"...We're nowhere near the end."
This is what Ted tells his children (who have got to be sick of sitting on that couch) near the conclusion of part one of Monday's two for one premiere, and it is a statement that for this viewer was simultaneously frustrating and satisfying; the former because I want to know already, gosh darnit, and the latter because if the mystery continues to unravel like this (and if we continue to see equally intriguing mysteries concerning the rest of the gang surface), I will be willing to watch this show for as long as it takes for Ted to tell this story. (On that note, do you think his kids will ever agree to hearing a story from their dear old dad again?)
I'm going to go through the two episodes as chronologically as possible, even though (SPOILER) I am so excited that my Victoria prediction has already been proven correct. So in the first episode we witnessed a split between future and present, with Ted and Barney reminiscing at Barney's wedding about Punchy's nuptials, which the gang attended here in 2011. We didn't get very many clues about Barney's impending marriage, just that he's feeling a little jittery, but I would like to bring up the fact that in this flash-forward, we saw Lily tell Ted that "the bride wanted to talk to him." I think there are three reasons this indicates the bride will in fact be Robin: one, Ted isn't friends with Norah, so why would she want to talk to him?; two, Lily is presumably helping the bride prepare and was dispatched to deliver the message, and she's not friends with Norah either; three, this bit was almost immediately juxtaposed with the scene where Ted and Robin had something of a heart to heart about their respective love lives, and I think Ted would be just the person to talk a nervous Robin down on the day of her wedding. Thank you for indulging me in that little sidebar of speculation; and if it's all a misdirect and we get an episode down the road where Norah or some yet unknown lady friend of Barney's becomes super tight with the gang, my apologies in advance.
Continuing on... We saw Marshall and Lily try (and fail) to keep their pregnancy secret from everyone. It wasn't much for either of them to do, but it did supply us with ample amounts of Drunk Marshall, and the only person who loves Drunk Marshall more than Lily is me. Watching him inadvertently send the reception into chaos was just icing on the cake. And speaking of the reception, two things that I wondered: first, why was everyone wearing purple and orange? Is that an Ohio thing I've never heard of or did the couple really choose such an awful combination for the theme because they liked it? And second, is the balcony where Ted and Robin have their cigars and soul-baring time the very same from Lily and Marshall's wedding? It sure looked like it (but this is not remotely relevant to the plot). Barney and Robin proved that they still have undeniable chemistry, which was unfortunately disrupted by Norah. Watching Robin feed Barney her own confession of still-simmering feelings so that he could relay it as his own to his new crush was one of the episode's better moments, and absolutely heartbreaking to boot.
The second episode was a little more the focused and linear, and it had a favorite device of mine from the older seasons, where the B-plot turns out to be at least as important (if not more so) to the overall narrative than the A-plot. You see, this episode was supposedly about Marshall trying to get a job working for Martin Short's environmental law firm, and his unfortunate run-in with employer cyber screening practices. Additionally, we saw Barney continue to attempt to win Norah's affections by camping out in an all-night diner (which I guess would have actually been the B-plot, meaning Ted's was the C-plot, or maybe the B 2.0- plot). I am not crazy about what they've done with Norah's character in this episode; she seems a little snobbish, I guess, and what I liked about her before was that she seemed so earnest. However, this gives me further hope that she is not his endgame relationship, because this show has a historical tendency to spoil female characters once they've decided she is not "the one" for Ted (see Stella, Zoey, Victoria, and even Robin to an extent). It is not a huge jump in logic to think they might be doing the same with Barney to outline Robin (or someone else, I grudgingly admit) as his true love.
But like I was saying about Ted's plot-- it felt throwaway, to him and to us, and so I wasn't super invested in him going to the Architect's Ball (though the bit with Robin angling for an invite was pretty great), and I didn't really think anything of consequence would happen there. That in combination with the fact that I was sure Ted's running into an ex flame was something we wouldn't be seeing until at least November sweeps made Victoria's last-minute appearance genuinely and satisfyingly shocking. I can't wait to see that interaction next week.
Do I think Ted will end up with Victoria? No, probably not. Six years is a long time, and though I think Ted will certainly try to pick up where they left off, it won't work out. We've gotten too many clues about the mother for it to turn out to be Victoria, whom Ted knew and dated for a while (and therefore would have known well enough to be able to tell if she was Rachel Bilson's roommate, just to point out one example), and I'm pretty sure the showrunners still think they've got enough time to introduce the mother as a completely new character. If the writing stays at this quality level, maybe they do. In any case, season 7 is off to a hilarious and well-crafted start, and I am excited to stay tuned for more in the weeks to come.
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