The Lighthouse (How I Met Your Mother)

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"The Lighthouse" is the eighth episode of the

At 9 AM on Saturday, with 33 hours before the wedding, Barney is caught in the middle as Robin and Loretta continue to feud over the blouse Robin won in "The Poker Game". The three of them, joined by Lily, sit down to brunch together as Robin flaunts the blouse in Loretta's face and escalates the feud when she claims her mother makes better scrambled eggs than Loretta. Barney tries to avoid taking sides, but he and Lily and many of the inn's patrons praise Loretta's eggs. When Robin is unable to cook scrambled eggs herself, she concedes defeat. When Loretta questions how Robin will care for her children if she cannot cook, Robin admits that she cannot have children, something Barney reveals to his mother that Robin had confessed to him the previous fall. He tells Loretta that he is marrying Robin because she is more important to him than his desire to start a family one day. Lily tries to comfort Robin by suggesting that Robin's mother can show Loretta up when she arrives, only for Robin to reveal that her mother was too afraid to get on a plane and will not come to the wedding. Loretta, learning of this, makes peace with Robin and tells her to call her "Mom" from now on.

Meanwhile,

there two years later and proposed, which she enthusiastically accepted.

Critical reception

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The A.V. Club's Donna Bowman graded the episode an A.^[1]

Bill Kuchman of Popculturology praised the episode's ending, but said, "No matter how beautiful and touching it seemed, it appears that HIMYM has screwed up its timeline." Kuchman cited the Season 7 episode "Trilogy Time" and noted how that episode showed Ted already having a baby daughter in 2015.^[2] However, it ultimately transpired that there was no timeline error as shown in the series finale "Last Forever".

Uproxx stated that "The Lighthouse was actually one of the better season 9 episodes" but had a quite short review. Alan Sepinwall, the reviewer stated that he wants "to be writing about “How I Met Your Mother,” but I need it to be “How I Met Your Mother” more consistently for that to happen".^[3]

Max Nicholson of IGN gave the episode a 7.8/10 rating saying it "featured a couple of great character stories, although it still needs to pick up the pace."^[4]

References

External links

• "The Lighthouse" at
  IMDb