How I Met Your Mother: Season 9

BOB SAGET: Alright kids, for the last time, I promise - have a seat. It's time for me to finish the story of how I met your mother.

SON: Wait, you're not finished?

DAUGHTER: Yeah, every time you do this, you tell us an entire year's worth of your life story. But last time, you got all the way up to Barney and Robin's wedding. Isn't that where you met Mom?

BOB SAGET: Oh, it is. But what's the rush? I could spend another eight and a half hours telling you about that weekend itself. And in fact, I'm going to!

KIDS: [groan]

BOB SAGET: Hey, you're both free to leave right now. No one made you sit here and listen to me ramble for 67 hours already. But here you are. And this close to the end, you're gonna bail? Go ahead. I dare you.

KIDS: [moody silence]

BOB SAGET: I thought so.

...

BOB SAGET: So then somewhere during the eighth hour of their road trip, Marshall and the sassy black woman he was stuck sharing a rental car with -

SON: Dad, come on. You're just ripping off Planes, Trains, and Automobiles. There's no way Marshall drove all the way from Minnesota to New York with his child and a complete stranger.

BOB SAGET: Hey, shut up. It makes for a better story this way. There'd be nothing for me to say about him if he had just driven back alone.

DAUGHTER: And the problem with omitting him entirely from this portion of your story is...?

BOB SAGET: Stop it. You kids love Marshall. Of course you want to hear about his wacky hijinks! Leaving him out of even an hour of the eight-year story about how I met your mother wouldn't feel right.

SON: Whatever...

BOB SAGET: So as I was saying -

DAUGHTER: Wait, hang on. Why was he in Minnesota in the first place? Like, two days before two of his only three friends were getting married?

BOB SAGET: Because Marshall and Lily were moving to Italy, remember? So Marshall had to go see his mother before they left.

DAUGHTER: So why not just fly his mother out to New York for a week? She could have even helped them pack, and -

BOB SAGET: Well his mother had no idea they were moving, you see, and -

SON: That's kind of shitty.

BOB SAGET: Beg your pardon?

SON: Marshall didn't tell his mother that he was moving to Italy until a week before he, you know, moved to Italy?

DAUGHTER: Yeah, what, just a year after his father died?

SON: And then he takes an impromptu trip to Minnesota in order to put out that fire and look like he's not such a shitty son, but - again - he nearly missed his friends' wedding to do so?

DAUGHTER: And you're saying he took a job without even telling his wife, jeopardizing their plans to move to Italy? A week before they were leaving for Italy?

BOB SAGET: Okay, I think you guys are getting sidetracked here.

DAUGHTER: No, everything you've told us about Marshall tonight makes him sound like a total flake.

SON: And kind of an asshole...

BOB SAGET: Hey, knock it off. Marshall is a good guy! And remember, he and Lily ended up moving to Italy! He changed his mind after they got into this huge fight the night before Barney and Robin's wedding - hang on, we'll get to that. You don't want to miss that! 

DAUGHTER: So he flaked out on his judge job instead.

BOB SAGET: [ignores daughter] Anyway, where was I?

DAUGHTER: I dunno, something about Marshall and the sassy black lady being in Cleveland?

BOB SAGET: Oh, yeah! Wait - why was that relevant again? Hang on... pizza? Was that before...? Eh, you know what, we'll get back to them once they get to New York. So meanwhile, okay, you had to see how drunk Barney was on the night before his wedding.

KIDS: [exchange tired, knowing glances]

...

BOB SAGET: So with a few hours left to go before the wedding, just after I had helped Barney pick out his wedding suit, there was this scuffle between Robin and Lily after Lily decided to put on a wedding dress.

DAUGHTER: What a bitch!

BOB SAGET: Hey, you're being too hard on her - she was pregnant.

KIDS: Wait, what?

SON: This whole time? Why haven't you told us that already?

BOB SAGET: Well we still hadn't even found out yet.

DAUGHTER: Hang on - you're three hours before the wedding at this point, which is where you met Mom, which is when this story finally ends?

BOB SAGET: That's right.

SON: So you're saying Lily revealed her pregnancy to the rest of you like an hour before her best friend's wedding?

DAUGHTER: Seriously, what a bitch.

BOB SAGET: No no, it's not like that. She didn't tell us until we confronted her about it.

SON: A few hours before your friends' wedding? Had "tact" not been invented yet by 2013?

BOB SAGET: [ignoring son] She'd been behaving so suspiciously. We left the venue to head over to the Captain's house - you remember the Captain - and we put a few pieces of the puzzle together, and suddenly -

DAUGHTER: Wait, back up. You and Marshall bailed on Barney mere hours before his wedding in order to visit that really weird guy none of you even liked very much?

BOB SAGET: Oh, no. Barney came too!

DAUGHTER: Two hours before his wedding?

SON: No tact... none...

...

BOB SAGET: Now kids, you've got to understand - it was a real miracle that I met your mother that day. I really needed that.

SON: We know. You've told us like seven or eight times tonight that you were super depressed about Robin getting married.

DAUGHTER: Yeah, which is really kind of weird, Dad. You were Barney's best man.

BOB SAGET: Of course I was! Barney's friendship meant the world to me.

DAUGHTER: Weren't you still hitting on his bride-to-be right up to a few days before?

BOB SAGET: Sure, but I had this big moment on the beach with her that morning where I realized I could finally let her go.

SON: Wait, the morning of the wedding?

DAUGHTER: Jesus Christ, Dad. Why did you agree to be the best man? Didn't it kill you?

BOB SAGET: Oh, it ate away at my insides. That's why I was preparing to move to Chicago!

SON: Fuck me, I totally forgot about that.

DAUGHTER: You were so upset that Robin ended up with Barney that you decided you had to move away. That's really sad, Dad.

BOB SAGET: But it all worked out! Because then I met your mother, and I didn't move to Chicago!

SON: Flake...

...

BOB SAGET: At any rate, that more or less wraps it up. Barney and Robin got divorced after three years or so - 

SON: Who could have seen that coming?

BOB SAGET: [continuing] And then of course, your mother died. But I regret nothing! Still, now that she's dead and all, I kind of think I should try things out again with Robin.

KIDS: [mortified silence]

BOB SAGET: Thoughts?  

DAUGHTER: [tears well up in her eyes]

SON: [gets up, walks out, and slams the door]

BOB SAGET: I... I know. I know it's hard. It's hard for me too, though, you have to-

DAUGHTER: [sobbing] What the fuck, Dad?

BOB SAGET: What's the matter?

DAUGHTER: You told us... [sniffs]... you told us a week ago that you wanted to tell us about how you met Mom...

BOB SAGET: And that's exactly what I did! I met-

DAUGHTER: No! No. That's not what you did at all. Mom was barely in that story. You started your story like eight years before you met her - on the day you met Robin, in fact. And for a whole week now you've just been telling us all about all these other dumb women you dated and nearly married and how much you always loved Robin.

BOB SAGET: Well, yeah! See, the journey itself was-

DAUGHTER: [growing angrier] And here we were, every night, sitting on the couch, taking it in like idiots, thinking you'd eventually actually tell us about the good times you had with Mom. Why do you think we've been listening to you this whole time? We wanted you to tell us about Mom. You know, since she's dead now and all. I mean, five or six sentences? That's all? I mean, how many hours did you waste talking about your gross friend Barney's sex life? We didn't need to hear about all those women he raped.

BOB SAGET: Hey now, he didn't rape any-

DAUGHTER: [shouting] He tricked them into blowing him, Dad! He lied to them. He used them. He made a big old game out of seducing them with dishonesty. And now you want to throw yourself at the woman who threw herself at that fucking creep? Anyway, that's not the point. My point-

SON: [pops back in just to yell] Seriously, all of your friends are fucking horrible people. You and Robin deserve one another and Mom deserved a whole lot better. [slams door again]

BOB SAGET: [pauses] ...So, your brother seems cool with the idea. How about it?

DAUGHTER: [screaming] Just get the fuck out of here! You just spent a week telling us how Mom was basically your silver medal. Well she's dead now, so what are you waiting for? Go. Get Robin. She was Plan A all along, right?

BOB SAGET: [deep sigh... of relief?] I'm so glad you get it, honey. Please try to explain it to your brother when he calms down. [leaves the room, grabs his coat, runs out the door, huge shit-eating grin]

...

MOTHER: [dead]