Supportive or Challenging Relationship? : Recap of HIMYM 6X20 'The Exploding Meatball Sub'

As has been the case this entire season, tonight’s episode of How I Met Your Mother was great. Tonight’s episode looked at different types of relationships: supportive relationships, challenging relationships, and I-cant-believe-you’re-quitting-I-am-going-to-blow-you-up-with-a-meatball-sub relationships (you can’t get more HIMYM than that). For each type of relationship the audience saw pros and cons. I really loved that the show delved so much into positives and negatives of different relationships, because it made the episode feel all the more real to me. If they would have just focused on supportive, it probably would have gotten old fast. If they would have focused on challenging, that would have just been irritating. But instead they contrasted both extremely well, and in the end showed that a supportive relationship is ultimately healthier (duh). I loved it.

In the very beginning of the episode when everyone was teasing Lily and Marshall about basically being the same person and always getting along, I knew it would annoy them. That is why Lily’s line to Ted right before the opening credits was probably my favorite line of the episode:

Marshall and I have been together 15 years and the only debate we have had about Tommy Boy was whether it was awesome or super awesome. That’s love, bitch.

When she said that line, it killed me. It basically summed up why I love those two so much. They just fit together so well and there is no denying that. But although you can’t deny their love, I knew from the get-go that Lily and Marshall were going to face some problems during this episode. It was just perfectly set up for that…and I was right.

During tonight’s episode Lily and Marshall were the example of an extremely supportive couple. For the entire episode Lily kept supporting Marshall no matter what. I was just sitting there waiting for her to snap. Then the scene came where Lily dragged Ted with her to the airport (because of his oh so wonderful Spanish) to go pick up someone for Marshall’s NRDC gathering. Naturally the conversation in the car between Ted & Lily went back to the argument they’d been having the entire episode- which type of relationship is better: supportive or challenging? With her and Ted arguing in the car, I was just waiting for her to explode and admit to Ted that too much support isn’t necessarily a good thing. By the end of the car ride, the only change in Lily’s behavior really, was her agreeing with Ted that maybe one relationship isn’t really better than the other. I was shocked that she wasn’t freaking out…

And then she got out of the car.

When Lily told Ted she was going to Spain and wasn’t even going to tell Marshall, I lost it. I read a lot of reviews and blog posts about Lily, and a lot of people bash her. Personally, Lily is one of my favorite characters. She keeps everyone grounded, but still has her quirks (and I mean…she’s played by Alyson Hannigan…so how can you not love her?). Anyway, one of the main arguments people tend to have against Lily is that she is selfish. People use the fact that Lily up and left Marshall for SF and broke off their engagement as evidence of her selfishness. Yes…okay…that definitely wasn’t the best move, but the girl was freaking out. She needed to do what was right for her, and it would have been a bad idea (in my opinion) to go through with the wedding without being fully happy about her decision. A wedding is a BIG deal, and I’m glad she got all of her sh*t straightened out beforehand. I don’t blame her for what she did. However, now that Marshall and Lily have been married for almost 4 years (wow), I would expect Lily to be able to confide in her husband what she was feeling. When she told Ted she was going to Spain I immediately thought “WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!” I couldn’t think of a legitimate reason why Lily would do that. If she left and went to Spain I felt like I wouldn’t be able to forgive her…it wasn’t the same as leaving for San Francisco because of an impending life altering decision….it would just be running away from something that could easily be solved.

So long story short, it’s really hard for me to get mad at Lily, but at that point I was furious and felt like she needed to have a damn good reason for what she was doing. Finally all her thoughts came spilling out to Ted about how she can’t support Marshall constantly and blah blah blah. I still kept saying to myself “That still doesn’t mean you should just up and leave.”

Then Lily said something that punched me right in the gut. She said she felt like Marshall didn’t care about having a baby anymore. Immediately hearing her say that my emotions changed and I understood where she was coming from. Ted’s attitude visibly changed too and he tried to comfort her. In that moment I was so proud of How I Met Your Mother. The characters had gotten me so wrapped up in the story that I was blindsided by Lily’s true feelings, and then had the same reaction as Ted when I figured out what was going on. It made me feel like the moment was so real. To me, that is the sign of a great show.

When Lily ran off and Ted went back to Marshall’s apartment, I was definitely worried about what Ted should say to Marshall. I mean what does one say in a situation like that “Oh your wife couldn’t handle you anymore so she literally fled to Spain.”?? Before Ted was able to say anything to Marshall though, I had this strange feeling that Lily would come running in- and she did, which only made me love her character even more. Lily is so complex and like anyone, has her faults. But at the end of the day she knows what comes first- and that is Marshall.

I don’t know if anyone picked up on this, but tonight’s episode paralleled Season 1’s episode “Milk” so much. I love when television shows draw parallels like that and this was no exception. Even when Ted and Lily were talking at the airport and I was mad at her, I couldn’t help but think of “Milk” and how sweet it was that Lily was confiding in Ted. I absolutely love their friendship. So the fact that her freak out happened with Ted, made me enjoy this episode even more.

Now I’ve rambled on enough about Lily and Marshall, so I’d like to touch on Barney’s subplot for a moment. As always Barney was hilarious tonight. He was clearly upset about Marshall quitting his job, and even though Robin was convinced it was because of abandonment issues (which I still believe was part of the problem) Barney went on to tell the tale of how he needed to get Marshall back with an exploding meatball sub…and that all of his anger was because Marshall quit before he could carry out his plan. When Barney said all of that to Robin, I looked at the TV and said “What is wrong with you?” Robin had the same reaction, which I loved, because like I said earlier, it made the show feel all the more real to me.

Also about the subplot, I loved that Robin was trying to help out Barney. Hell, I love how much Robin has been helping Barney out all season (i.e. Nora). In my eyes those two are destined for each other and it is just a matter of time. And speaking of them being “destined for each other” in the tag I watched very carefully to see if Robin was wearing a wedding ring. I don’t think she was, but she was the one closest to Barney when he was on his “deathbed.” She also looked FURIOUS when he said he wasn’t really sick, while everyone else looked extremely confused. This gives me hope that maybe something can happen between them in the future…yeah I know I’m grasping at straws, but I just love those two.

All in all this was a great episode. I give it a WIN. And wow…I just realized I didn’t even talk about Ted and 

Zoey. Oh well. Zoey won’t be important soon anyway J.

So what did you guys think of this episode? Did you feel for Lily when she was freaking out? Did you agree with the viewpoints on supportive vs. challenging relationships? Did you think Barney was a WACK JOB? Chime in below!