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How I Met Your Mother, "Daisy": The Captain and Boats Boats Boats? I Ship It

By Courtney Enlow | TV | March 11, 2014 |

By Courtney Enlow | TV | March 11, 2014 |


I SHIP IT. SHIP. Get it?! Like a boat! Ahoy! God dammit, you’ll miss these when they’re gone.

This week, we returned to a moment that stumped many of us—the moment Lily made a phone call and got in the backseat of a mysterious black car after her fight with Marshall. It was not, as many suggested, Ranjit. The “AHOY!!!” license plate witnessed by Billy Zabka while on a break from some late-night dirtbiking (“Naturally. Go on.”) meant it could only be one man—the Captain! For the record, while I think the Zoe arc was a hideous wart upon the face of this show, the turning point into low mediocrity, I look back on it happily because it gave us the Captain. Hindsight is tricky that way.

The trip to the Captain’s house had everything—sword fights, musical numbers with the cleaning staff, and of course MOOOOSBYYYYY BOYS! (“We agreed you’d never do that again.”) Ted does one of his patented (wrong) mystery-solving monologues, thinking Lily has been smoking in secret. In actuality, we finally figured out why Lily wasn’t wasted out of her mind/dying/looking into the eyes of an “intervention” banner because that was looking like a severely problematic amount of alcohol. All those gin and tonics courtesy of Linus, he of “Thank you, Linus” fame? Nonalcoholic. And when someone on a sitcom orders a nonalcoholic beverage, you know what that means: BABIES, YO! Marshall realizes that Lily is giving him his dream and that now, with two kids, there might not be time for another Italy. So the Aldrin-Eriksen clan will be Italy-bound, with Mickey and Marshall’s mom in tow, who apparently end up together. PAIR OFF ALL THE CHARACTERS!

At the same time, we get to know Robin’s mom, in full Tracey Ullman mode, Tracey Ullmanning all over an airplane to my sheer joy. We also find out Robin’s dad is a bit of a character. He was once engaged to a stripper, he commissioned a painting of himself as a Prussian aristocrat and stood next to it to meet women, he has a gay black brother and he’s slept with OVER 20 WOMEN! Needless to say, Robin is having a bit of a freakout, and it’s the kind that makes the most sense narratively—Robin accepts Barney for who he is, but not her dad, and the thought of marrying her father is way scarier than marrying Barney.

As we sail ever closer (BECAUSE BOATS!) to the end, I think what I’ve loved most about this season, besides giving the series a well-constructed send-off it certainly wouldn’t have had ending last year, has been the callbacks. Oh, the callbacks. Ted solving mysteries? Dear me, how would I have been able to walk away from this show without another one of those? And I didn’t know I wanted to know what would become of Boats Boats Boats (aka Becky, played by Laura Bell Bundy), but finding out she ends up with the Captain? YOU GUYS. That’s a match made in maritime heaven.

But a few precious episodes remain of this show. And if they’re all spent assuring us that our beloved friends end up happy and OK, I’m fine with that. And I would like to thank Bays and Thomas for making this season, one I had little faith in, worth it. I would also like to thank you utter winners who continue to post “people still watch this show?” comments every week with no concept of how very Mosby they sound. For it is *kisses fingers* bellissima!