Season 2, Episode 19: Bachelor Party

All right, fine, the stripper at Stuart’s bachelor party was a 15.

She was 15?

A 15, like in blackjack.

As in, not sure whether you’d hit it?

Marshall’s bachelor party and Lily’s bridal shower both get out of hand.

Ted, Marshall, & Barney- Ted and Marshall are planning Marshall’s Bachelor Party, and Barney’s planning it with strippers.  Although both Ted and Marshall say no strippers.  Barney keeps insisting that Marshall really does want strippers.

And eventually the day comes and it’s Marshall (The Groom), Ted (The Best Man), Stuart (The Guy Who Speaks Only in Clichés), Brad (The Guy Who Disappears at the Beginning of the Night and Doesn’t Show Up Again Until the End), and Barney.

The guys are watching movies (supposed to be pornos but Barney picked the wrong Deep Impact) when Barney finds out that they’re not going to Atlantic City, they’re going to Foxwoods (I don’t know where that is).  There Ted has arranged third-row seats to the Popinski-Salazar rematch (boxing?), their own craps table, and a private room at Connelly’s where they’ll eat a 102 ounce steak from a cow Ted picked out on the Internet.  When they get there Barney has a stripper waiting in the room.

The stripper ends up hurting her ankle, and they miss the match taking her to the hospital.  It turns out, when they listen in on the radio, that the match is the type to make history when it’s over within 10 minutes.

They’re at the hospital, and the stripper tells them her ankle is broken and spells out her sob story to them.  They tell her they’ll let her off the hook, but she wants to do it anyway.

Ted, Marshall, and Stuart are still disgusted from the stripper, but Barney’s reliving the whole thing.  Barney forgets to put out his cigar and they get kicked out of the hotel.  The end up running into Brad on the drive back, and meet up with the girls at the bar.  Marshall is furious with Barney and tells him he’s not sure if he wants Barney at the wedding, because Barney doesn’t even want them to get married.

Lily, against Barney’s wishes, ends up telling everyone how the summer they were broken up, Barney flew out to San Francisco to find Lily and tells her to come home because she and Marshall belong together.  “The two of you have something that most people search their whole lives for and never find.  I know you love him, and if you knew what he was going through right now, you wouldn’t be here for one more second.”  Then he gives her a ticket home because, “Marshall is one of the best people I know, and it won’t be long until someone else realizes that, and you’ll lose him forever.  I can’t stand the thought of that happening, and I cannot keep stealing chicks from him forever.”  He tells her if she ever tells anyone he was there he will deny it completely.  So Ted admits that Barney’s really the best man.  And Marshall declares that they’re co-best men.

Lily & Robin- It is Lily’s bridal shower and earlier Robin had picked out some nice lingerie, but when she showed it to Barney he says that he needs to get her something outrageous.  So Robin gets her something a little wild (battery powered, adult-recreational, inappropriate).  When she gets to the party though, everyone there is an older relative or preparing to be a nun.

Lily is opening gifts and Robin is dreading hers, but she can’t seem to do anything to keep hers from being opened.  But she ends up switching the card on hers with a gift that looks just the same.

Lily gets to Robin’s gift, but thinks it’s from her grandmother, who was giving her an antique sewing machine.  Before Lily opens it, her grandmother tells her how she and Lily’s great-grandmother both used this “handy little device.”  And how she and her sister used to have contests with it, and how she used it the whole time her husband was in Korea.  And her husband would use it once in a while too.  Robin is horrified.

Lily opens it, sees what it is, and is horrified.  Robin finally admits what it is, and everybody sees it, and they say  it’s just like the one Miranda gave Charlotte on Sex and the City.  And the night becomes a new kind of uncomfortable.

Robin offers to return her gift, but Lily keeps saying that she doesn’t need to bother, until Lily simply asks her to leave it.

The Mother- Oh Barney.  I love the fact that you spend most of the show hating him because he’s being selfish, and then you find out all that he did for Marshall and Lily.  It’s heart-wrenching.