How I Met Your Mother: The Last Cigarette

Instead of watching 30 Rock and blogging about it, I decided to write about my favorite episode of this week's television lineup, the new episode of How I Met Your Mother. This week's show focused around the group of friends trying to quit smoking, something viewers never knew they did. Most of the reviews on this week's show mentioned that it did not really go along with the flow of the season and it was sort of random. I disagree but I'll get back to that later.

It show starts out with Robin coming home and telling Ted that she needs to go up on the roof for five minutes. As the show usually portrays, Ted narrates that this isn't really what happened. The real story happens to be, as Robin is about to go outside to smoke, Marshall and Barney come to Ted and Robin's apartment. As she pulls out her cigarette, Marshall ask to bum one from her, to the dismay of Ted's future kids, that "old" Ted narrates to. Marshall needs a cigarette to get over the stress of his old boss coming back to his and Barney's work. As Marshall smokes it shows him back in 1991 smoking his first cancer stick, which is on a snowy-summer vacation in his native Minnesota.

Upon completion of Robin and Marshall's on the roof nicotine fix, Ted ask Marshall what he is going to do when Lily questions him of smelling like smoke., to which he replies "he has a system". This system consist of washing himself and disinfecting himself to the point of spraying cologne in his mouth. The second he walks in the door of his apartment, like most of Marshall's plans, it doesn't work. She smells the smoke, taking his cigarettes and lighter from him. Unexpectedly she then lights up a smoke, once again to the amazement of Ted's future kids.

One of the best scenes occurs next when they are sitting in MacLaren's bar, their normal hang out, when Ted mentions how crazy it is that Lily, Marshall and Robin are all standing outside in the freezing cold to smoke. Barney then says, "Remember when you could smoke in bars?". They think back to it, and it shows them not being able to see each other through the billowing smoke, they then had to play Marco-Polo with their friends to find them. I can remember in Athens, smaller bars like the Pub used to be just like this when there was no smoking ban. After the flashback, Barney says to Ted, "Let's go have a cigarette". This shocks the kids more than anything, yes, their dad Ted smoked in his day.

My favorite scene happens after this, which of course includes Doogie Howser himself, Neil Patrick Harris. As they are standing outside the bar smoking, Barney says he is not a smoker, while he is puffing on a what looks to be a Marlboro Light. He says he only smokes post coital, on boats, to annoy his mom, when the Mets are mathematically eliminated from the playoffs, pre-coital and waittttttt for ittttt...pregnancy scares. To which he then says, he is always pre-coital, pretty much meaning he is a smoker. It's classic Barney and it's what makes him one of the best actors on television.

As the show progresses it portrays what smoking is doing to their health and makes the gang want to quit. Ted can't make it up his stairs, Lily speaks like a man, Marshall's boss who smokes at work has a heart attack, but Barney has it the worst, he puts a cig burn in his beloved tie. Robin doesn't want to quit at all (typical tough Canadian), and actually has a sexy little look to her with the smoke stick hanging from her mouth. She then falls in to the quit-trap as Ted mentions that her upcoming interview with NYC Mayor Bloomberg won't go well if she smells like a cigarette as he is the "anti-smoking Mayor".

The group then goes into nicotine withdraw, Ted and Marshall fight over nothing, Barney is licking his fingers to get the remaining nicotine out and Lily wants to kill everybody. It then cuts to the news studio where Robin is about to interview the mayor, the biggest day of her career. She mentions to her half drunk, slacker co-host that she is a little on edge because she gave up smoking for it. He calls her a porcelain-unicorn because she is so innocent and naive. He then mentions to her that Bloomberg cancelled on her, trying to prove to her that she is not network material and will always be a nobody news anchor. He firmly believes nobody even watches the show they are on due to the ridiculous hour it airs, so to prove it he lights a cigarette on air.

As he offers her a drag of it, and says that if anybody is watching to call in. As nobody calls for a few seconds, Robin begins to drag off it, but just then, her friends call her up at the studio to tell her not to smoke on air, which would damage her career. They say that they have all quit so she must also, to which she does....at that point. She throws the cigarette the wayward co-host's coffee which explodes, as it has so much liquor in it. As Lily, Marshall, Ted and Barney get off the phone with Robin, they instantly go against what they just told her and go smoke.

When she gets home from work, which is at something like 4:30AM, the gang is on the roof smoking and Robin joins. Barney is actually asleep while he is smoking and then wakes up telling her, "Do you know how dangerous it is to wake a sleep smoker?". Classic Barney. It is in this moment that they decide this would be the perfect moment for that last cigarette, its a beautiful morning as the sun rises over New York City. They all light up for "the last one".

This is when the show begins to wind down and I start to disagree with the critics view that this show doesn't offer anything valuable to the flow of the season. As Ted narrates the closing of the show he mentions that it wasn't any of their last cigarettes actually. He then gives a little insight into the future of everybody's life by saying when their last cigarette is. Robin's is June 13 2013, Barney's March 2017, Lily's the day she tried to get pregnant, Marshall's is the day his first son was born and Ted's two weeks into dating your (his future kids he narrates to) mother.

I have to give this episode a 9 of 10. It was one of my favorite episodes of television this year and it was refreshing to see smoking back on television. I like watching the days of Johnny Carson and his celebrity guest smoking during interviews. The show reminded me of a time when the words politically correct hadn't been put together yet.