HIMYM 8x14: Ring Up!

Two plots this week, one of which is completely inappropriate for a man to tell his children.

Plot the first:
Ted walks into the bar wearing a leather wrist cuff, which is apparently a thing that you can buy. The gang immediately starts to make fun of him for it, but when he tells them he bought it to get a date with a 20-year-old girl, they think it's more sad than funny.

Even Barney is disgusted.

When his date goes horribly because they have nothing in common, Ted's almost ready to break it off until Barney breaks into his apartment in the middle of the night. Since he got engaged, Barney's been going through one-night stand withdrawals, and he needs Ted to proxy bang her for him. But, apparently Ted has this thing now where he can't have sex with a woman unless he connects with her on at least some level. Unfortunately, Carly doesn't like TV, sports, or books, and Ted's about to end it when her phone rings. Her ringtone is R2D2 and her phone even has an R2D2 skin. Ted's found a hot chick who loves Star Wars!

What more do you need?

The next day, Ted meets Barney at MacLaren's and gets the customary post-sex high-five. To help ease Barney's withdrawals, Ted shows him a picture of his conquest. Barney scrolls up from the 'do me' heels to the gravity-defying boobs, but when he reaches her face, he goes white. Carly is his half-sister. Dun dun dunnnnnnn!

Even though he's only known her for like a year, it's still not cool to bang a dude's sister, especially in the freaky ways that 20-year-olds get down these days. Barney ends their friendship, but after he's had a little time to cool down, he sends Ted a dead possum as a peace offering and invites him over to smoke cigars. But, moments after Ted arrives, so does Carly, then Barney claps his hands and a wedding appears. He's so disgusted with one-night stands that he wants Ted and Carly to get married so their hook up will have more meaning. However, Ted points out that Barney is now completely detoxed from one-night stands, so banging his sister was actually a good thing. Nevertheless, Barney makes them promise to never do it again. They both agree.

*Wink*

Plot number dos:
Barney and Robin are engaged now, and that means that Robin gets to walk around with a big fat rock on her finger. Unfortunately, guys notice that sort of thing, and all her perks dry up. She becomes figuratively invisible. Then later she becomes literally invisible.

The ring's so powerful that Ted's kids can't even imagine what she looks like.

Eventually she learns to live with it because she's loves Barney and she doesn't need attention from other men anymore.

In Marshall and Lily's plot, which as always can barely be called a plot, Marshall puts on Ted's discarded cuff and it really turns Lily on. He has an allergic reaction to it and eventually has to take it off, and they learn to have sex without needing costumes.

What I Liked
-Barney banged a blind girl by pretending he was Sean Connery. We've all been there.

What I Hated
-Ted bought a leather cuff from a 20-year-old and Barney didn't instantly realize that it was his sister. He's trying to be a better man, so he should at least have some inkling as to what his siblings do. Also, I find it a little hard to believe that he never showed his sister a picture of Ted. He must have hundreds of embarrassing photos of the guy that he just flashes around at random.
-Random song and dance sequence when Robin's explaining how her mornings usually go. Two problems with that: a)she's not that hot, and b)guys who break into a well-choreographed song and dance routine in the middle of the street aren't the kind of guys who give freebies to pretty girls.

Third problem: Random song and dance numbers suck.

-Ted tells Barney not to scroll to the next picture of his sister. I think that must be in The Bro Code somewhere. A bro must warn another bro when nude photos of his sister are coming up
-Robin's plot. I'm pretty sure they weren't the first ones to do it, but I recall the 'a ring makes women invisible' plot coming up on Scrubs like five years ago. In any event, it is neither new nor terribly interesting, and actually a little sexist. Most men don't give pretty women free stuff just because they're pretty, and most women wouldn't want to be objectified in that manner anyway.

Final Thoughts
Lily and Marshall have been really detached from the rest of the group since Marvin was born. I suppose that's true to life, but it makes me wonder how they're going to sustain their involvement in the show for another year. It already seems like they abandon their child to go drinking with fairly alarming frequency.

Perhaps I'm alone in this, but I think telling your kids about the time you had kinky sex with the sister of the man they call 'Uncle' Barney is probably a bad idea. Then again, Ted has pretty much given up on his prospects of finding a wife at this point and embraced his douchiness. Maybe Future Ted takes on characteristics of his younger self while he tells the story.

In its totality, this episode wasn't really bad, but it had some really bad parts. They're almost completely out of new ideas and it's starting to seriously hamstring the show.