The most recent episode of How I Met Your Mother was called “Stuff”. I didn’t have a chance to watch it until this morning, but I didn’t miss much. Here’s what happened.

Ted/Robin: Ted and Robin spent most of the episode arguing, which wasn’t typical for them. Robin didn’t like the fact that so much of the stuff (episode title, get it???) in Ted’s apartment came from ex-girlfriends from over the years. She wants him to get rid of the items, but he’s of course against it. They put it to the group to decide, and Ted loses. He reluctantly cleans out the apartment and is surprised by how bare it looks.

Then a bit later in the episode, Ted discovers that each one of Robin’s five dogs was given to her by an ex-boyfriend. He can’t believe that Robin would be so hypocritical about something like that. They have another group vote, but everyone sides with Robin again because it’s not fair to ask someone to get rid of their dogs.

Ted isn’t exactly ok with that, but he figures he’s got to live with it. To make things even again, he puts all his stuff back into his apartment. Just then, Robin comes over to tell him that she gave her dogs to her aunt upstate because Ted was right. When Robin enters the apartment and sees everything back in place, they have a huge fight that lasts for hours. At the end, they decide to move in together!

Lily/Marshall/Barney: This storyline was pretty weak. Lily was invited by a friend to appear in a play, and the gang have to go watch it. It’s predictably obnoxious and pretentious, but Ted, Robin, and Marshall are polite enough to tell Lily that she was great and all that. But Barney refuses to pander and says, “It sucked.” Lily said that as a friend Barney should support her no matter what, and that she would do the same for him.

To prove that Lily is wrong, Barney decides to put on his own intentionally sucky play and forces the gang to sit through it. Although Lily makes everyone stay, Marshall makes up for it by walking on the stage and slapping Barney — the second of the slaps he’s entitled to from the Slap Bet episode.

My Reaction: I didn’t like this episode very much. There were just a couple of funny moments, with Marshall’s slap being the best of all. I love it when the writers give a nod to continuity! Other than that, I thought the Robin and Ted plot was boring, and it annoyed me when they kept showing all those guys in dog collars and leashes. Plus, I’m not looking forward to Robin and Ted moving in together. We already know that they don’t get married (the Bob Saget voice over always refers to her as Aunt Robin), so it just seems like a waste of time to follow every twist and turn in their relationship.

Maybe next week will be better!