How I Met Your Mother: "The Magician's Code Part 2" Review

Note: Full spoilers for the episode follow. Oh, and looking for our review of Part 1 of the HIMYM season finale? Click Here.

The second episode of How I Met Your Mother's Monday night doubleheader was the season finale. And this was the episode where finally, once and for all, after decades of speculation, the series would reveal the woman who will be Barney's bride. It was not very shocking. What was shocking was the return of Victoria. On her wedding day!

Okay, perhaps "shocking" is too strong a word. We'll say surprising. Of all of Ted's past loves, Victoria is far and away my favorite. She had a hell of a storyline in Season 1. The love triangle between her, Ted and Robin was what truly made me a fan of this series way back when. But earlier this year, HIMYM gave us some closure with the Victoria storyline, as we learned she was engaged and Ted accepted this and moved on.

But here, in "The Magician's Code, Part 2," at the encouragement of Robin, Ted gave Victoria a call; just to see where things stood. The visual of Victoria entering the bar in her wedding gown was perfect, made better by Ted's now pointless concern over finding out if she's still engaged: "Hmm, can't see the left hand." While it's always great to see Victoria (and I have a montage of Ashley Williams photos gracing my desktop), the idea of another complicated/failed relationship wasn't exactly inspiring. Do we really want Ted breaking up a wedding? And won't that lead to their relationship not working out anyway? Things felt like another false start for Ted.

But the episode actually did a good job with this story. Their dialogue was pretty direct and true. Marshall and Lily calling the situation a 10 on their new "We're parents now, don't bother us" scale was apt. And it felt right that Ted would go for it, and then realize it was not a good idea. But what really sold me was Ted flashing back to Victoria's goodbyes. Too often a television show (Glee, for one) will just tell you how somebody feels. Here, you could really get into Ted's head. His memories of Victoria all have a "goodbye" and it swayed him. He didn't want to say goodbye again. And praise the writers for not having Ted say something stupid like, "I don't want to say goodbye again."

The other half of the episode had Barney held up at airport security as he refused to reveal the contents of his magic box. It was an okay bit with a few decent laughs. I especially like the Barney version/Quinn version of the security magician. But the contents of the box were pretty much telegraphed from the beginning, which diminished the ultimate effect.

Marshall and Lily's new parenting bits were fun. I liked how quick and subtle most of their bits were (and had to be because the other stories were the focus). But the big news from the finale was seeing that… wait for it… Robin is Barney's eventual bride. Again, not shocking because we knew it was going to Robin or Quinn. If it had been Victoria, that would have been shocking. Overall, a fine episode; if not incredibly jaw-dropping for a season ender. One quick question though. Is this the first time we've heard that the Stinson-Scherbatsky nuptials was "a wedding day that went horribly wrong"?

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