As Fast as She Can

"As Fast As She Can"
How I Met Your Mother episode
Episode no.	Season 4 Episode 23
Directed by	Pamela Fryman
Written by	Craig Thomas Carter Bays
Original air date	May 11, 2009
Guest stars
Sarah Chalke as Stella Jason Jones as Tony Renée Taylor as Mrs. Matsen
Season 4 episodes
"Do I Know You? "The Best Burger in New York" "I Heart NJ" "Intervention" "Shelter Island" "Happily Ever After" "Not a Father's Day" "Woooo!" "The Naked Man" "The Fight" "Little Minnesota" "Benefits" "Three Days of Snow" "The Possimpible" "The Stinsons" "Sorry, Bro" "The Front Porch" "Old King Clancy" "Murtaugh" "Mosbius Designs" "The Three Days Rule" "Right Place, Right Time" "As Fast as She Can" "The Leap"

"As Fast As She Can" is the 23rd episode of the fourth season of How I Met Your Mother and 87th overall. It originally aired on May 11, 2009.

Plot

Picking up from the previous episode, Ted turns to see Stella (Sarah Chalke) behind him at a crosswalk. She is quickly joined by her fiance (and father of her daughter), Tony (Jason Jones). Ted says that it's a great surprise to see them, and later at MacLaren's, Barney and Marshall praise his cool. Later that evening, Tony shows up at Ted's apartment, professing pity for Ted's condition, despite Ted denying any depression on his part. He explains that his family is rich, and he wants to make it up to Ted.

First he offers him a professor position at Columbia, which Ted turns down, as it is a last resort in the field of architecture. Then, Tony brings Ted to a rich friend's house for dinner to offer Ted a job designing a new home. When the host starts insisting that his "laundry" room be soundproof, lined with stain-proof ceramic tiles, and filled with hanging chains, Ted quickly realizes the man is proposing the design of a "murder room."

Eventually, Ted rejects Tony's help, claiming he's glad to be rid of Stella, who left him at the altar. The comment makes Tony reconsider his commitment to Stella, and he breaks off the engagement. Stella shows up at Ted's apartment distraught, begging him to help her get Tony back. Ted refuses, claiming Stella hurt him and his ability to love.

Meanwhile, Barney complains about a speeding ticket he receives. Marshall brags about how he evaded a ticket back in Minnesota by enticing the officer with the offer of bratwurst at a BBQ. Barney takes this as a challenge, and vows to talk his way out of a ticket, and speeds every time he is driving. After a few failures, he continues complaining, and Robin tells the story of how she cried her way out of a ticket.

Finally, he encounters an attractive police officer. In the retelling of the story, Barney claims he promptly seduced the police woman, but he was actually arrested for numerous moving violations. Barney calls Ted (who is in the middle of his argument with Stella) from jail in Brazzaville, NJ, desperate to be bailed out (even though he is only in the cell with two teenage vandals). Stella offers to drive Ted to New Jersey, and the two bail Barney out and drive him back to the city. Before he exits the car, Ted admits that he is tired of searching for love, and hopes to find what she and Tony have. Stella tells Ted a story of how she once talked her way out of a speeding ticket. The cop pulled her over and walked up to her car and said "Young lady, I have been waiting for you all day." Stella looked up at him and said "I'm sorry, officer, I got here as fast as I could." When Ted asks if that really happened, she says no, it's just an old joke. Stella tells Ted "the one" for him is coming "as fast as she can". Ted agrees to talk to Tony, and the couple get back together.

Future Ted (Bob Saget) then talks about how Stella established a new, successful dermatological practice on the West Coast, and Tony became a successful screenwriter, with a hit in May 2010 called "The Wedding Bride."

Finally, at the bar, Lily returns, admitting the offensive joke Barney told her four weeks ago was actually funny, but once he starts explaining a scheme involving amnesia patients, she promptly leaves again.

Music

• Michelle Featherstone - "Careful"

Continuity

• The episode portrays Barney as confidently driving a car at high speeds. The season 2 episode Arrivederci, Fiero told the story of how Barney had never learned to drive, and upon attempting in Marshall's Fiero was terrified even at a low speed. Later episodes indicate Barney has learned to drive since then, notably in The Bracket.
• Lily returned after her absence starting in the episode Mosbius Designs after Barney told her the dirtiest joke ever. The four-week absence was due to actress Alyson Hannigan's pregnancy.
• The poster for Tony's movie "The Wedding Bride", features the bride and groom on top of a wedding cake; the bride is looking not at her groom but another man in a tux on top of the wedding cake as well. This is a reference to the climax of the episode Shelter Island.
• Towards the end of Ted's hallway fight with Stella, Ted gets a call from Barney in jail to bail him out. His ring-tone is "Let's Go To The Mall", a song by Robin Sparkles, first introduced in the episode Slap Bet.
• Robin has never received a moving violation. She has, however, received several other tickets, as Marshall notes that "[s]he's not great at parking legally" after he searches Robin's record in Slap Bet.
• The site for Tony's film about Stella leaving Ted
• This movie is part of the plot of a Season 5 episode entitled The Wedding Bride.
• Barney had already been arrested after peeing on the wall of a church, as shown in the season 1 episode Belly Full of Turkey.

Critical response

Donna Bowman of The AV Club gave the episode an A- rating.

External links

• As Fast As She Can at the Internet Movie Database
• As Fast As She Can at TV.com