How I Met Your Mother Recap: Aldrin Justice

Even a relatively weak episode of How I Met Your Mother, like the one we got this week, is still far funnier than most comedies on TV today. I know, I know, the show is on Monday and you are posting the recap on Wednesday. Yeah, I suck. I was a little late in getting this up even though resident HIMYM recapper Jim Mosby sent it right on time. I will hide my head in shame as you relive the funny.

Aldrin Justice, S2 E06
Original Airdate – October 23, 2006

In tonight’s episode, Barney wrestles with a cougar and loses while a Marshall-less Lily continues to drift like a rudderless ship.

It’s amazing how much I find myself relating to both Marshall and Lily this week in some way. Marshall with his law school troubles, and, Lily, with that wandering urge to find what she really is meant to do in her life. Ok, enough Jim Mosby introspective thinking.

Ever since Lily returned from San Francisco she seems to be wandering, not quite sure what to do with her life, she wants to find that “passion.” Every time you turn around, she’s decided that she wants to do something else with her life. Lily thought she found her passion in: being a life coach, a marine biologist, slam poet, bee keeper, (looking like she’s been stung many times) not a bee keeper…

Robin accidentally lets it slip that in order to keep paying her bills; Lily is waiting tables at a Hawaiian restaurant named “Big Wave Luau.” Much to Lily’s horror, the whole gang just has to go and visit her while at work.

Lily: (in cheesy Hawaiian outfit, coconut bikini and all) Welcome to Big Wave Luau, may I take your drink order? Oh Crap!
Robin: I’m sorry.
Barney: Oh hi Lily, we were just in the neighborhood and though we’d get some lunch, we didn’t even know you’d be here.
Marshall: (Pulls out Polaroid camera and takes a picture) haha
Lily: What do you want?
Ted: I don’t think that is supposed to be how you greet a customer at Big Wave Luau.
Lily: (Humiliated) Aloha island visitors, a big wave brought you to our humble luau…

Marshall’s constitutional law professor is taking her bad divorce over the summer out on the class. Marshall thinks that if she just got laid maybe she’d loosen up and not grade that tough. Why not just dare Barney to sex her up?

Marshall: She’s in her late 40s.
Barney: Is she hot?
Marshall: Uhh, yea.
Barney: And she’s looking for some action, it sounds to me like she could be a cougar.
Robin: A what?
Barney: A cougar. An older woman usually in her 40’s or 50’s, single and on the prowl for a younger man.
***
Barney: Marshall’ I’ve thought it over and I accept your challenge.
Marshall: I didn’t challenge you to have sex with her.
Barney: Tomorrow the cougar hunt begins.

In the mean time, after Ted inadvertently insulted and crushed the last assistant in his office, they need a new one, and Lily takes the job. (And, she finally gets to see a model of the phallic shaped skyscraper that his boss designed.)

Ted introduces Lily to his boss, and, it becomes quickly apparent while he’s berating Ted right in front of Lily that he’s a jerk, or how to better put it, well, a lot like the skyscraper he designed.

Cut back to Marshall and Barney. They are looking into the professor’s office through a fake plant in the hallway and Barney decides that he has to have her.

Barney: Who would you rather have grading your papers? A savage man eating cat or a purring satisfied kitty?
Marshall: Go Barney. Go mount and stuff that cougar.

Barney walks into her office and in the worst Italian accent possible, tries to get her attention.

Professor: Tell me what you want and get out.
Barney: (In his real voice) The name is Barney and what I want is you.
Professor: Turn around. (Pause) My place, 2 hours, don’t be tardy.
***
(Now in Bed)
Professor: C-
Barney: What are you talking about, I pulled an all nighter.
Professor: You didn’t budget your time well, you glossed over some of the most important things, and your oral presentation was sloppy and inconclusive.

Excuse me while I die laughing at the law school humor. I had a professor say each of those lines to me more than once while reviewing my exam performance. Ok, so none of them looked like that. Again, EXAM performance! Nothing more. Haha.

Lily is with Ted at their place of employment and she’s getting quite fed up with their boss. He treats Ted like crap. He makes people laugh at his jokes.

Ted’s assignment was to make small Styrofoam trees for the model of the skyscraper. Given what the shape of the skyscraper resembles, this exchange is downright dirty.

Ted: Here they are.
Boss: Hmm, too green.
Ted: Too green?
Boss: The leaves should be more of a natural brown color, almost brunette. Think bushy. I want this tower to rise from a thicket of wild ungroomed brunette shrubbery. Can you picture it Ted?
Ted: I can’t unpicture it.

It’s at this point that Ted’s boss discovers that his baseball signed by Pete Rose three times has been stolen from it’s protective case. He’s freaking out. Ted starts looking for something in Lily’s desk and he discovers that Lily stole the ball!

Later at McClaren’s:

Ted: Lily, question, why did I find Mr. Druthers’ baseball signed three times by Pete Rose in your desk drawer.
Lily: That’s easy, I took it.
Ted: What?
Lily: It’s simple, (cut to scenes of him being a jerk), the point is, he was mean and that is why I took it away.
Ted: What does his ball have to do with anything?
Lily: Druthers has to be taught he can’t behave like that. When I was teaching kindergarten whenever a kid was mean I would take away one of his toys, the kid would be upset at first, and then he’d learn to stop being mean.

Robin wanders into the bar and it’s apparent that she knows of Lily’s tactics to get back at people for being mean. She knew everything about it. One time, at the Gap, a salesman was being mean to Robin, and to get even, Lily took a pair of khakis, which were later a gift to Ted for his birthday.

Ted: So, i’ve been walking around in a pair of stolen khakis?
Lily: I prefer to call them justice khakis.
Ted: It’s not justice, it’s shoplifting.

When Ted’s boss sees the note, he freaks out and says that if the ball is not returned by the end of the day, that tomorrow he will fire 3 people an hour until it is returned. Ted tells Lily to return it or he’ll fire her.

Marshall’s constitutional law class had a pop quiz that morning and notbody in the class got higher that a C-. Barney was on a mission to break her, to be her master. Things didn’t exactly go down that way though. He’s not taming her; he’s only making her angrier. Barney wants to go back for round three with her. This time he’s fueled up with power bars and a six pack of Red Bull.

In the mean time, the firm’s clients were coming in to see the first model of the building. Do they like it? Would you like your multi-million dollar building to be shaped like a giant male genitalia? Yea. Easy answer there. The clients said they hated it and just as they were ready to leave the room and break off the deal, Ted, inspired by the “Justice Khakis” that he was wearing that day, decided to show them his drawing in spite of his boss telling him not to. They loved Ted’s drawing. They want that to be their new building.

Thanks to all of that wrangling at Ted’s job, Lily figured out what she wanted to do with her life, be a kindergarten teacher. Hopefully this is the first step in her figuring out her life, and getting back with Marshall.

Oh yea, so what happened to Barney? Lily, Ted, Marshall and Robin all rush into the hospital and see Barney laid up in a hospital bed, with the professor sitting next to him, smoking a cigarette. He dislocated his hip. Marshall though got a B+ on his paper. Barney was furious.

Barney: Marshall, after 8 weeks of physical therapy, I am going to get you that A.
Marshall: Let her go, she belongs out there, in the wild. You should feel proud; you fought the cougar and lived.
Barney: It was an amazing safari. I can’t wait to show you guys the slides.