Wait for It

"Wait for It" is the first episode in the third season of the television series How I Met Your Mother and 45th episode overall. It originally aired on September 24, 2007.

Plot

Future Ted tells his children that, although they know the short story (involving a yellow umbrella) of how he met their mother, there is a bigger story of how he became the man he needed to be in order to meet her.

This story begins back at Lily and Marshall's wedding, just as Barney finishes his word "...dary!" and he tries to get Ted out to help him "conquer New York" but Ted says he is not ready yet, prompting Barney to ask when he will be ready.

After the break-up, Robin went to Argentina while Ted grew a beard and painted the apartment, but when Robin returns with her new boyfriend Gael (guest star Enrique Iglesias), Ted announces he's finally ready.

Ted decides that Robin is trying to win their break-up. Marshall backs up this theory by explaining to Lily about the winner and loser in each break-up, so Barney takes Ted out to help him win by getting Ted "a 12" (given that he says Robin is "a 10") but Ted gets "a 12" on his own, a tattooed girl called Amy (guest star Mandy Moore).

After Gael had mentioned his passion for windsurfing and making love "sometimes at the same time", Barney insists this isn't possible as he has concocted a list of 33 vehicles (land-based, aquatic and airborne) in/on which it is possible to have sex and a windsurfing board is not on the list. He claims to have had sex on 31 of the 33 vehicles and would only need a bobsled and the Apollo 11 space capsule to complete the list. Lily says that to get the last one he will need to break into the Smithsonian, to which Barney casually replies "This conversation never happened."

Meanwhile, Lily and Marshall are having a night in with Robin and Gael after Lily inadvertently asked Gael out on a double date. They are supposed to be supporting Ted by hating Gael, but both end up falling for Gael as he plays the acoustic guitar, gives massages and sensually feeds fruit to everyone else.

On the night out with Ted, Barney clashes with Amy about everything and insists that he should be helping Ted as he is his wing-man but Ted is solely interested in Amy. Barney gives in to one request from Amy, for everyone to go back to her place, when she mentions that she has a hot tub. It turns out, the hot tub isn't Amy's, but belongs to a family who she used to nanny for and who are supposed to be in the Hamptons. Ted decides to get a tattoo himself to symbolise that he is winning the break-up but blacks out shortly after, while Barney leaves with a friend of Amy's to have sex.

The following morning Ted claims he had a good time the night before and is relieved that he did not get a tattoo—or so he thinks. Lily and Marshall spot a butterfly tattoo on Ted's lower back and call Barney to come and see. After cluing Ted in to his new "tramp stamp", the night's proceedings come back to Ted but he gets distracted by finding a bottle of Spanish massage oils.

Lily and Marshall explain what happened in the apartment the night before, which annoys Ted who goes to see Robin and accuses her of being over their break-up too fast. She says she cried for three days at the start of her holiday about missing Ted, which led her to Gael. Ted is still upset that Gael is so attractive, calling him an Adonis and the Cadillac of rebound guys, but Robin cheers him up by explaining that Ted has a bigger penis than Gael, which leads Ted to tell the guys at the bar that he has won the break-up. Future Ted says the turn of events led to something good coming his way - someone passes by MacLaren's carrying a yellow umbrella.

At the epilogue, Barney is called up in his office by Marshall, who is back in the apartment with the lights turned off. He asks him to open up a website, slapcountdown.com. As Marshall suddenly hangs up, Barney is left screaming "Noooooooo!" upon seeing the countdown clock at roughly 55 days left to the Slapsgiving slap.

Critical response

Donna Bowman of The AV Club rated the episode B+.^[1]

Staci Krause of IGN gave the episode 8.7 out of 10.^[2]

Joel Keller of TV Squad originally said Moore "doesn't pull [her hard-ass role] off",^[3] although later said that she wasn't too bad.^[4]

References

External links

• "Wait for It" at the Internet Movie Database
• "Wait for It" at TV.com