The Slutty Pumpkin Returns

"The Slutty Pumpkin Returns" is the eighth episode of the seventh season of the CBS sitcom How I Met Your Mother, and the 144th episode overall. It originally aired on October 31, 2011.

Plot

Future Ted reminds his kids that ten years earlier he met the Slutty Pumpkin, a girl in a provocative pumpkin costume who appeared to be very compatible with him, during the rooftop Halloween party. However, he lost the Kit Kat on which she had written her number and waited each year in vain for her to appear again.

In October 2011, Ted sees the slutty pumpkin costume in the window of a shop, where the owner willingly divulges, from his records, the identity of the woman who rented it in 2001. Ted meets Naomi, the girl who wore the costume; she has also been searching for him, and they start dating. Ted immediately realizes they have no chemistry and that he has no feelings for her, but he can't bring himself to end the relationship so quickly after finally finding her. When Ted decides that he needs to break up with Naomi, he's stunned to see her wear the slutty pumpkin costume; he says that he loves her and they have sex. They arrive at the Halloween party on the roof wearing the costumes they wore when they first met. After Naomi consumes a Tootsie Roll cocktail, she confesses that she found their relationship as awkward as Ted did, but felt similarly resistant to ending it (though Ted does not reveal to her how he felt). They break up amicably.

Meanwhile, Lily's judgement is impaired by the fact that she has "pregnancy brain", and impulsively decides she wants to live in the suburbs after she and Marshall are given her grandparents' house. Though Marshall wants to live in the suburbs, he does not want to take advantage of Lily's state of mind. Under the pretense of arranging for a real-estate broker to assess the house, Lily tries to trick Marshall into giving in due to the wholesomeness of the trick-or-treaters who soon arrive. However, when Lily realizes how her pregnancy brain has affected her ability to make decisions, she agrees to wait until she can think clearly before she and Marshall decide whether they want to move away from the city.

In the meantime, Robin learns from Barney's father Jerome Whittaker through Facebook that Barney's paternal grandmother was born in Manitoba, thus making Barney one-quarter Canadian. Barney is horrified and Robin teases him as revenge for all the mockery she endured from him over the years. She agrees to stop if Barney wears a Mountie costume for the Halloween party on the roof, but Barney resists and winds up wearing an American-themed boxing outfit instead. Robin points out that Barney is not uncomfortable on the cold rooftop in his shirtless costume, due to his Canadian ancestry. When he returns home later, a fantasy sequence ensues in which his Canadian side manifests physically and Barney futilely tries to beat him up; the Canadian version of Barney is unfailingly polite, friendly - and unharmed - throughout the attack.

Music

• "One Week" by Barenaked Ladies, which Naomi tells Ted is "their song" because it had been playing when they first met.
• "Living in America" by James Brown

Barney's blog

Barney continues to deny his Canadian heritage and lists some reasons why he thinks the U.S. is better than Canada.^[1]

Cultural references

• When Barney discovers he is 1/4th Canadian, he cries out, "No, it's not true, that's impossible!" This is a reference to Luke Skywalker's famous reaction when learning that Darth Vader is his father in The Empire Strikes Back.
• Barney makes a grand entrance at the costume party as Apollo Creed from Rocky IV, complete with flag backdrop and James Brown's "Living in America" as background music.
• Naomi mentions that she came across lots of Big Lebowskis, Harry Potters and Antoine Dodsons through the last Halloweens. She also makes him a hanging chad costume.
• When Ted and Naomi are making out, Ted believes “she sounds like those cows in Temple Grandin’s hug machine.”
• The famous Canadians Robin refers to are Justin Bieber, Yukon Blonde, John Diefenbaker, and Dudley Do-Right. The Canadian Barney uses the expression, "heavens to Gretzky."
• When Robin tells Barney that the Canadian one-dollar coin is called a Loonie and the two-dollar coin is called a Toonie, he says that they sound like Hanna-Barbera characters.
• Most members of the group apparently have Barney's biological father, Jerome Whittaker, on their Facebook friend lists. Marshall mentions that Jerome has gotten quite good at Bejeweled Blitz.
• Robin is dressed as a Vancouver Canuck.
• When Barney arrives home and splits into Canadian Barney, his forehead glows in a reference to the scene in Superman III where evil Superman splits and good Clark Kent emerges.^[2]
• Lily complains that her grandparents' gifts are like "the world's worst Showcase Showdown".

Critical response

Donna Bowman of the AV Club graded the episode at B, praising Holmes in particular for exceeding low expectations.^[3] Robert Canning of IGN claimed that "it's that character familiarity that made 'The Slutty Pumpkin Returns' work so well".^[4]

The episode attracted 10.49 million viewers.^[5]

References

External links

• "The Slutty Pumpkin Returns" at the Internet Movie Database