Dowisetrepla

"Dowisetrepla" is the seventh episode in the third season of the television series How I Met Your Mother and 51st overall. It originally aired on November 5, 2007.

Plot

Marshall finally tires of Ted's never-ending presence and his invasion on the married couple's personal space, so he decides to buy a new apartment with Lily. He begins searching in a neighborhood called 'Dowisetrepla', which is explained as part of New York City's tendency to shorten neighborhood names, and is supposedly an up-and-coming neighborhood in the city.

Marshall falls in love with the apartment in Dowisetrepla, imagining himself playing drums in a band with his future sons. Lily feels guilty because of the huge credit card debt she hides from Marshall, but still imagines herself painting with two daughters, and so eventually ends up saying that she loves it.

Meanwhile, Barney hooks up with a woman, Meg, and takes the girl to the apartment in Dowisetrepla so he can sneak out while she is in the shower.

The next day, Lily and Marshall apply for a mortgage, and Marshall finds out about Lily's debt. Later, Ted, Barney, and Robin go home, where Ted discovers that Lily and Marshall were having a fight based on "evidence" strewn about the room. Ted incorrectly concludes the fight was over something minor (the peanut butter jar, Lily leaving the jar out after Marshall's repeated insistence to not do so). To prove his theory, Ted hits re-dial on the apartment phone, expecting the number to be Marshall's cell phone, which Lily would have called to apologize and make up. They instead hear the receptionist of a divorce lawyer, and panic. Robin reveals the truth to Barney and Ted about Lily's debt, and they all begin to consider how their lives will be with Lily and Marshall broken up. Lily and Marshall return and explain that Lily had the idea of divorcing Marshall so he would not be dragged down by her debt. However, Marshall replies by saying, "When I married you, I married all your problems, too." Finally, they exclaim that they bought the apartment. The next day, Lily and Marshall take a taxi to their new home, but as they step out of the cab, they smell an extremely strong stench. The cab driver reveals that the area is near the sewage treatment plant, but the plant is shut down on weekends. They realize that "DoWiSeTrePla" is short for: DOwnWInd of the SEwage TREatment PLAnt.

Barney's blog

• Barney digs into his Mail Sack and discusses how best to "suit up" even in hot weather.^[1]

Cultural references

• After Ted finishes revealing Marshall and Lily's argument, he puts on sunglasses in a manner of Horatio Caine from the television series CSI: Miami. The pun he makes is parodying a series of Internet memes based on Caine.^[2][3]
• The flavor of ice cream when Ted is in the kitchen is Ben and Jerry's "Cherry Garcia."
• When Ted plays detective, he refers to himself and his sister as the "Mosby Boys", a reference to the Hardy Boys, and remarks that "There's a reason why your name is Robin and not Batman" to Robin.^[3][4]
• Marshall references the MTV series The Real World.^[2][3]
• Dowisetrepla ("DO"wn "WI"nd of the "SE"wage "TRE"atment "PLA"nt) is a parody of other neighbourhoods in NYC popularly referred to by their acronyms, such as SoHo (South of Houston Street), TriBeCa (Triangle Below Canal Street), and Nolita (North of Little Italy).

Critical response

Donna Bowman of The AV Club rated the episode A-. She compares the show to Friends and notes the appearance of actress Maggie Wheeler, who previously played Chandler's on-and-off girlfriend Janice, as the estate agent.^[2]

Staci Krause of IGN gave the episode 8.0 out of 10.^[4]

References

External links

• "Dowisetrepla" at the Internet Movie Database
• "Dowisetrepla" at TV.com