We've been without HIMYM reviews for a little while here due to: A) scheduled CBS programming breaks; B) Hurricane Sandy coverage and C) my stats homework, so let's review what was missed last week: Victoria, made anxious by Robin's continued presence in Ted's relationships, makes him choose between the two. Ted, out of loyalty and friendship, tells Victoria that he can't keep Robin separate from his life — so Victoria walks out of it instead.
This leaves Robin and Nick as the last couple standing in the so-dubbed "Autumn of Breakups," which is kind of cute, right? They must be cosmically connected to reunite after years of run-ins and still be standing strong? Nope. Their sex is apparently just really great — or at least it was, until Nick pulls a groin muscle helping out Marshall's community basketball team for the Little Ivies Professionals Over Thirty Who Work In Midtown League. After three days of celibate cohabitation, Robin realizes something: underneath the chiseled exterior, Nick's kind of thick in the head (although someone who thought that the North Pole and reindeer weren't real isn't really in a place to judge someone for thinking gypsies were the stuff of legend, but anyway).
Robin elects to break up with Nick, but can't bring herself to go through with it when she's continually distracted by his torso, so Barney makes a threat: cut it off by 8 p.m. on speakerphone so the rest of the group can hear, or Patrice will get an e-vite for a BFF date with Robin. She takes Nick on what's meant to be their final date at famous breakup dessert joint Splitsville, but before Robin can end the relationship, he takes a phone call and proceeds to get choked up. Turns out he's injured worse than they thought, and (to Marshall's dismay) can't play basketball for the rest of the season. On the bright side, he might as well start having sex again, which Robin is all too on board for — until Barney comes busting in and tells Nick they have to break up, because he is still in love with her.
Cue the most impromptu speech since Ted's last elegy on modern architecture, and a stunned Robin confirming the feelings to Nick. He's almost depressed, until two other dumped women in Splitsville come home with him to commiserate. Lily, who's still listening via speakerphone, gets hot and bothered (feelings she'd been voicing all episode) by the chain of events, and Marshall tries to work off the pain of losing his team's ringer, when Ted calls them out on acting so strangely on account of no sex. The answer? They're parents, they're tired, there's no time or privacy — so Ted takes the responsible godparent course of action and brings Marvin out with him so his folks can bone. After the breakup, Barney congratulates himself on his stellar performance — but Robin tells him she found it a little too convincing to be fake. They get so, SO close to kissing-- until Robin receives a call from Patrice, who's received her invitation and is ready for their friend date. So: no fake-out makeout this time around, and so ends the Autumn of Break-Ups — just in time for our first snowfall!
This has been the most single-focus episode of HIMYM in a while: save for Lily's fits of lust and Ted's tangential (literally) basketball tangents, we didn't see much other than Robin ending things with Nick — which made Barney's obsession with their breakup more obvious. Halfway through you knew there was going to be some hint that he still had feelings for her, but when we got there with so little buildup, it didn't feel honest. It's enough to make me glad that R & B didn't quite get back together (but WHEN will they ever ever ever?), because if that emotional outpour wasn't enough for their inevitable reunion, now I fully expect that moment to put the Mother's big reveal to shame.
Quotes
Marshall: Is Nick a genius? No. But does he have average intelligence? …No! But he is a human being with a heart.
Robin: You just want to keep him on your team.
Marshall: Robin, he got 36 points and seven rebounds last week. And that was with his shoes on the wrong feet.
Barney: You can't wait! His groin will heal and before you know it, you'll be marrying a man who once ate a vanilla-scented candle.
Robin: That was on me, I shouldn't have left it in the kitchen.
Ted: Okay, why aren't you two having sex? Lily has been slobbering over Robin's sex life like a cartoon hobo watching a pie cool on a windowsill, and you — the only other time you've ever exercised this seriously was when Lily had mono freshman year and I caught you doing one-armed pushups with your genitals over a bowl of ice.