Reviews

How I Met Your Mother: The Bro-Mitzvah, Review

Its getting closer... the mother we long to meet (or if nothing else SEE) ... right?

By Lisa Bernier | April 30, 2013 | | 0

If I was ever in doubt about the rightness of Barney and Robin as a couple, their fracked up sense of humor has only reassured me that those two crazy kids (emphasis on the crazy) are meant to be together.

It all begins, as many HIMYM episodes do, with a broad statement and then a rewind. We see a shot of Barney dejectedly sitting on the sidewalk in front of his building (which only great emotional distress would move him to do: it’s the NYC sidewalk and he’s in a suit). Then we hear older Ted say something about the night everything fell apart on Barney.

Is there a twist? Of course there is. There’s always a twist. This is HIMYM people. Nothing is ever quite sorta what you guessed kinda what it seems.

We rewind a few hours, and Barney and Robin are preparing to go to dinner with his mother. Robin’s nervous. Barney promises all will be well and then walks about with 5k in cash in an envelope to deliver to the caterer. At night. And then, to top it off, he says, “What could happen on the UES at night?”

As soon as he steps out the door, a black bag is thrown over his head and he’s kidnapped!

GASP! Is it a nefarious crime lord from Barney’s seedy past? An angry ex out to get revenge? Wayne Brady gone mad?

Nope. Just Ted and Marshall kidnapping Barney for his surprise bachelor party.

We then rewind even more (yes, I know, but hey they like the rewinds on this show) to Barney talking about his ultimate bachelor party: his bro-mitzvah. Which he is sure Ted and Marshall will blow with their boringness. Robin offers to help and is shot down by Barney, who says, “a bro’s fiancée can’t help plan a bachelor party.” Except it’s Robin. And she’s totally a bro anyways, despite the fiancée title…whatever.

Barney bails on Robin. Robin then has to face an awkward dinner with Robin’s mom. Standard zany sitcom fare.

Barney is taken to a crappy hotel room just outside Atlantic city where he is surprised with a clown blowing up balloons as entertainment, a DVD copy of an Inconvenient Truth and Ralph Macchio, who everyone knows as the real karate kid except Barney, who insists that the true Karate Kid was William Zabka, who played the evil, mean bully. Oh, and then waltzes in a stripper named Quinn, who happens to be Barney’s ex-fiancée.

Worst bachelor party ever?

Yep. Which continues on its downward slide as Quinn gives everyone a striptease but Barney (who’s shut out in the bedroom), while Robin calls to yell at him for telling his mom she’s a virgin. Weird.

Now does someone smell a plot under all this? Yep. Only every half-discerning viewer of this show.

Barney decides this all sucks and piles everyone in the car to go back to NYC to save Robin. While driving, Ralph Macchio taunts Barney at his loserness by not going to Atlantic City to gamble. Barney, who when tempted always falls (or when challenged always accepts), turns the car to Atlantic City and then proceeds to lose 85k and Marshall in a very complicated gambling game. Robin also calls his again to tell him since she told his mother she’s not a virgin, his mother has been regaling her with wild sex stories involving breadsticks, a napkin ring, and Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young.

Ewwwwww.

The gang all piles in again, and Barney pulls up to his building. Ted berates him for valuing a good time over friends and storms angrily out of the car. Lily is mad because Barney lost her husband to the mafia/casino (though she’d been hitting on Ralph all night). Barney gets out and Robin yells at him for abandoning her to dinner with his mother, and then Quinn steps out of the car demanding payment. Robin freaks and throws the engagement ring at him. Quinn does a repeat (because she never got to do it in the first place). Barney slumps dejectedly. Robin rounds the corner and then calls Ted and tells him the plan is right on schedule.

WHAT? No, actually, I’m not surprised. I could see this coming from a mile away.

Turns out, Robin did help plan the bachelor party, and to give the man of unforgettable awesome nights an unforgettable bachelor party, she convinced everyone (Lily, Marshall, Ted, Barney’s Mom, Quinn, and Ralph Macchio) to help give him his bro-mitzvah in the most twisted way possible to give him the worst night of his life.

Cue the montage where Robin convinces everyone of this, and everyone without any hesitation whatsoever agrees to go along..

To top it all off, Marshall and his captors role up and cut his hand off. Barney gasps and runs into the building, up to his apartment where….SURPRISE!!! Everyone all is with champagne. The big reveal is planned. Barney seems upset and then PSYCH he isn’t, he loves it, he kisses Robin, everyone loves the enormous, slightly cruel practical joke they all pulled off…except Barney is a tad disappointed they didn’t manage to get the real karate kid.

Except….did they?

The clown, still with them, begins to speak. He takes of the wig. He removes the red, squeaky nose from his actual nose. He wipes off the face paint. Only to reveal, of course, you guessed, it, Barney’s Karate Kid himself, William Zabka, middle aged, still blond(ish) and in the flesh. Barney leaps at him and envelops him in a huge fanboy hug. Everyone else smiles. A successful Bro-mtzvah in the can.

Do you think the mother was in any of the shots? Like a secret shot or something?

Yeah. Guess not. Ah well. I’ll move on, past this semi-predictable episode and tap my foot with impatiently bated breath, waiting for the finale of the season.