The good thing is that, as it turns out, it makes absolute sense to begin the story with how he met Aunt Robin (and his on and off crush on her), because it's the wedding of Aunt Robin where he finally meets the mother.
That was an oddly serious episode last night with very few jokes. But I'm very relieved to see the Marshall/Lilly fight ended so quickly. I was really afraid they were going to draw that out for the whole season. Also great to see Stella and Victoria and crazy girl again. Nit pick: this season is taking place in real time. How the hell did Drunk Barney and his two new bros get all the way back to Manhattan to meet with Tim Gunn and get all the way back to Farhampton in the space of this single episode?????
They're not exactly real time, this one appears to last from midnight-ish (whenever Barney leaves the hotel room) until sunrise, so about 4-6 hours. Also, I think the implication is that Barney's tailor is always available nearby, much like Ranjit. Also, future Ted is an unreliable narrator.
They are playing around with the timeline a bit. For all we know Barney left his hotel room the exact same time that Lily stormed off and Ted was out on the balcony listening to The Mother play her song. Arrested Development Season 4 played around with time in a similar (albeit more elaborate) way by having all of it's episodes more or less take place around the same time.
Was that party really in Manhattan? Tim Gunn was at the poker game, so maybe he was still there and had a shop nearby.
Or it's possible that Barney had had prophets spread out across the area to increase his legend? Remember, it may have looked like Barney, but we went though an entire episode once where Barney looked like Ted, so that could have been any one who had a script to make sure there's an urban legend permeating about this wedding for generations to come. So? Those two kids? Are they part of the new group from the proposed spinoff?
So I'm not the only one here that knows those two guys as the Online sketch commedy troupe Britanick am I?
Another amazing episode. There are no more mysteries to be revealed now except the Mother's name and the events of the next six Mondays.
You're right. Remember that in "How Your Mother Met Me", Ted came back into the room to discover the missing Barney right after he heard The Mother sing. They had that montage of all the characters that night as she sang. So presumably it all took place at the same time. I can't remember, but did Tim Gunn say he was going back to NYC while at the poker game? I just assumed he was sticking around for the wedding.
Or maybe you're all overthinking it.. the show is not that deep or meticulous. If a joke flies in the face of continuity but still works who cares?
They're usually very tight with their continuity and that's why I love the show. It's actually heavily serialized. That said, the entire series is Future Ted telling a story to his kids so everything can be taken with a grain of salt.