How I Met Your Mother: Garbage Island

     So it's final, Zoey is not the mother!  The next question is, is the mother going to be revealed at the end of the season?  Or is it going to take more then one season for Ted to get to Punchy's wedding?  Or is it going to be like when we were told that the mother was in Ted's first class and another stalling technique will implemented to delay the revealing?  In all honesty, I think the time has come for us to find out who the mother is.  The show is getting stale and I'm getting tired of all these almost run-ins and delay tactics.  The show could use a shot in the arm and the addition of the mother as a new character could do it.  The show doesn't have to end when she's revealed.  Ted could go on to tell the many stories that had to occur after Ted met her.  As one of my friends says, it used to be called Two Guys, a Girl And a Pizza Place but then they got rid of the pizza place and it became Two Guys And a Girl.  I think I'm read for "How I Lived With Your Mother."
     Other then the revelation that Zoey is not the mother, there was a lot to like about this episode even if it wasn't one of the funnier ones.  The Lily/Marshal sex problems were one.  With one swoop the writers were able to play with a role reversal from the sterotypical marraige while keeping true to the characters we have grown to love.  All we see and hear about in sitcoms or movies or stand-up is how the husband is trying to seduce or talk the reluctant wife into bed.  We all know (or are told) that the wife is the one that holds out sex from the man.  The HIMYM writers turned this on its head and made Lily the one begging for sex and trying to seduce Marshal into making out.  While this is funny because it goes against everything we know about men/female relationships, is also fits into everything we know about Lily and Marshal.  I bought that Lily would find herself in a position where she was sexually frustrated and found the fact that it was a women trying to talk a man into sex funny at the same time.
     I also like the fact that Ted was forced to deal one last time with the Captain.  We're all familiar with having to deal with our significant other's ex.  It's never a comfortable situation.  Add in how creepy the Captain is in the first place, and you have comedy gold.  The situation brought up two other interesting relationship situations, one being there are two sides to every story, the other being everyone ends up being the bad guy at some point.  Ted finds out that Zoey's divorce did not exactley go down the way she told him, that the Captian had a much different version.  Nothing is ever clean or clear in a breakup and this episode did a good job of showing how each participant has their own version of what happened, whether its what they believe or whether it's just more convenient.
     I'm still not on board the Barney relationship.  Some people argue that his desire to have a relationship with the new girl shows growth, but I just feel like it's a retread storyline.  If feels exactly like the Barney/Robin situation all over again.  I think it's lazy writers rehashing a storyline they already used.  Barney already went down this road.  Either he's going to be adverse to it because he's tried before and failed or he will be more open to it because it's a little familiar, not going through all the same steps with a different girl.  Leave Barney single!  We like single Barney.  Give him warmth and sympathy by focusing on his search for his father not another doomed relationship with a girl.
     One last note... I loved the joke at the end when Ted started to tell Wendy the waitress how he met his wife.  Wendy didn't even know what she was getting into and she cut him off.  Or maybe she did know how long winded Ted could be from all those years serving him.  Either way, I love when a show can make fun of itself.