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The Locket
HIMYM episode 9x01 (185)
103504 D0875b
First aired:
September 23, 2013
Director:
Pamela Fryman
Writer:
Carter Bays
Craig Thomas
Barney's Blog

Images (8)

On their way to Long Island for their wedding weekend, Robin and Barney come across a startling family discovery. Meanwhile, Marshall sees something online that changes the course of his entire journey back east, and Lily confronts Ted about letting go of Robin.


Recap[]

It's Friday 11:00 A.M. (55 hours before the wedding) and Lily and Ted are headed to the Farhampton Inn, however Ted's driving habits, such as driving too slow, wearing his driver gloves and slowing down to see the roadside attractions on the way annoys Lily.

Robin and Barney are also headed to Farhampton in a limo, with Ranjit driving. On the journey, they talk about their wedding wildcards. They find out that they both have a "crazy cousin Mitch" and there is a chance that they might be related. They both talk to their families to find out how he is related to them. Robin later gets a call from her grandmother, explaining that Mitch was adopted into Robin's family after his parents died. Barney and Robin are relieved to hear this. Barney then says that he is not worried about wild cards anymore and their wedding is going to be legendary.

Sitting in an airplane in Minnesota, Marshall is in a dilemma about how to tell Lily that he took the judgeship. He wonders this out loud, annoying the woman sitting next to him (named Daphne). Just as the flight is ready for takeoff he receives a notification on his cell phone that his mother has posted a photo of Marvin. He opens it and sees a photo of her and Marvin with the caption about him becoming a judge. He realizes that if he got this notification, then Lily must have too.

In the car with Ted, Lily receives the notification on her phone but decides not to open it as Judy has been trying to convince them not to go to Italy through photos of her and Marvin. When Ted takes a detour to see another roadside attraction, he and Lily get into a fight with Lily demanding that he drop her off at the train station.

Still seated in the airplane, Marshall calls his mother and asks her to remove the photo. He guides her how to remove it but she is unable to. The flight attendant asks Marshall to turn off his phone as he is delaying the flight. Daphne asks him to give her the phone and when he doesn't she tries to grab it from him. This results in both of them getting kicked off the flight.

At the airport, Marshall says that he got the password from his mother and will remove it himself. He tries to do so, but even with the help of everyone else at the airport, can't figure out how to delete the photo.

Lily walks onto the train which happens to be the same one The Mother is taking to Farhampton. Missing Marvin, she starts mumbling which The Mother overhears. She offers her cookies she brought on the train as Lily looks stressed. The Mother comes over and sits next to Lily and Lily starts telling her about Ted's driving habits, which The Mother also shares. When Lily wonders why Ted was acting this way, The Mother suggests that it seems like he wanted her to get out of the car. Lily wonders why Ted would do such a thing but then remembers about the locket.

A few days ago, Ted told Lily that the locket wasn't in the racecar pencil box, and Lily says that it's a good thing as the locket is trouble. Ted says that it's just a friendly gesture but Lily says that he thinks that getting the locket will help him win Robin back. He tells her that he has let it go, but a few seconds later says that there might be a slight chance that Stella has the locket from when they were living together. He emailed her, but she is living in L.A. and said that he'd have to fly out there and look for the locket in her storage unit. He promises Lily that he won't do that.

Lily calls Ted from the train, but he doesn't pick up. Lily then says that she has to beat Ted to Farhampton. She says that this is too stressful and she has to see Marvin's photo. The Mother says that Lily made her promise not to let her see the photo and takes her phone away but Lily tries to snatch it back and they get into a fight. After the fight, they both apologize to each other and The Mother allows Lily to see the photo. However, at the airport, Marvin accidentally deletes the photo before Lily can see it. This upsets Lily even more, and The Mother hugs Lily to comfort her.

Ted enters the Farhampton Inn with a wrapped up box in his hand. He walks over to Robin but Lily tackles him from behind. Ted gets up and gives the box to Robin. She opens it to see a photo of the gang from eight years ago. Robin is touched after seeing the photo. Lily then tells Robin that Marshall's flight just took off and he and Marvin will be here soon.

At the airport, Marshall learns that there is only one more flight to New York with one seat left and it is all the way across the airport. He and Daphne race to get there first.

At the Inn, Lily apologizes to Ted. She asks him not to do anything insane this weekend and Ted says that he won't.

A flashback to four days ago shows Ted at an airport asking for a ticket to L.A.

Continuity[]

  • Lily uses a variant of her "you're dead to me look" which was introduced in Slapsgiving 2: Revenge of the Slap​. It was also seen in Say Cheese and The Stinson Missile Crisis​.
  • Barney mentions discovering he is one quarter Canadian. He discovered this in The Slutty Pumpkin Returns​.
  • When Lily boards the train to Farhampton, she says she hopes it isn't filled with drunk idiots, referencing the drunk train from the episode The Drunk Train​.
  • Barney wanting a bear at his wedding was established in Farhampton, when he was planning his wedding to Quinn.
  • Marshall discovered he was going to become a judge back in Something New​.
  • At the end of the episode Ted says "Hi, one ticket to Los Angeles, please", which mirrors when The Mother said "Hi, one ticket to Farhampton, please" in Something New. This further indicates how alike Ted and The Mother are.
  • Barney using the wrong word in a sentence when there is an uncomfortable truth he is hiding was seen multiple times: e.g. The Goat and Tick Tick Tick, both after having slept with Robin.
    • We find the same behavior in Lily and Marshall in The Drunk Train, when they know about Kevin's marriage proposal to Robin.

Future References (Contains Spoilers)[]

  • The Mother is later seen wearing driving gloves in Bass Player Wanted.
  • Barney saying "ring bear" and Robin trying to correct it to "ring bearer" will continue to happen throughout the season.
  • James dresses up in a similar half-drag fashion during The Rehearsal Dinner.
  • We find out that there is indeed a bear at the wedding in The End of the Aisle.
  • We will learn that part of the reason Lily was stressed out on the train is because she is pregnant in Daisy.
  • Lily will tackle another person at the wedding in Mom and Dad.
  • We will learn what happened when Ted went to Los Angeles in Sunrise.
  • We will find out that Ted will eventually find the locket, and will return it to Robin in The End of the Aisle.

Gallery[]

For a listing of all images on the wiki tagged as being from this episode, see Category: The Locket images.

Memorable Quotes[]

Future Ted: Kids, Barney & Robin's wedding turned out to be a life changing weekend for all of us...Well not just us.
The Mother: One Ticket to Farhampton please.
Future Ted: But I will get to that.

Lily: Please stop!
Ted: I was just gonna slow down for pictures, but that level of enthusiasm can't go unrewarded.

Barney: Every wedding's got a wild card, but we've invited a whole set.
Robin: Someone's gonna to ruin this wedding.
Barney: It's just the question of who.
Marshall: I'm gonna ruin this wedding!

The Mother: Hey, are you okay? You look stressed. Plus, you muttered a few words out loud. I heard "lonely" and "unicorn", which actually gave me a great idea for a children's book, so...thank you. Are you okay?
Lily: No, but there's nothing you can do.
The Mother: Do you wanna cookie?
Lily: Yes...yes I do! (Lily grabs a cookie)
The Mother: Woah! You just took a cookie from a complete stranger on a train. I like how trusting you are. There could be drugs or poison in there.
Lily : (With her mouth full) But there's not, is there?
The Mother: No idea, I found them under my seat.
Lily: (Spits out cookie)
The Mother: No! Kidding! Sorry! You looked stressed so I thought you could use a cookie and then I thought you could use a joke. I should have stopped at the cookie.
Lily: You know what? I don't care if these are poisoned. There's chocolate and peanut butter and caramel in these sumbitches.
The Mother: I call them sumbitches!
Future Ted: And that's how Lily met your mother.

Barney: Our wedding is gonna be legendary!
Robin: No "wait for it"?
Barney: I've got you. I don't have to wait for it anymore.

Mother: I know I'm just a stranger on a train you tried to bite...but do you want a hug?

Robin: Hey, Grandma. You can explain how Cousin Mitch is related to us?
Barney: Explain, Grandma, explain!
Robin: Okay, he married Barney's dad's cousin Renee, who he met selling Vachon cakes outside a curling bonspiel in Chicoutimi...
Barney: English, Grandma, English!
Robin: And on the our side of the family, he was adopted because his real parents were eaten alive by their sled dogs! That's awesome, thanks Grandma!

Ted: With all the big changes coming up, I just want Robin to remember her friends. WE all want nothing but happiness for you and Barney.

Ted: You're not gonna tackle me again, are you?
Lily: I'm the maid of honor, there's a good chance that won't be my only tackle of the weekend.
Future Ted: It wasn't.

Lily: So I was driving with my friend, who thinks he's "The Road Trip Master." He has leather driving gloves.
The Mother: Who wears those? Huge dorks, that's who.
Future Ted: Your mother was lying. She had her own pair.

Mother: That would drive me crazy. I would give him an embarrassing nickname until he stops driving like a little girl.
Future Ted: It was Lady Tedwina Slowsby. And it worked.

Lily: Good. 'Cause that locket's trouble.
Ted: How? It's-it's just a friendly, innocent wedding gift.
Lily: It's not innocent. Ted, you think if you can get that locket for Robin you'll win her back.
Ted: Lily, I've let it go. I mean, what? There's, like, a one percent chance that Stella has the locket from when we lived together.
Lily: Ted. Promise me you didn't call the woman who left you at the altar so that you could find that locket.
Ted: Of course not. I e-mailed her.
Lily: Ted!

Notes and Trivia[]

Goofs and Errors[]

  • Judy wouldn't have been able to use dial-up to connect to the internet while she was using her landline to talk to Marshall.
    • It's possible Judy had two lines.
  • The Mother says that Lily muttered the words "lonely" and "unicorn" but we only see her mouth open for the words "love" and "unicorn".
    • The Mother, however, could've misheard Lily.
  • When Barney and Robin discover they might be relatives and ask Ranjit to pull over, his hand slides on the steering wheel like he is taking a turn, but it is clear that the steering wheel is not moving. This goof occurred previously in Now We're Even​.
  • Ted says Stella might still have the locket from when they lived together, but Ted never actually moved in with Stella (if he had, he would have lost the apartment because Marshall and Lily did move to the Dowisetrepla apartment right before his wedding).
  • When Barney tells Robin about how James wants to do half drag at their wedding, the people in the background act surprised, though if James was still singing as the male, they would have seen the female half.

Allusions and Outside References[]

  • The binder Ted shows Lily titled "Lil and Ted's Excellent Adventure"  is a reference to the movie Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure.
  • Barney mentions Joffrey, a character from Game of Thrones. Barney has also already shown his admiration for other movie villains and hatred of heroes in The Stinsons & The Bro Mitzvah. He refers to Joffrey as a "fair and wise leader" when in reality he was a evil and sadistic villain.
  • Ted mentions he and his family were at Disney World.
  • The Castle Hill Inn, that sits on the coasts of Newport, Rhode Island, USA, is the inn used to show the exterior of the Farhampton Inn.

Music[]

Other Notes[]

  • This is the first episode in which Cristin Milioti appears as part of the main cast.  This is also the first episode where her character has directly been credited as and established to be the Mother (seen during the moment that Lily first met her). 
  • This episode marks the debut of The Farhampton Inn.
  • Chronologically, Lily is the second character to meet the Mother, Barney being the first as shown in Platonish.
  • The photo Ted gives to Robin is the same photo on the opening title.
  • In the first few seconds of the episode, there is a Venice and a New York poster behind Marshall. Lily thinks they are moving to Italy, while Marshall took the job in New York.
  • During the wild card sequence, we see a card with "Uncle Jacques", portrayed by the same man who appeared as "Peculiar Jacques" in Noretta, when Robin says Weird Al Yankovic was just a rip-off of Peculiar Jacques.

Guests[]

Podcast[]

Featuring Craig Thomas and Carter Bays.

Reception[]

  • The episode, along with Coming Back, was viewed by 9.40 million people.[1]
  • Donna Bowman of The AV Club gave the episode a B+, praising the show's new episode structure, saying the entire season will be "entirely satisfactory" However, she said that she is least anticipating the rest of Marshall and Daphne's storyline, but mentions that it "will no doubt have some good laughs". She also liked the scenes with the Mother, and the idea of a Ted and Robin closure to end the show.[2]
  • Max Nicholson of IGN gave the episode a 7.8 out of 10.[3]
  • Angel Cohn of Television without Pity gave the episode a C. [4]
  • The St. Petersburg Comic Review gave this episode 9 out of 10 stars. "...pulling over!"

References[]

External Links[]


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