The Leap

Especially knowing that Barney wanted to be a violinist shocked me because i just started learning that beautiful instrument.

A fitting and utterly satisfying end to the best season of How I Met Your Mother. This is the moment to tie up loose ends and to bring certain story lines to a conclusion that have shaped the season thus far. And all of this is done supremely well here. Naturally, the lingering feelings between Barney and Robin had to be confronted. But not without adding some unexpected twists and turns to it. As for Ted, the reason why it turned out to be so important for him to meet Stella again is revealed in the closing moments, after a heart-warming, inspirational speech by Lily (she's perfect for that role, it's good to have her back). And with that information, this aptly named episode probably features the biggest leap towards meeting the Mother in the entire series so far. Now we know why Ted had to meet Stella, fall in love with her, get left at the altar by her, and meet her again at the crossroad by all sorts of lucky coincidences.

Furthermore, there are so many callbacks and references to earlier episodes woven into the story. This, while providing good laughs, adds to the impression that the entire season so far, despite being very good on its own, has been just the build-up, culminating in these perfect 21 minutes of television.

The callbacks I noticed: Marshall's ill-advised five words he'd soon regret ("I can jump that far"), as foreshadowed in 'Three Days of Snow' (S04E13). Bill, the hospital nurse, who wouldn't let Ted go to Happy Fun Land in 'Miracles' (S03E20). "The Mosby", the concept of scaring off a person of the opposite sex by telling her/him you're in love with her/him, as famously introduced in the pilot and purposefully applied by Barney to get rid of a clingy girl in 'Purple Giraffe' (S01E02). Sven, the Swedish architecture collective that was almost awarded the job to design the GNB tower in 'Woooo!'(S04E08). Meta-jokes about the actress' pregnancy - after Robin two episodes ago, it's now Lily who jokingly claims to be pregnant. And of course, as promised by narrator Ted several times, we finally get the full story of the goat from the homonymous episode (S03E17). As foreshadowed in S04E10, a fight between Ted and the goat ensues, which is set to a familiar soundtrack: Murder Train by the Foreskins, Robin's ex-boyfriend's band from 'Sandcastles in the Sand' (S03E16).

This has to be the best season finale in all the series - right next to the season 8 finale. What puts this one slightly ahead of S. 8 finale though is a solid season before it, whereas S. 8 was one of the weaker seasons in all, despite having some of the best episodes throughout the series (Time Travelers, S. 8 premiere, finale, etc.) most of the episodes were weaker. I can't say the same for S. 4 The episodes generally were solid and your more standard HIMYM show - funny, engaging, fun, entertaining, etc.

It was just a strong season. Plus it was probably the last where you feel it being a younger, newer show.. somewhat of a Part 1 if it's to be split into segments. The later-half of the series sort of begins around S. 5 or 6 I'd say.

S. 5 they begin to grow up and mature a little more. Many are 30+ at that point.

Seasons 1-4 they're basically in their 20's.

And what a way to end the season and segment! It was an amazingly written episode. It pulled a lot of loose ends together and tied up earlier plots and you had a sense of completion for many of the earlier storylines and themes.

S. 6 starts somewhat anew. You move into deeper ground and territory.

It begins to prove itself a lot.

But this is one of those episodes I always return to. I have maybe 5-8 episodes that stand-out in my mind as critical, special, captivating episodes throughout the 200+ episodes - this is one of them.

Everything is right about the episode. The soundtracks featured, the storylines, the atmosphere, the subtle messages it passes off; the way you really began to root for Ted and see some growth and maturity unfolding (in all of them really), but the show continues being who and what it is: a network sitcom. Funny. Goofy.

It's these episodes every now and again that make the show worth returning to and re-watching again and again even years later.

The season finale of season four of "How I Met Your Mother" is hard to describe.

Plot In A Paragaph: It's Ted's thirty-first birthday. He is still refusing to take the job as an architecture professor since he sees that as a failure of not being an actual architect. So he takes the only design job offered to him: to design a restaurant in the shape of a cowboy hat. Lily's pet goat complicates Ted's life a little bit. Meanwhile up on the roof, the gang are having a surprise party for Ted, whilst waiting for him to arrive Marshall is contemplating making the literal six or seven foot horizontal leap to the roof of the adjacent building (where there is a hot tub), And Barney plans on telling Robin he is love with her.

The Ted and the goat was as silly as "How I Met Your Mother" has ever come up with, and it has come up with some silly things so far. But the Barney and Robin plot made it worthwhile as they tried to "Mosby" each other.

I like the bit where they jump off the roof into another building