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Where Were We?
HIMYM episode 2x01 (23)
2x01
First aired:
September 18, 2006
Director:
Pamela Fryman
Writer:
Carter Bays
Craig Thomas
Barney's Blog

Images (14)

Marshall is depressed over his and Lily's break up. Things get worse when he learns she might be back in town.

Recap[]

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Over the summer, Ted is extremely happy now he has finally started a relationship with Robin, while Marshall is wallowing in depression over his break-up with Lily, to the point he can't even eat pancakes on Sunday (Pancake Day) because they remind him of her. Barney has a miserable summer, being forced to put up with Ted's happiness or Marshall's crying. After 40 days, Marshall has yet to leave the apartment and Robin, Ted, and Barney discuss the situation. Barney takes Marshall to a strip club, telling him that he hasn't gotten over Lily yet because he can still picture her naked. Barney says that he needs to replace the naked pictures of Lily in his head with pictures of other naked women. Ted then takes Marshall to a Yankees-Indians baseball game, but when a couple becomes engaged a few rows down from them Marshall freaks out and throws a hot dog at the couple. Later, security escorts him out of the stadium.

Robin, who has hidden the fact that she likes guns from Ted, finally takes Marshall to a firing range, and they shoot some rounds, which cheers him up a little.

Where-Were-We

His good mood is short-lived though when he finds one of Lily's credit card bills in the mail. Looking at the charges on her bill, Marshall imagines that Lily has hooked up with George Clinton and they do everything that he and Lily didn't, like playing tennis and owning a ferret. Barney gives Marshall the idea to look at her online credit card statement to see more recent charges and Marshall discovers that there are charges on the card for a hotel in New York. Despite Ted's best efforts, Marshall calls the hotel and a man answers the phone in Lily's room. Trying to convince Marshall not to go to the hotel, Ted finally gets tough on him, telling him that as pathetic as Marshall is at the moment he won't have a chance to win back Lily. Marshall agrees not to go to the hotel, and Ted and Robin leave for a romantic weekend, putting Barney in charge of staying with Marshall. As they leave town, Robin and Ted discuss whether or not Ted was too hard on Marshall, and Ted reveals that Marshall told him about the firing range. Feeling guilty, Ted calls Barney to see how Marshall is doing. Barney, who had taken Marshall to another strip club, realizes that Marshall is gone. Ted and Robin turn around and head to the hotel to find Marshall.

Ted finds Marshall in the hotel bar, and Marshall tells him that he had already gone up to Lily's room and punched the guy who opened the door. He then found out that the guy in the hotel room wasn't Lily's new boyfriend -- he had stolen Lily's credit card. Ted tries to reassure Marshall that Lily didn't come back into town without calling him and she didn't have a new boyfriend, but Marshall is upset that the last link that he had to Lily was a lie. Ted reminds Marshall of the first time that they met in college, before Marshall had met Lily. Ted tells Marshall that he is someone outside of his relationship with Lily and encourages him not to let his break-up with Lily ruin his life. While Marshall doesn't immediately bounce back, one Sunday morning he makes pancakes for Ted and Robin. As Marshall begins going out again, Lily appears at MacLaren's one night. She sees her friends having drinks and leaves without speaking to them.

Continuity[]

  • Barney says "True story."
  • Ted and Robin mention that Marshall slept in Ted's room after watching a scary movie, the first reference to Marshall disliking horror films.
  • Robin's love of guns is introduced in this episode.

Future References (Contains Spoilers)[]

  • Ted taking Marshall's side in his and Lily's break-up is referenced again in The Scorpion and the Toad​, and leads to conflict between him and Lily in How Lily Stole Christmas.
  • Robin and Ted's opposing opinions about guns are established, and referenced again in Moving Day. Robin being a "gun nut" is also referenced again in several episodes, including Ted Mosby: ArchitectLittle Boys, and Not a Father's Day​, and Ted disliking guns is referenced again in Sunrise.
  • In Bachelor Party​, Lily reveals that she returned to New York after Barney visited her in San Francisco and convinced her to go back to Marshall.
  • Marshall reveals that he was so high on his first day of college that he thought Ted was the Dean, as seen in How I Met Everyone Else​.
  • Barney tells Marshall that he needs to get rid of the "BPEGs" of Lily (i.e. the mental image of her breasts) in order to get over her. In The Goat, he mentions mentally storing Robin's breasts in his "BPEG folder."
  • In Rebound Bro, Lily mentions that the longest period she and Marshall went without having sex was during her summer in San Francisco.
  • Marshall disliking horror films comes up again in Bagpipes​ and Baby Talk​.
  • Robin's method for getting over heartbreak is to visit the shooting range. She mentions, and is seen, doing this in Of Course.
  • The 2006 movie marathon in Trilogy Time​ occurs during this episode.

Gallery[]

For a listing of all images on the wiki tagged as being from this episode, see Category:Where Were We? images.

Memorable Quotes[]

Barney: When I get sad, I stop being sad, and be AWESOME instead. True story.

Ted: Are you hungry?
Marshall: What's the point? I could eat some food, it's just gonna leave me.
Ted: Well, at least in that scenario, you get to do the dumping.

Marshall: Lily always made the pancakes. God I loved her pancakes. So soft, so warm, so perfectly shaped...
Ted: Are we still talking about her pancakes?

Robin: Ted, we just started dating, we agreed we don't want to move too fast, and yet, somehow, we have a baby! He can't feed himself, he cries a lot, he keeps us up all night...
Barney: Have you tried breastfeeding? Nailed it!
Robin is upset about having to constantly take care of Marshall

Robin: See? This is the problem with guys, you don’t know how to deal with heartbreak!
Barney: Oh, what’s your prescription Dr Estrogen? Eat Haagen-Dazs and watch Love Actually ‘til your period sync up?

Lily: (while rifling through her purse in a line at a coffee shop)This is so funny, I could've sworn I had some change. Ah here... No wait that's a button. (While looking back at the line behind her) It was a button! Do you take credit cards?
Lily's Identity Thief: Yes I do.

Notes and Trivia[]

Goofs and Errors[]

  • When Ted and Robin are on their way to their getaway, the song playing in the car is not I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles) by The Proclaimers, even though it is stated in Arrivederci, Fiero​ that the tape has been stuck in the player since before Marshall's brothers passed the car down to him.
  • Robin calls Ted 'Teddy Bear' but in other episodes (such as Bagpipes) it is mentioned how much she hates pet names/nicknames.
    • Robin could just be putting up with it to get Ted to like her, like in Robin 101​ with 'Robin's surprising erogenous zones'.
  • Between the time Lily leaves at the end of Come On​ and Ted comes home the next morning, the couch in The Apartment changed from brown leather to red fabric. While Ted explains in Little Minnesota​ that his sister Heather once sold his couch, its unlikely she managed to do it that night.
  • "Day 22" and "Day 67" are both said to be Sundays. However, this can't be true because the difference between 67 and 22 is not a multiple of 7, which means both days can't be the same day of the week.
  • Ted tells Marshall near the end of the episode that when he first arrived at his room at Wesleyan University, Marshall was laying on his bed, with his feet up, and with no care in the world. However, in How I Met Everyone Else Marshall says that he was "eating a sandwich" and when another student mistakes Ted as the Dean, he puts it out and acts suspiciously when Ted enters the room.

Allusions and Outside References[]

  • When Lily (in Marshall's imagination) is talking about dancing on stage with George Clinton "Courtney Cox style", is a reference to Bruce Springsteen's video "Dancing In The Dark", where Bruce Springsteen chooses Courtney Cox from the crowd to dance with him on stage.
  • Barney's speech about how he, Marshall, and Ted are going to womanize together is a callback to Tom Joad's speech at the end of The Grapes of Wrath.

Music[]

Other Notes[]

  • This is the first episode which will regularly feature a cold open with fresh footage rather than cut directly to the opening titles.  Although a fresh cold open was first featured in the Pilot, it has not been used for the other episodes of Season 1.
  • At the beginning of the episode (which was also the beginning of Season 2), Penny complained that it felt like Future Ted had been telling the story for a year. This is a reference to the fact that about a year had passed between the start of season 1 and the start of season 2.

Guests[]

Reception[]

  • Reviewer Joel Keller described the episode as a "very strong opening to the season" and suggested the show was ready to become "a monster hit" with just a few improvements. [1]
  • The St. Petersburg Comic Review gave this episode 9 out of 10 stars. "Lily's back, but will things ever be the same again?"

References[]

External Links[]



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