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The Leap
HIMYM episode 4x24 (88)
The leap
First aired:
May 18, 2009
Director:
Pamela Fryman
Writer:
Carter Bays
Craig Thomas
Barney's Blog

Images (7)

It's Ted's 31st birthday, but he's stuck inside designing a restaurant, despite Marshall's attempts to get him to leave. Barney finally confesses his feelings to Robin.


Recap[]

Ted-and-the-goat 480x360

Ted tries to stop the Goat

Barney asks Ted's permission to pursue Robin, to which he accepts. Unbeknown to them, Robin overhears them while she is in the next room. She turns to Lily and Marshall, who recommend she uses "The Mosby" and tell Barney that she loves him to drive him off.

Meanwhile, Ted is stuck indoors trying to design the "Rib Town" restaurant. Marshall has planned a surprise birthday party up on the roof, but Ted won't come up when he tries to invite him. At the party, Robin successfully pulls off the Mosby, leaving a slightly frazzled Barney, while Marshall continues in his efforts to jump onto the patio of a nearby building, much to Lily's discontent. Inside, Ted discovers Lily's goat in his apartment, which despite his efforts to ignore it, constantly annoys him by chewing on a washcloth. However, when Ted confronts the Goat, it attacks him repeatedly. Ted is then sent to the hospital, where he is soon released.

While at the hospital, after everyone else leaves, Barney and Robin confront each other about their feelings, but fail to settle on an agreement. The two however share a kiss before following after the others. Ted makes his pitch for "Rib Town" but his idea is turned down in favor of the design by Sven. Later on at the apartment, everyone is trying to convince Ted to quit being an architect and take up the professorship he was offered at Columbia University, at which point Marshall decides it is time he took the leap too. They head up to the roof and Marshall jumps across the roof to the neighboring apartment block; he is then followed by Robin, Barney, Lily and then finally Ted.

The episodes ends with Ted standing in a classroom as a professor. Future Ted tells his kids that, despite being left at the altar, losing his job and being beaten up by a goat, he had just finished the best year of his life because it led him to the best job he ever had as well as setting up everything that followed. Future Ted then tells his kids that their mother was in that class.

Continuity[]

  • The move "The Mosby" refers to the events of the Pilot, where Ted ruined a sure thing with Robin by saying he loved her after their first date.
  • When Ted first confronts the goat, he calls Lily and says, "It's here, Lily. It's looking at me," which is exactly what Robin said when she first saw Doug in Little Boys.
  • Murder Train is again played during Ted's fight with the goat. It is also played in Sandcastles in the SandThe Fight​, The Rough Patch​, Mystery vs. History​, and Romeward Bound.
  • The first part of the story of the goat was recounted earlier in The Goat.
  • The nurse who makes fun of Ted at the hospital is the same nurse from Miracles.
  • When Future Ted lists the bad things that happened to him over the past year, he includes getting left at the altar in Shelter Island​, getting knocked out by Doug in The Fight, and getting fired from GNB in Old King Clancy.
  • Sven almost stole the job designing the new GNB building from Ted in Woooo!​ They use the same Tyrannosaurus Rex design they pitched to GNB for the Rib Town restaurant, this time with a cowboy hat.
  • Ted makes it clear he already knows about Barney's feelings for Robin, having figured it out in Benefits​.
  • Marshall's attempts to jump to the next roof was first alluded to in Three Days of Snow​.
  • Marshall previously brought up his admiration of Evel Knievel in Sorry, Bro.
  • Ted was first offered the job teaching at Columbia University in As Fast As She Can​.

Future References (Contains Spoilers)[]

  • The class Ted is seen teaching is revealed to be an economics class the Mother was attending in Definitions, as confirmed in How Your Mother Met Me. Her roommate Cindy is revealed to have also been in the class in Girls Versus Suits.
  • Barney laughs at Marshall's promise that he will never eat ribs again, in response to which Marshall makes it again, before adding that he only won't do it in front of Ted. Future Ted points out that Marshall never stands by his "sweeping declarations" in The Naked Truth.

Gallery[]

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

Memorable Quotes[]

Barney: So.. You're in love with me?
Robin: What? Oh, yeah, very much.
Barney: Okay, you can knock it off. Lily told me.
Robin: Oh, dammit Lily.
Barney: I can't believe you would do that.
Robin: It's just.. Look I care about you Barney. And this kind of stuff, the emotional stuff, it's not your thing. I thought I'd save you the trouble.
Barney: Maybe I don't wanna be saved the trouble. Maybe I want the trouble. I haven't wanted the trouble in a long time, but with you, the trouble doesn't seem so troubling. I don't know, I thought... I guess I thought you felt the same way.
Robin: Maybe I do. I don't know. I'm not exactly the biggest confronter of feelings. I mean, clearly there is something between us. Maybe my head was saying: "Nip it in the bud", because my heart was saying something else. Look, I have feelings for you, Barney. Maybe I even love you.
Barney: Wow. This is going pretty fast, don't you think?
Robin: What?
Barney: We have a really good friendship going. Why screw up a good thing? Friends?
Robin: Friends.
Barney: Oh my god, you just did it again, you just Mosbyed me!
Robin: I did not!
Barney: You did, you little minx.
Robin: Okay you're right, I did just Mosby you.
Barney: Why are you so afraid of giving this a chance?
Robin: Because I am scared of how much I like you.
Barney: Wow, this is a bad idea.
Robin:: You're right, this is a mistake.
Barney: Yes. No!
Robin: I love you.
Barney: Let's be friends.
Robin: Okay. Friends then.
Barney: I love you.
Robin: Let's get married.
Barney: No, you're smothering me.
Robin: Okay, forget it. (They start passionately making out)

Future Ted: That was the year I got left at the altar, it was the year I got knocked out by a crazy bartender, the year I got fired, the year I got beat up by a goat, a girl goat at that, and damn it if it wasn't the best year of my life. Because if any one of those things hadn't happened, I never would have ended up in what turned out to be the best job I ever had, but more importantly, I wouldn't have met your mother, because as you know, she was in that class. Of course that story is only just beginning.

Male Nurse: So, you're the guy who tried to make it with a goat?
Ted: If anything, that goat tried to make it with me. Can I go, please?
Male Nurse: Sure, you can go. But remember, buddy, "baa" means "baa."

Notes and Trivia[]

Goofs and Errors[]

  • When Ted first recounts the story of The Goat, the goat is on the roof during the party. In this telling, it remains in the apartment during the party.
  • When Marshall is standing on the roof, about to jump, during Ted's surprise party snow can be seen on the streets below even though it is April and everybody is wearing short sleeves and summer clothing.
  • The goat is always said to be female. However, in the scene where Marshall finds Ted on the floor asking him to be taken to the hospital, the goat's testicles can be seen.
    • Though since Lily reminds him in the following scene that the goat is a girl, this could be Ted's own recollection of the events, depicting the goat as a strong male.
  • Before the leap, Robin, Barney and Ted are all wearing black dress shoes. However, during the jump, they are shown to be wearing sneakers. When they land, they are back in dress shoes. 
  • Marshall says that what makes Robin "Eh" is the fact that she's "freakishly tall and doesn't believe in ghosts", but Lily is also shown to not believe in the supernatural on many occasions, and Lily knows that Marshall would like her to be taller, as seen in Three Days of Snow.

Allusions and Outside References[]

  • The line from Ted ("It's here, Lily. It's looking at me.") was previously spoken by Robin in Little Boys, and the line itself is a reference to Ghostbusters.
  • The scene where Lily lies about being pregnant is a reference to Alyson Hannigan actually being pregnant at the time. She hides it with the 31-sign.
  • In one of the flashbacks when Marshall contemplated jumping to the neighboring roof, he's dressed as Dracula at their rooftop Halloween party. Jason Segel had previously starred in the film Forgetting Sarah Marshall a year before this episode's release, and his character Peter Bretter had written a muppet musical love story centered around Dracula.

Music[]

Other Notes[]

  • This is the first season with 24 episodes. The fourth and all succeeding seasons would contain exactly 24 half-hour episodes.
  • This episode was filmed out-of-order so as to include Alyson Hannigan, who was due to start her maternity leave.
    • It goes to show just how out-of-order as Cobie Smulders is not seen to be pregnant in this episode as she has been in the last few.

Guests[]

  • John Duerler - Harlen Johnsen
  • Joel McCrary - Ged Wilkinson
  • Christine Scott Bennett - Tracey
  • Jayden Lund - Bill
  • Bambi - The goat

Reception[]

  • Donna Bowman of The A.V. Club gave the episode B+. [1]
  • Michelle Zoromski of IGN gave the episode 8.3 out of 10. [2]
  • Cindy McLennan of Television Without Pity gave the episode A+. [3]
  • The St. Petersburg Comic Review gave this episode 9 out of 10 stars. "...the goat is back..."

References[]

External Links[]


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