Recap | How I Met Your Mother, 'Karma'

FEBRUARY 28, 2012 --
Last night's episode of How I Met Your Mother started out like one where the viewer may want to moan out loud, "the strip club again?"
We previously learned (in the episode entitled 'Drunk Train') that Quinn, a woman Barney met at a party, is actually a stripper at his favorite club. Barney and Ted begin to notice that she works there, and Barney starts to express his feelings for her, going against her rule of dating customers and confiding many secrets in her. Ted tries to convince Barney that Quinn, aka Karma, is using him to get more money, but Barney continuously shrugs him off. Meanwhile, Ted is starting to adapt to Robin being out of the apartment, and transforms her old room into many different leisurely locations. Robin ends up at Marshall and Lily's home on Long Island and takes notice of how compulsive and strange they act in their suburban home. Lily reveals to Robin that she and Marshall are, in no way, happy where they currently live, but that they only live in the suburbs out of the idea that the area is better for their baby (still in Lily's womb). Barney tells Karma that he knows what she has been up to and that he has been trying to improve himself as a man (presumably after occurrences with Robin and Nora), but that he succombed to her vixen qualities. He storms out of the club but bumps into Quinn at a coffee shop, wherein she buys him a coffee and they share a meeting at the cafe. Ted and Robin confront each other, and Robin informs Ted that Marshall and Lily are not happy in their lives, so Ted understands that it's time for him not only to move on from Robin, but to move on from his own home. He tells Marshall and Lily to meet him in the city, so the two oblige. Upon arriving at Ted's apartment, the couple find the home completely empty except for a note with Ted's handwriting. The note explains how Lily and Marshall's names were never removed from the lease, but that Ted had finally removed his. He also painted Robin's old room a baby blue color and built a crib for Lily and Marshall's baby. The apartment that viewers have known for seven years is know the home for Lily, Marshall, and the family they choose to build.

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I was very disappointed at the beginning of this episode. I was just incredibly worried that it would become regular for Barney and Ted to attend the club since Quinn works there. As the episode progressed, I definitely opened up to the exclusivity of Barney and Quinn's "relationship", Ted's lonely behavior, and Marshall and Lily's psychotic life on Long Island. I believe that Quinn will be the woman that Barney marries at the end of the season, and that she might even quit her job as a stripper to help support Barney's change of heart. I think this was a very coming-of-age and "growing up" king of episode for all characters. Ted realized he must let go of Robin and all the 'ghosts' she had left in his apartment; Lily and Marshall realized that they were only oppressing themselves by staying in the suburbs; Barney realized that he must shed his life as a spinster and mature as a man; Robin realized she must let go of her own insecurities and become a dependent woman.