In the third episode of the seventh season of How I Met Your Mother, Ted, Marshall, Lily, Barney and Robin meet up at McLaren’s (naturally) and it immediately becomes clear that two events have transpired:
1. Ted ran into his ex-beau Victoria (the baker who moved to Germany on whom he eventually cheated with Robin) at last episode’s Architects Ball.
2. Now-pregnant Lily’s breasts have grown. A lot.
The group heads to Shinjitsu, a hibachi-style Japanese restaurant that Barney presumably hates, where Ted recounts seeing Victoria for the first time in six years. After he apologizes for his past philandering, things are decidedly un-awkward. She complains about having to go home to wash dishes (a poor excuse to leave if I’ve ever heard one). But Ted doesn’t take the hint, and insists on cleaning them himself as an act of penance — which the gang interprets as a Barney-worthy play to sleep with her again. However, back at the bakery, Ted openly flirts with Victoria and she immediately says that she is “about to be engaged.” This becomes an issue when she admits to dating her soon-to-be-fiancee a mere day and a half after she and Ted broke up. He accuses her of making him feel guilty for no reason, the discussion gets heated and the two kiss, but Victoria asserts that it was something that had to happen so she could know that marriage was the right decision.
Back in the present (or the past, if you’re Ted’s children, who’ve been stuck on the same couch for seven seasons) at Shinjitsu, Barney makes one vaguely racist joke too many and an angry Marshall insists that if he’s so unimpressed, he should try teppanyaki cooking himself.
Challenge accepted.
This immediately turns into a bet: if Barney can perform the same tricks as their chef, he gets to touch Lily’s boobs; if he can’t, he has to wear Marshall’s ducky tie for an entire year. They are amazed to later learn that the entire deal was part of an elaborate plan by Barney to feel Lily up. They call it off and then change their minds, and eventually Barney is making onion volcanoes on the grill. Before he can complete the final shrimp in the pocket maneuver, however, Lily lifts up her top, distracting him and causing him to lose the bet.
Ted takes them back to him and Victoria, who are parting ways for the last time (since the last last time, at least). But before catching her bus to her fiancée, Victoria explains just why Ted isn’t standing in her shoes: Robin is too important to him and the post-love triangle friendship that they maintain with Barney is probably the reason why none of his other relationships lasted.
HIMYM is finally acknowledging the stranger plot points that viewers have questioned for some time, such as Ted’s insane dating history, or the way it’s somehow turned into the Neil Patrick Harris Variety Show. However, they writers are slowly bringing in issues that will change the dynamic of the series: there won’t be anymore nightly bar trips when Lily and Marshall have a baby; Ted must decide whether friends or his dreams of falling in love matter more; Robin has to confront her unresolved feelings for Barney in the midst of his relationship with Nora. I lost hope somewhere around season four, but there might still be a chance that we will actually learn who the mother is.