Brunch (How I Met Your Mother)

"Brunch" is the 3^rd episode in the second season of the television series How I Met Your Mother. It originally aired on October 2, 2006.

Plot

When Ted's parents come to New York, their visit culminates in a brunch during which everyone is mad at someone else.

The Marshall and Lily Part

When Ted's parents arrive, Marshall and Lily are finishing the process of dividing up their things. Ted's mother invites Lily to dinner that evening, and Lily asks Marshall if he would be uncomfortable if she came. Marshall responds by asking why he would mind and says that he thinks of Lily like a sister. Angered by the sister comment, Lily wears a tight, sexy dress to dinner and calls Marshall's attention to her breasts. Marshall decides to get back at Lily at brunch by flaunting the part of his body that she finds most attractive: his calves. Wearing zip-off pants that convert into shorts, Marshall begins massaging his calves in front of Lily. They then have sex in the bathroom, which causes them to begin arguing about who tried to seduce whom.

The Barney Part

Barney is excited to finally meet Ted's parents and is certain that they are looking forward to meeting him because of all the stories Ted has told them. When Ted tells him that he hasn't told his parents any stories about Barney, Robin supports his decision by saying that Barney isn't the type of person one would tell one's parents about. Offended, Barney goes out his way to be overly charming to Ted's parents. The next day Barney tells Ted that when he and Ted's father went to MacLaren's after dinner Barney saw Ted's father kissing Wendy the waitress. Ted's father comes to the apartment and Ted tries to get his father to admit that he cheated on his wife. Ted's father doesn't admit to anything, and at brunch Ted is determined to expose his father's infidelity to his mother.

The Ted and Robin Part

Robin is nervous about meeting Ted's parents for the first time, especially with Barney trying to win their affections and making her look bad. Ted also warns her that his mother tends to grill all of his girlfriends about getting married. But to Robin's surprise, Ted's mother doesn't pressure her about marriage at all, instead she praises Ted and Robin for waiting to marry. Feeling like Ted's mother doesn't like her, Robin eventually confronts Ted's mother at brunch, saying that even though she doesn't want to get married and have kids anytime soon she wants Ted's mother to want her to be Ted's wife and to give her grandchildren. Ted's mother says that she does like Robin, but she doesn't think that everyone should marry young like she did. After Robin learns why, Robin urges Ted's mother to tell Ted something at brunch.

When Ted's father rushes to help a waitress clean up broken dishes, Ted finally confronts his father about kissing Wendy the night before. Ted is surprised that when his mother only responds with an, "Oh," to the news that her husband had cheated on her. Ted's parents tell him that they have been divorced for 10 months and were separated 2 years before that. When Ted asks why they divorced, they say that they realized that they were too different, making observations about their relationship that sound distinctly like Ted and Robin's relationship. After hearing the news of his parents divorce, Ted is astonished, but Robin is happy that Ted's parents like her.

Meanwhile, Marshall and Lily apologize to each other for acting so foolishly. They agree that they both need time to adjust to being around each other now that they are no longer dating.

Notes

Ted's parents met at an Irish bar.
Ted has at least one sibling (a sister)
Symbolism between Ted and Robin and Ted's parents is noted by Ted's shirt color matching his father's sweater (Red), and Robin's blouse matching the color of Ted's mother's top (Blue)
In this episode after hearing how Ted's own parents met, he states "When I have kids and I tell them how I met their mother, I am going to tell them everything, the whole damn story," thus setting up the premise for the whole show.
Ted asks his father is he thinks Cerrano has a shot at the RBI title when avoiding confrontation. Cerrano is an allusion to Pedro Cerrano, the fictional character played from the movies Major League series. It was stated two episodes before ("Where Were We") that Ted (and most likely his father) is a Cleveland Indians fan.

Continuity

In one of his many efforts to look good for Ted's parents, Barney says that he volunteers at a soup kitchen, which he did do in "Belly Full of Turkey."

Errors

In this episode, Ted points out to Barney that whenever he makes up statistics he uses 83%. While Barney invents many statistics on the show, he has only used 83% once.

External links

"Brunch" at TV.com
"Brunch" at the Internet Movie Database