Lily Aldrin

Lily Aldrin
First appearance	Pilot
Created by	Carter Bays & Craig Thomas
Portrayed by	Alyson Hannigan
In-universe information
Nickname	Lil, Lilypad, Justice Aldrin, Red, Red Tumor, Grinch
Gender	Female
Title	Slap Bet Commissioner
Occupation	Kindergarten Teacher
Family	Mickey Aldrin (father) Janice Aldrin (mother)
Spouse	Marshall Eriksen
Children	a son (in future/possibly expecting)
Relatives	Lois (maternal grandmother) Rita (paternal grandmother) Morris (paternal grandfather) Buzz Aldrin (possible grandfather) Amy (cousin)

Lillian "Lily" Aldrin is a fictional character created by Carter Bays and Craig Thomas for the CBS television series How I Met Your Mother, portrayed by American actress Alyson Hannigan. She is the wife of Marshall Eriksen and the best friend of Robin Scherbatsky. Lily is a kindergarten teacher and amateur painter.

Casting

Thomas explained that he based Marshall and Lily on himself and his wife Rebecca. She was a little upset at the prospect at first, but since she is a big fan of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, she agreed if Alyson Hannigan could play her. Hannigan was looking to do more comedy work after having worked on the primary American Pie series and was available for the show.

Biography

Lily grew up in Brooklyn, New York. She is the granddaughter of a woman named Lois and the daughter of Janice Aldrin, whom Lily describes as a feminist. The creators stated in commentary that there is no evidence to the contrary that Lily's grandfather is astronaut Buzz Aldrin - and like Buzz Aldrin, her grandfather is said to have fought in the Korean War. Her father is revealed to be a man named Mickey, an unsuccessful board game creator living in his parents' basement. Janice and Mickey divorced when Lily was younger.

During her high school and college years, she is shown to have been a part of the goth subculture, with her hair dyed black. Lily dated a guy named Scooter, admitting she only dated him because he looked like Kurt Cobain. According to a convenience store clerk, she is "taller than described." She met Marshall during her freshman year at Wesleyan University in 1996 and dated him throughout college.

As of the episode, "Say Cheese", aired on March 22, 2010, Lily is 32 years old. This would place her birth year (at least from Ted's recollections) to be in 1978.

Character history

Lily and Marshall became engaged in the fall of 2005, as portrayed in the series pilot. Towards the end of the first season, she reveals to Robin that she has been having second thoughts about getting married without having experienced much else of life before Marshall. Those doubts intensify, and she acts upon them, applying for a painting fellowship in San Francisco. She originally tells Ted that she had decided not to go through with the application, but Marshall finds out she did and was accepted. After arguing the point on and off, with several pause breaks in between for drinks, dinner at Red Lobster, and sex, Lily cannot promise Marshall that she would return to him after the three-month fellowship, and the engagement ends.

After returning, she confesses that her decision to leave was a mistake, but it takes several episodes until Marshall takes her back. Soon after, they resume their engagement. Episode 10 of season 2 implies that within a year, Marshall and Lily will be married. They finally get married in "Something Borrowed," the penultimate episode of the second season. Lily chose to keep her own last name; Marshall would have preferred otherwise but accepted any name Lily wanted, even jokily suggesting that they call themselves "The Awesomes."

On Thanksgiving Day 2005, Lily is arrested for public urination in St. Cloud, Minnesota, after taking a home pregnancy test in an alley behind a convenience store while visiting Marshall's family. (As depicted in "Belly Full of Turkey".)

In the third season, it is revealed that Lily is a shopaholic, and goes shopping (particularly for shoes and boots) whenever something bad happens. Her multiple credit cards are kept in a "box of shame". This fact is subtly hinted at during the season one episode "Cupcake". Upon ruining a wedding dress Lily is asked "How will you be paying?" and her reply is "credit card... s". She and Marshall struggled with her credit card bills especially when they were about to buy an apartment, which caused Marshall to take a job at a big corporate firm. They eventually get the house, only to find out that the neighborhood is situated near a water sewage treatment plant and that the floor of their apartment is crooked. In season 4 she and Marshall move into their new home.

Out of all of the characters, she is the only one Barney chooses to confide in when he realizes that he is in love with Robin in the season 4 premiere, "Do I Know You?". Barney has also called Lily to ask her to uncuff him from a sex swing. In "Do I Know You?", she says that Robin is her best friend and that she would not pretend she "hadn't noticed her body."

Lily, along with Ted and Marshall, occasionally indulged in "sandwiches" (Future Ted's euphemism for marijuana) during college and at their 20th college reunion.

She is shown in a number of episodes to display some bisexual tendencies.

In the fifth season premiere, Lily forces Robin and Barney to confess being a couple. She does this by detaching the doorknob of Robin's room at the apartment and waits for them to have "the Talk." Robin and Barney pass a few notes under the door with vague explanations, none of which satisfy her, but they eventually give in and lie but Lily notes that they did not realize they were not lying. It was discovered that Lily has a doppelgänger named Jasmine, who is a stripper. Lily is unusually excited about this, and is so enthralled by her stripper twin that she and Marshall get a private dance. At the end of the night, Lily switches place with Jasmine and dances with much difficulty on stage, eventually falling into the crowd, to Marshall's horror.

Due to their poor past experiences with other couples at double dates, Lily and Marshall are both ecstatic to have another couple to hang out with for another try. They invite Robin and Barney for a evening together, but this fails miserably when the other two admits to Ted that it was the most boring night ever. Eventually, Barney and Robin both realize they miss Lily and Marshall; they all profess their desire to be a foursome under the rain. In "Bagpipes", Lily and Marshall get in a huge fight because of dirty dishes and Barney's insistence to Marshall that he should not be responsible for them. She promptly kicks him out after Marshall's incoherent arguing escalates into several separate issues. When Barney and Robin admit to Lily and Marshall about their own problems, they start to appreciate how solid their own relationship is, and forgive each other immediately.

When Barney describes his relationship in a depressing manner to Marshall, he assumes Barney is unhappy. He and Ted ask Lily to help break up Barney and Robin, given her experience in plotting breakups ("The Front Porch"). While she insists that she is "retired" from that pursuit, Marshall and Ted's breakup method leads to Barney and Robin getting engaged, which Lily responds to by promptly "coming out of retirement". Lily executes her plan to get them into a big argument; this fails, but Barney and Robin both realize they don't work as a couple.

In Big Days, Marshall and Lily show up at MacLaren's, arguing about trying to get pregnant. Lily had set a romantic evening at home, with candles and banjo music, but when she finds out that Marshall has told his father that they are trying, Lily freaks out about how invasive Marvin Erikson is. Marshall argues that his father is a part of his life and deserves to know, but Lily can't stand Mr. Eriksen's constant calls and domineering personality. (Barney mentions that if he knew his father's phone number, he'd be calling him all the time, before turning his focus elsewhere.) Lily goes after Marshall, and the two reconcile, agreeing that his father is somewhat insane and very enthusiastic, just like Marshall. They both then head upstairs.

In season 6 episode 4, Lily and Marshall discuss their concerns about not conceiving a baby yet. They then agree there is really no rush to become parents, and promptly decide to head to Coney Island to have fun.

Lily and Marshall visit Stuart and Claudia (Baby Talk), who are having trouble naming their newborn baby. Lily and Marshall try to come up with baby names on their own - Marshall with boy names that Lily rejects because of her past experiences with trouble-making kindergarten boys, and Lily with a couple of girl names that Marshall rejects because of his experience with a hot girl from his school and a stripper. One of these fantasies of the future includes a Barney lookalike hitting on and subsequently marrying their daughter. Marshall, worried that he might have to raise a daughter, consults his father on how to ensure that his child will be male. What he doesn't realize is that Lily has been searching for ways to make sure their child will be female. When Lily and Marshall find out what the other has been doing, they realize that they have no control over the gender of their baby, and decide to give him/her the gender-neutral name Jamie. However, Lily rejects the name later because of a troublemaker in her class named Jamie.

In season 6 episode 24, Lily is revealed to be pregnant, after being thought to have received toxic food poisoning.

Traits

Lily is often portrayed to be the most morally-inclined member of the five-some. She is rarely impressed by Barney's antics, shows a consistent dislike for people not being true to themselves (When Marshall took the "soul-destroying" corporate job) and is often horrified by the use of bad language (especially when directed at her). She also serves as the voice of reason of the group, always giving idealistic advice to her friends and persuading them to do the right thing. Despite this, she is prone to out-bursts related to sexual language or harsh slang words (an example of this being when she told Ted he did not kiss Robin because he "chickened out like a little bitch" in the pilot episode). Of the couple, Lily is the impulsive one (and is terrible at keeping secrets); Marshall is often required to be the voice of reason. Lily also appears to have a talent for subtle and covert operations among her group of friends when she feels something has to be done, as revealed in "The Front Porch". Barney has even described her as a "manipulative puppet master" and "pure evil". She is often curious about trying out new things. She finds it easy to sustain platonic friendships with both men and women, although she is usually found in the company of men (Ted, Marshall, Barney). She is also prone to a reaction at certain words; "moist" makes her shiver, while "sack" and "booger" make her laugh.

Lily frequently states her need for regular sex, saying that if she went without it for too long she'd be "out there selling it for a nickel". Even though Marshall normally gets very nervous about encounters with women besides Lily and thinks about the consequence, Lily normally shrugs them off such as getting excited that Marshall spotted a stripper who looked very identical to her while secretly attending a strip club with Barney. Also, in "Jenkins", when Marshall is nervous about Lily meeting Jenkins, an attractive female co-worker of Marshall's, after meeting her she casually asks Marshall if he wants to go get something to eat. Later in the episode, however, Lily attacks Jenkins after hearing that she kissed Marshall.

In season 4 episode 14 it is revealed that not only is she a competitive speed eater, but also is fluent in Italian and proficient in Photoshop, Quark and Java. However, Lily's passion is art, and she has created a lot of paintings.

In Season 6 episode 3, Robin confronts Lily about some of her unfinished passions and asks her to delete the number of a karate dojo. Lily had accidentally walked into a group of kids training, where to her embarrassment had been trounced by one of the kids. Lily is shown in the end of the episode returning to the karate dojo to confront the kid; now older, the boy replies, "I knew this day would come" and he and Lily rush towards each other to fight.

In Legendaddy, Ted points out that Lily has terrible throwing skills.

Romantic interests

Marshall Eriksen

Marshall and Lily met on their first day at Wesleyan University. They dated, fell in love and were together for 10 years. They planned to get married earlier but Lily got cold feet and backed out, deciding instead to go to San Francisco for a summer art internship. When she returns, Marshall refuses to take her back at first, but they soon reunite. They get married while on a boat at sea, but it only lasts about 12 seconds. The second time they get married in a garden surrounded by their closest friends and the third time, minutes after their second wedding, they go inside for a third and final one.

Scooter

Scooter, or 'Bill' as he is now known, was Lily's high school boyfriend whom she only dated because he looked like Kurt Cobain. She admits to Marshall that they were physically intimate, but apparently didn't have full sex. He crashes Lily and Marshall's wedding in hopes of winning Lily back, but fails miserably. Scooter was played by David Burtka, Neil Patrick Harris' real-life boyfriend.

Too-Much-Tongue-Guy

Made out with Lily at a Freshmen mixer before she met Marshall. This was suspected to be Ted but was later discovered to be someone else at her 20th college reunion, years after the present day.

Robin Scherbatsky

Lily has confessed several times, albeit as an aside or in a joking fashion, to finding her best friend Robin sexually attractive. In fact, when Lily laments that her relationship with Marshall meant that she never had a "college lesbian experience" in Season 1, Robin kisses her in Best Prom Ever. In The Scorpion and the Toad from Season 2, Lily states that Robin has a great ass. In the season 4 episode Do I Know You?, Lily confesses to Barney about not being able to pretend she has not noticed Robin's body. In the Season 5 episode Robin 101, Lily states that Robin has been the subject of some sexually "confusing dreams". In The Perfect Cocktail, it is revealed that whenever Lily drinks martinis, it makes her want to make out with Robin.

Barney Stinson

Lily has taken an interest in Barney's sex life, feeling both interested in and disgusted by it. In season 2, the two wind up sleeping in bed together without having had sex in World's Greatest Couple, leading Barney to panic that this, by definition, means they are in a relationship. Lily also shows an inappropriate level of interest in Barney's bedroom activities in several episodes, including The Goat, Miracles, The Naked Man, and The Rough Patch. When Barney feels Lily is taking advantage of Marshall in Bagpipes, he describes the actions he would take if he were Lily's boyfriend, which include many gratuitous acts of passion.