trope because it's become so overused in recent years. And yet, what comes before and what comes after that reveal has a little more power. My inclination at first was to complain about the "time traveler" business as being yet another instance in which the show was getting too cartoony, but I think that given the nature of the conceit, it's more easy to write off in the moment as a flight of fancy from Bob Saget-Ted when telling the story. It's not exactly elegant, but it's in an interesting way to dramatize Ted's internal emotional process of dealing with the fact that his friends are all paired up and hitting big milestones in their lives, and he's still alone. The idea of excitement and concern and having been in the dating game long enough to grow cynical about how things turn out is an interesting one to explore, and this was a novel, if occasionally too broad way to do it.

But the final two minutes really sell the weight of the conceit as well. You don't always get the wistfulness of Future Ted in HIMYM. In some ways, despite the various detours here and there, the whole show is a race to the future, a way of looking constantly forward with optimism about what's to come. And yet, this is one of the few instances in which it feels like Future Ted really misses all of this, that for however much difficulty there is in his loneliness and bumps on the road to meeting The Mother, that he would love to get to go back and experience this all again, if only for a night, if that were possible.

The B-story with Marshal and Robin arguing over who should get naming rights to a drink is the kind of breezy comedic subplot that gets by without ever really impressing. The dance off resolution is a nice touch, as is Marshal being strangely mollified by having the act of a man going in the women's restroom being named after him, but for the most part the plot is just kind of there.

Overall this is a fair-to-middling episode that is elevated by the big moment at the end.

SPOILERS FOR THE END OF THE SERIES BELOW. DO NOT READ IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THE WHOLE SERIES

It's also a hell of a performance from Josh Radnor at the end there. Obviously knowing what happens to The Mother gives color to Fantasy Ted telling her that he wishes he could have those extra forty-five days together, and Radnor absolutely sells the pain and regret of the subtext to that scene. A good chunk of the show, especially in the last few seasons, is weakened when you know where it's heading, but this is one of the few parts that's improved by that knowledge.