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The Perfect Cocktail
HIMYM episode 6x22 (134)
Cocktail
First aired:
May 2, 2011
Director:
Pamela Fryman
Writer:
Joe Kelly
Barney's Blog

Images (11)

When Marshall and Barney argue over the destruction of the Arcadian Hotel, Robin and Lily try to mix the right combination of cocktails that will force them to make up. Meanwhile, Ted plans a romantic weekend away with Zoey.


Recap[]

Future Ted narrates that when Marshall left GNB to work for an environmental agency, Arthur Hobbs (his boss at GNB) was very supportive and offered to be a reference. However, the job interview did not go well because Arthur has been lying about him behind his back. Marshall tries to expose Arthur, but is told to leave before he could.

Meanwhile at MacLaren's, Barney hands envelopes to the rest of the gang, inviting them to the destruction of the Arcadian to make way for the new GNB headquarters that Ted is designing. Lily asks Ted if it's tough dating Zoey, considering she's trying to stop the project and save the Arcadian. Ted replies that it was until they decided to just ignore it and never talk about it. Zoey and Marshall soon enter MacLaren's and Zoey reveals that Marshall has joined her to save the Arcadian in order to get back at GNB for screwing his job interviews over.

Barney reacts badly to this news, seeing it as a betrayal considering he got Marshall a job and he is the head of the new GNB headquarters project. The two get into an escalating prank war for weeks, with Marshall ruining Barney's hook-ups and Barney doing something inappropriately on Marshall's stuff (even his own jacket) and showing him pictures of it. When their fighting results in the whole gang getting banned from the bar, Lily and Robin decide to find a way to get them to make up, agreeing that they will have to get them drunk enough. They discuss the various effects different drinks have on the gang while trying to decide which one will get Marshall and Barney to end their quarrel.

Meanwhile, Ted and Zoey are going away on a romantic weekend and on their drive to Martha's Vineyard, Ted blurts out that Zoey and her obsession with the Arcadian is ruining his life. Ted argues that it is an old, run down building while Zoey believes it is a beautiful landmark. To settle the argument, the two return to New York to spend their romantic weekend away in a run-down room inside the Arcadian. Ted proposes that if Zoey can spend a full night in the Arcadian and still believe it's beautiful, he will join her side.

Although it's clear how neglected the building is, Zoey still claims the building is magnificent. Ted asks her for the real reason she wants to save the Arcadian, and Zoey reveals that she once lived there with her family and doesn't want to lose all those good memories. When the infamous Cockamouse and its babies make an appearance, they get spooked out of the room, but still share pleasant feelings for the place.

Lily and Robin finally get Marshall and Barney together out at a club, and begin experimenting on them with different drinks to get them to make up. The girls eventually lose track of them before finding them at MacLaren's, having stopped fighting; Carl lifts their ban, and reveals that he gave them the right drink: beer.

However, when they wake up at the apartment the next morning, they continue fighting, and Lily and Robin realize that they had too many drinks, blacked out, and now can't remember reconciling. Things get even more complicated when Ted and Zoey enter, and Ted reveals that he has joined Zoey's crusade to save the Arcadian, forcing Robin and Lily to give up on fixing the problem.

Continuity[]

  • The Scorpion and the Toad​​​​​​ shows tequila's effect on Lily, Ted, and Robin. Ted said that three shots of tequila will make Lily tell the truth about anything.
  • Ted claims that Bourbon makes him weirdly good at beat-boxing. In Return of the Shirt, Ted takes a sip of Bourbon and discovers that he likes it, having previously thought he didn't.
  • The gang previously encountered the Cockamouse in Matchmaker.
  • Ted compares Zoey to the Internet swindlers who charged Marshall $300 for a lock of "Sasquatch fur." Marshall's obsession with the supernatural, particularly mythical creatures, has been referenced numerous times, as seen in MatchmakerColumns, and Cleaning House​​​​​​.
  • When Lily suggests getting the guys drunk on martinis, Robin refuses because Lily always tries to make out with her when she drinks them, an example of Lily's bisexuality.
  • Barney's pranks on Marshall are similar to the ones he and Clark Butterfield play on each other in Milk.
  • Robin mentions that Barney "reaches a point of sad clarity" when he drinks red wine, once somberly accepting that he is a "B+" and not an "A". In Aldrin Justice​​​​​​, Barney tries to get Marshall a better grade by sleeping with his law professor, and the best he can do is a B+.
  • Robin says "Dance my puppets, dance!" when she and Lily play with Barney and Marshall's behavior by changing their drinks. The same sentence is said by Barney previously in Columns.
  • Lily mentions finding it fun to interfere in people's lives. Barney calls her a diabolical mastermind in The Three Days Rule​​​​​​, and Ted discovers that she took it upon herself to sabotage seven of his past relationships in The Front Porch​​​​​​.
  • Marshall tells a girl that she will be Barney's 250th, before Barney corrects him by saying that she will be his 283rd. Barney had slept with 200 women in Right Place, Right Time and has slept with 236 in Unfinished. Moreover he has a fixation with the number 83, as Ted points out in Brunch​​​​​​.​​​
  • Barney calls Ted "Teddy Westside", a nickname Ted gave himself in Rabbit or Duck​​​​​​.
  • Marshall quit his job at GNB in The Exploding Meatball Sub​​​​.

Future References (Contains Spoilers)[]

  • According to Robin, Barney turns into Richard Dawson when he gets drunk on peppermint schnapps. In Unpause, Future Ted lists Barney's different levels of drunk, including "Richard Dawson drunk." Also, Barney being weirdly honest while drunk on red wine is similar to his "truth serum drunk" level, which Ted and Robin discover in that episode.​​
  • Marshall smokes a cigarette while drunk on tequila at MacLaren's. Future Ted reveals in ​Last Cigarette Ever​ that, while they all quit smoking for a while, they only really quit many years later, Marshall specifically doing so the day his son was born in The Magician's Code - Part One.

Gallery[]

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

Memorable Quotes[]

Future Ted: Kids, don't drink tequila.

Ted: Can you get STD's from the ghost of a prostitute?

Barney: Show me chicken wings!

Robin: We need to get these bitches drunk!

Lily: Excuse me waitress? I'll have a mojito and you'll have a no seat ho!

Robin: The stink eye walk by? Oh, hell no! I hope this drink isn't teething because it's about to get nursed.

Ted: It's the cockamouse!
Zoey: The what?
Ted: Part cockroach, part mouse. It must have moved here after our apartment. Oh look, it had babies!
Zoey: You win, let's get out of here.

Lily: I only say that because it would be so stupid if we did. So stupid.

Notes and Trivia[]

Goofs and Errors[]

Allusions and Outside References[]

  • During Robin's absinthe flashback, Marshall can be heard saying they can drink "water, soda, purple stuff." This is a reference to an old Sunny Delight commercial.
  • Lily says Barney drinking peppermint schnapps turns him to Richard Dawson, particularly his habit in Family Feud of kissing female contestants on the lips. It's also a level of how drunk Barney is, which is "Richard Dawson drunk".
  • Ted brings up the end of the Oprah Winfrey Show and Lily thinks Marshall and Barney should reconcile "like they do on Oprah." Lily and Robin first brought up this possibility at the beginning of the episode.
  • On planning the Arcadian's demolition, Barney is thinking whether to train a coyote to press the Acme dynamite plunger or hotwire Eddie Van Halen's guitar as the detonator upon hitting a high note.
  • During Lily's martini flashback the gang are all dressed like characters from the AMC television series Mad Men.

Music[]

Guests[]

Reception[]

  • This episode premiered to 6.765 million viewers.[1]
  • Zach Handlen at the A.V. Club gave the episode a B-.[2]
  • Angel Cohn at Television Without Pity gave the episode a C-.[3]
  • Robert Canning at IGN gave the episode an 8 out of 10.[4] He felt "the hilarity found in Lily and Robin's quest for the perfect cocktail outweighed the drab and typical storyline delivered by Ted and Zoey. I know their relationship is going to end eventually (this season would be good), but the end isn't coming soon enough. Perhaps I'll have to find my own perfect cocktail to help me get through it."
  • The St. Petersburg Comic Review gave this episode 7 out of 10 stars. "Marshall and Zoey working together."

References[]

External Links[]


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