How I Met Your Mother 5.01 ‘Definitions’ Recap

You know how sometimes, after a long summer hiatus, returning to your old favorite shows can feel a bit forced and confusing. What have these people been doing for the past few months? What have I missed? Will the show pick up where it left off, or jump forward to some unknown point in time where I have to get to know all the characters all over again? Well, that’s not the case for How I Met Your Mother which returned last night and brought us up to speed on what’s been happening over the summer, and where our friends are now. Here’s a quick look at what happened last night.

So basically Barney and Robin made it clear last season that they’re not going to be a couple, and they called it off. But actually they didn’t, they simply spent the summer lying to their friends and continuing to have sex. Lily and gang catches them making out and the group begins to pressure the two into defining their relationship, something that neither of them have the least desire to do at this point.

Meanwhile, Ted is dealing with the angst associated with becoming a professor and his first day of class. After an awesome Inidiana Jones fedora and whip, Ted’s ready…or is he. He struggles with what kind of teacher he’s going to be, and how to approach the class, as their cool friend, or as a strict hard-liner. We’re also told from the beginning the his kids mother (the whole point of this show) was sitting right there in that very first class.

Back to The Talk, Marshall tries to get Ted to help him convince Barney that the talk is necessary but Ted says it isn’t because Robin is already his girlfriend. He reminds Barney of a talk they had on Tuxedo night, 4 years before. Barney said,

“How do you keep a girl from becoming your girlfriend? Simple, the rules for girls are the same as the rules for Gremlins.
1. Never get them wet. As in, don’t let them shower at your place.
2. Keep them away from sunlight. ie, don’t ever see them during the day
3. Never feed them after midnight. Meaning she doesn’t sleep over and you don’t have breakfast with her…EVER!”

You finally think that Barney and Robin will be forced to confront their relationship when Robin is asked out on a date by six-pack abs Brad. But even after breaking in and punching Brad, the two manage to sidestep the talk. So Lily takes drastic measures and locks them in their room until they agree to have The Talk.

At the same time Ted confronts his fears and decides to be the strict professor. The only problem is he’s in the wrong class, and spends the first 7 minutes talking to the Economics 325 students, which is the class that his future wife and mother of his children is in. Damn! And we were so close. In the end Ted is 25 minutes late to his real class, but it forces him to stop worrying about what kind of professor he’s going to be, and just teach architecture.

Upon Ted’s return to the apartment Barney and Robin are still being stubborn. But finally they realize, they’ve been lying all summer, and they’re good at it. So why not just lie to their friends now, and tell them that they are a couple and that they are boyfriend and girlfriend. So they do. As their giving their speaches about being a couple, you can tell each of them secretly means it, but they’re just not good at this relationship stuff. In the end, as they head off to have brunch (not breakfast), Ted says to Lily, “you do realize that they were lying don’t you?” to which Lily appropriately responds, “No Ted, they don’t realize that they weren’t lying.”

To end it all I’ve compiled a small list of important things we learned this episode.

• Barney has a “whip guy” (not sure why this is surprising AT ALL).
• Lily is not good at using her inside “WOOOOHOOOO”
• Elaborate lies really turn Barney and Robin on
• Barney isn’t happy, he just thinks he’s happy because he’s happy. (yeah, don’t ask. Lily said it)
• Brad was born ‘a little different’ below the belt.
• Unless Robin says Flugelhorn Barney hasn’t gone too far. Did we really need to know that? Yes, yes we did.