How I Met Your Mother: Knight Vision (9x06)

I'm gonna rapid-fire review this baby, because I'm working under time constraints. Three plots:

Ted's plot involved him trying to pick a girl to hook up with for the wedding weekend. In a parody of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Barney warns him that he only has one chance, so he has to be careful not to choose poorly. Initially, he chooses a girl named Cassie, but that ends up being a terrible choice. Throughout the evening, he just makes increasingly poor choices, such as choosing to allow Cassie to answer her phone, which leads to her learning she's been fired, and choosing to go get a drink which causes them to run into Cassie's parents... the list goes on. In the end, Cassie and Ted don't hook up, because she's grieving her recently ended relationship and is in a really bad emotional space. Ted takes the high road and doesn't have sex with a vulnerable woman, so that's good.

Basically, all of this means that he never hooks up with anyone at the wedding, leaving him free to meet the Mother. There was nothing wrong with this plot line, but it was a little dull at times, and I think the mention of the Mother at the end really only highlighted the fact that we haven't seen her in quite some time. I want her back, stat!

Marshall and Daphne practice Marshall's explanation to Lily about becoming a judge. Daphne helps Marshall figure out what to say in a series of hilarious practice conversations, where Daphne's voice is coming out of Lily's mouth in these hypothetical situations. In the end, Daphne drops the bomb that she's a lobbyist for a big oil company, so their relationship moving forward might be tricky. Decent plot, nothing too special, again it just highlights something that hasn't happened yet - I really want to see Lily and Marshall figure out what to do about Marshall's new job, and what it will mean for Lily's job with the Captain.

The third plot was probably the funniest. Lily, in talking with the Minister for the wedding, learns that Barney and Robin stole their story of how they met from Lily and Marshall. The minister is a really conservative guy, so Barney and Robin don't want him to know the truth. However, Lily tells the minister her story about meeting Marshall, which lets the cat out of the bag. Robin and Barney then confront the minister and tell him that they aren't ashamed of their story, even if it is a bit unorthodox. The minister, so appalled by their licentious story, drops dead. Now they're stuck trying to figure out who is going to marry them.

Basically, this plot highlighted the awesome chemistry between Barney and Robin. It had the funniest jokes and the best pacing and energy of the three plots.

Still, this episode wasn't a standout for me. I really want the Mother to start getting involved. I'm anxious about running out of time to really develop her character as anything more than a quirky girl who falls in love with Ted. I hope that this season starts to feel like a grand finale soon, because at the moment it's feeling pretty average.

6.5/10