Miracles (How I Met Your Mother)

"Miracles"
How I Met Your Mother episode
Episode no.	Season 3 Episode 20
Directed by	Pamela Fryman
Written by	Craig Thomas & Carter Bays
Production code	3ALH20
Original air date	May 19, 2008
Guest stars
John Getz (Bob Hewitt) Doug Benson (Cool Customs Guy) Darcy Rose Byrnes (Lucy) Anthony Palermo (Customs Guy)
Season 3 episodes
Wait for It We're Not from Here Third Wheel Little Boys How I Met Everyone Else I'm Not That Guy Dowisetrepla Spoiler Alert Slapsgiving The Yips The Platinum Rule No Tomorrow Ten Sessions The Bracket The Chain of Screaming Sandcastles in the Sand The Goat Rebound Bro Everything Must Go Miracles

Miracles is the 20th and final episode of the third season of the CBS television series How I Met Your Mother and 64th overall. It originally aired on May 19, 2008.

Plot

Ted is having trouble getting a cab, but when he finally gets one, the cab is hit by a car speeding through an intersection. The entire gang, except Barney, rush to the hospital and are relieved to find that he is fine. Ted reveals that he and Stella had gotten into a fight after she invited him to her sister's wedding in six months and had broken up. When the accident occurred, Ted had seen all the things that he loved, allowing him to re-examine his relationship with Stella and realizing that he wants her back. Stella arrives in the hospital and reveals she has forgiven Ted. However, when she learns Ted thought they had broken up while she thought they had gotten into a small fight, Stella becomes upset and explicitly breaks up with him.

Lily calls Barney to tell him about Ted's accident, but he hangs up before she can tell him that Ted is fine. He skips an important business meeting and when he misses a cab, Barney begins running to the hospital. He ends up getting hit by a bus driving the wrong way near the hospital, but survives, even though he has broken nearly all the bones in his body. Touched that Barney was so concerned about him, Ted finally reconciles with Barney. Marshall and Lily joke about what Barney must have seen when he was hit by the bus, but notice that he is looking at Robin as they mention seeing all the things that he loves.

Meanwhile, Marshall attributes Ted and Barney surviving their respective accidents as miracles, a notion Robin laughs aside, since she does not believe in miracles. Marshall begins to relate a series of anecdotes where he believed a miracle had occurred. The stories involve a pencil falling from the ceiling and bouncing into Barney's nose, Marshall successfully smuggling drugs from Amsterdam to the United States due to the customs officer changing shifts, and Marshall losing his job because of head lice he had gotten from Lily's kindergarten class shortly before Marshall's boss was arrested. Robin dismisses all of Marshall's perceived miracles and reveals why she does not believe in them. When she was a child and her dog was dying, her parents and the veterinarian supposedly saved her dog with a special operation. Marshall declares it to be a miracle until Robin reveals that they told her a major side-effect of the operation was that her dog "turned into" a turtle.

After an orderly tells Ted he can leave, and he rushes out to meet Stella, who is at Kiddy Fun Land with her daughter. He gives Stella a small orange kangaroo stuffed animal. Ted tells her he's ready to give her what she needs, and that's why he spent ten minutes at the claw machine trying to get a fake diamond ring, but he could only get an orange kangaroo. Stella is confused why he would need a diamond ring, and Ted proposes to her.

Music

• "(Nice Dream)" by Radiohead
• "Here Comes a Regular" by The Replacements

Continuity

• The place Ted and Stella are at when they first break up is called the Popover Pantry. This is the same place where Brad and Marshall went for brunch in World's Greatest Couple.
• Robin was supposedly raised as a boy in "Happily Ever After", but is pictured in a flashback wearing a dress and pig tails.
• Marshall says, "did you actually say the words "I want to break up"?" and Ted says, "of course not, who says, "I wanna break up"?" But actually in Return of the Shirt Ted says, "I wanna break up" to Natalie.
• The episode ends before you can see Stella react to Ted's proposal, which is not shown until the start of season 4 in the episode Do I Know You?.
• Marshall and Lily are wearing the same clothes in this episode that they were at the end of the previous episode "Everything Must Go" when Jason Segel and Alyson Hannigan are advertising the auction site Lily and Marshall Sell Their Stuff.com.
• Ted was previously not talking to Barney after he discovered Barney had slept with Robin in The Goat.
• As Barney is described to Ted's kids as "Uncle Barney", is now explicitly stated that Ted's future family has, sometimes in the future (and their relative past), met and became close to every one of young Ted's friends.
• Barney's statement to Ted that he was uptown for an international business meeting is a callback to his explanation for being in the airport in Sweet Taste of Liberty.
• At the start of the episode Ted wonders what would have happened if he had gotten into the cab which was driven by a naked man. Later on in the episode Marshall is holding a newspaper which states " Naked cab driver to kill again!"
• Barney uses 83% again. Ted points out in another episode that he always uses 83% when making up a statistic; however, in this case it could be true.

Barney's blog

Having suffered injuries to "83% of his body" Barney updates his blog from his hospital bed with the help of a nurse called Bill.

Cultural references

• Barney appears to be meeting with North Korean delegates. In Korean, he literally says "Sorry, but I must go"

When Marshall gets called he is playing Guitar Hero

Production

In an interview for Television Without Pity series co-creator Craig Thomas said he always knew he wanted to end a season on a proposal if the show was successful.

Critical response

Donna Bowman of The AV Club rated the episode A-.

Omar of Television Without Pity rated the episode with a grade B+.

IGN gave the episode 8.5 out of 10.

External links

• Miracles at TV.com
• Miracles at the Internet Movie Database