How I Met Your Mother: The Magician's Code

Posted by: S.P. Young • May 15, 2012 @ 7:11pm

"Aren't you tired of waiting for destiny, Ted?" Isn't it time to make your own destiny?"

The seventh season of How I Met Your Mother concluded with the two-parter, "The Magician's Code." By now, the show should really have provided an answer to how Ted met the mother of his children, but alas, it has not. After seven seasons, she is still shrouded in mystery. This is likely due to the writers not anticipating that the show would last this long and get renewed for an eigth season. As such, the last two seasons seemed to have dragged its foot in its storytelling, preferring to emphasize some pointless go-nowhere relationships, and some useless tragic and sentimental moments. None of which, have added much to the show, except for pushing off when Ted would finally and officially meet that titular mother.

The first half of the season finale focused on Marshall and Lily's first child being born. In a rather all too familiar and formulaic sitcom plot, the father was stuck far away, and struggled to get to be with the pregnant wife. In the case of this episode, Marshall and Barney were gambling and drunk in Atlantic City. Marshall would then face the challenge of trying to get up two flights of stairs, while Barney was held by security for driving off with the prize motorcycle.

So while Lily agonized in her labour, she got her two remaining friends to tell her various stories to bring her mind into a better place. The story that received the most time, was that of the mysterious door at McLaren's, which everybody wondered where it led to. It turned out to be a dumb prank, as Marshall opened the door to find everybody inside waiting for him.

The second half of the episode had Robin convince Ted to pursue Victoria. As she was talking to Ted, it was apparent that she was really talking about her feelings towards Barney. In other words, how she wanted Ted to feel about Victoria, was how she wanted Barney to feel about her.

Take note of the significance of colour, as the show has pointed out on numerous past occassions.

In this case, the black and white that Robin is wearing, which are also Barney's clothing colour of choice (refer to title image in upper right corner). Keep in mind that earlier this season, Robin wore that bright yellow rain coat during the hurricane (the image is taken from "Disaster Averted"), and how Barney had to wear a yellow duck tie. This somehow ties into the whole yellow umbrella that Ted had been talking about for the last number of years.

Victoria agreed to meet Ted, and she came to see him in a wedding dress. It was her wedding day. Victoria had cold feet, and offered to drive off with Ted. Remembering what it was like to be left at the altar, Ted told Victoria that he would drive her back to the church.
Except he did not. Ted had a couple of flashbacks of Victoria leaving. The first at the airport, and the second at the bus depot. So he drove past the church, and held hands with Victoria as they drove off into the sunset. So much for not wanting to leave somebody at the altar.

Meanwhile, Barney tried to take his stripper girlfriend on a vacation to Hawaii. While going through airport security, Barney's magic box prop needed to be inspected by security, but he refused to let them because that would mean having to reveal the secret to his magic tricks. Pointing out that the box contained explosives did not help either.

After getting pulled into a room by airport security, Barney's girlfriend told him that she gave up stripping for him, and that now he should give up his magic trick secret for airport security. Barney offered to show what was in the box, by turning it into a magic show. In this proces, the aforementioned explosive almost harlmessly blew up, which caused some partial and temporary hearing loss for Barney. The magic show ended in the form of an engagement ring blossoming out of a rose, to which a near-deaf Barney yelled out the big question.

a little ways down the road...

"The road to this day has had a few twists and turns, hasn't it?"

Remember how for the last two years, the show had been SLOWLY hinting at that all-important wedding that Ted attended, where he finally met his future wife? This season ended by re-visiting that wedding, and by finally showing the audience who the bride was.

To nobody's surprise, it was Robin.

Has How I Met Your Mother jumped the shark yet? Probably. These last two seasons have been the weakest of the series. The most obvious problem is that the show is wrongly titled. It has nothing to do with Ted meeting the mother of his two kids. The show should be called Before I Met Your Mother, as the writers never had any intent on creating a show that centered around Ted meeting the mother. In fact, the show did the complete opposite. This was done to build suspense and to create curiosity, but at this point, it just leaves the audience getting tired of waiting. If the show had indeed jumped the shark, it was not because of any one thing it did wrong. But rather, it was because of completely putting off an important part of the story for much too long. Maybe next season, the mother will finally be introduced.

Tags: How I Met Your Mother, The Magician's Code, Josh Radnor, Neil Patrick Harris, Alyson Hannigan, Cobie Smulders, Jason Siegel, Disaster Averted, Landmarks, Bob Saget