‘How I Met Your Mother’ Season Finale Review: “The Magician’s Code”

‘How I Met Your Mother’ Season 7 swears to us to keeps secret the truth of its twenty-third, fourth and final hour-long episode of the season, as Lily finally gives birth while Marshall races back to the city to avoid missing it, Robin challenges Ted to go for the one that got away, and Barney's future bride is finally revealed!

Last time’s ‘How I Met Your Mother’ “Good Crazy” saw Ted struggling to get over Robin by dating other women, Marshall going overboard in his baby preparations, and poor Barney unable to catch a break for dating a stripper before Lily finally went into labor, so what will the season finale episode bring?

Read on for your in-depth recap of everything you need to know about ‘How I Met Your Mother’ “The Magician's Code, Parts 1 and 2!”

With Lily in labor, drunkards Marshall and Barney are still trapped in Atlantic City, and in no shape to drive home.  At best, they realize that they could possibly drive home if they played the slots to win a display motorcycle (wouldn’t that still have the same DUI problem?), but only if Marshall agrees to use “Waitforit” as his son’s middle name.  Barney…Waitforit…Erickson.  Get it?

Meanwhile, Ted and Robin do their best to calm Lily through her labor with as many of the gang’s random exploits as they can remember , from Robin and Ted’s worst cab ride, to Robin hooking up with a man who clearly isn’t Neil Young.  Even better perhaps, the time they all discovered the unknown door at McLaren's, of which Ted is the first to disappear behind, followed by Robin!  Their flashback is interrupted by a call from Lily’s father, whom Ted e-mailed of the labor, and his on his way despite being one of the worst possible people to go through a medical procedure with.

Barney admits that the motorcycle plan was stupid (they weren’t even playing the right machines), but opts to steal the bike, and steal away with Marshall!  Except that he get’s caught immediately, and dragged off.  Drunk Marshall does his best to mount the casino stairs, while at home Ted soothes Lily with the story of Marshall’s cursed pants.  Marshall next tries to get cash from an ATM to bribe a cab driver, but is too drunk to use the machine!  Barney arrives back on the scene, as the casino didn’t technically have a “no riding motorcycles in the casino" rule.  Problem solved!  Not only that, but Barney got them seats on a bus full of seniors to New York!  Aww, but he misses Quinn.  And the bus is headed to Buffalo, New York!  O noes, y'all!

Flashing back to the mystery door story, Barney is the next to disappear, but the story once again gets interrupted as Ted believes its time to go to the hospital, Marshall or no.  Further complicating matters is that Lily arrived too late for an epidural (name ONE sitcom in which that hasn’t happened, we dare you), though Ted and Robin try to placate her with more stories, such as Barney picking up women as the Terminator, the time the gang tested the slipperiness of bananas, or accidentally all showed up for Halloween as Judd Nelson from ‘The Breakfast Club.’

Just then, that special someone arrives!  Nope, not Marshall, Lily’s dad!  However bad he might have been at comforting his daughter, he still reminds her of the strength she displayed in dealing with him, strength and bravery she uses every day with or without Marshall.  Marshall continues trying to convince the driver to head toward Manhattan, to no avail, when suddenly the seniors on the bus decide to fake heart attacks, thereby diverting the bus to Manhattan after all!  Before the baby can be born, Marshall finally arrives, though he may had drunkenly promised to use the middle name “Waitforit.”  Luckily, the group agrees it’s an awesome name.

In the waiting room, Ted and Robin resolve to put aside their recent awkwardness for the sake of the baby, as Marshall comes up to introduce the gang to Marshall Waitforit Erickson.  Awws ensue.  Oh and the mystery door at McLaren’s?  It was just a closet the gang waited to surprise Marshall in.

INTERMISSION!

Well, that was part one of ‘How I Met Your Mother’s season finale “The Magician’s Code.”  So, what’s new with you?  Things going well?  Good to know!  So…anyway...

The day has arrived, and we open on Barney’s rain-soaked wedding, a day gone horribly wrong in which the bride asks to see Ted.  But how did we get there?

Back to Lily in the delivery room, the gang all adores little Marvin, and his awesome middle name, when a thought pops into Ted’s head that Marshall, a man he’s known to be crazy and irresponsible since college finally has finally become a dad.  Sharing the moment with Robin and his desire for a family of his own, Robin calls Ted out for only dating women with huge complications that prevent the relationship from working out, herself included, and the only real prospect he ever dated was Victoria.

Of course, when last they left off, Victoria was engaged to another man, but Robin insists that might have changed and Ted is full of crap for not at least attempting to reach out to her.  Before they can finish, Barney sidles up still moping about Quinn, and worried what he might find upon returning home.  An eight-way orgy with Quinn’s stripper friends, but no use of the overhead camera that focuses in on whomever’s being the loudest?!  The horror!  Or, perhaps she’s simply moved out.  When Barney arrives, he finds the terrible truth, that Quinn redecorated his entire apartment from ‘American Psycho’ to ‘Tinkerbell’s Vagina,’ but he's only glad that she’s still there.  Aww.

A week later, while Ted remains somewhat bitter that Robin was elected to take the birth announcement photo, he remembers that Lily too was once a wild child who has now grown up to become a mother.  So while Ted still picks up random girls on the train, Marshall and Lily now only want to hear of his troubles if they’re an 8 or higher.  Robin finally takes a decent photo, though only of Ted and the baby, as he realizes that he’s nowhere near becoming a father.  Dejected, he agrees to call Victoria, who agrees to meet, but “might have a thing later.”  A short time later, she arrives…in a wedding dress.

Meanwhile, Barney and Quinn prepare to take a romantic trip to Hawaii, but wind up detained by a mysterious box in Barney’s luggage, whose contents he refuses to reveal under “the magician’s code.”  Hey, that’s the title!  Having been taught the value of the code by his magic mentor in 1993 (who was totally doing his mom), Barney refuses to explain the box, even at Quinn’s insistence, for she is not the only miss in his life.  There is also…Miss…Direction!

Ted breaks his casual chitchat to ask Victoria about her apparent wedding, to which she reveals that she fled the scene, having been tempted by him last fall, and with Robin out of the way the two might finally drive off into the sunset together.  Meanwhile, Barney agrees to tell the trick to a TSA agent and fellow magician, but winds up tasered for escaping out of his handcuffs…with MAGIC!  Taser beats magic, bro.

Ted calls Robin, Marshall and Lily to the bar (the problem’s a 10, clearly), where Robin supports Ted’s decision to run away with Zoe in spite of Lily’s protests.  Ted agrees to take the leap, and Robin snaps a photo of Marshall, Lily and Marvin’s first outing together…to a bar.  Nice one, guys.

Facing further interrogation, Quinn is forced to reveal that she quit her job stripping for Barney’s sake, but only the threat of her leaving convinces Barney to finally perform his trick.  Making a variety of implements appear around the room on Quinn and the TSA agent’s person, Barney’s box goes through a series of transformations, wherein its ultimate ending is revealed, a rose that grows, and blooms to reveal an engagement ring!  As if we had to say it, Quinn says yes!  Meanwhile, Ted and Victoria drive off together, before Ted reveals that he’s taking her back to the wedding, having been left at the altar once himself.  The two agree to pretend their little detour never happened.

Back at the apartment, Robin tries to hurry Marshall and Lily to Central park for the perfect photo, before finding parents and child asleep, providing a much better pic.  Just then, Barney and Quinn arrive to announce their engagement, which Robin and Barney agree to not get in the way of their friendship.  Still driving, Ted relives his memories of Victoria, and drives straight past her church, the two holding hands as they drive off into the sunset.

Back in the good ol’ future wedding, Ted and Marshall remark how there have been twist and turns getting to that point, but ultimately it all made sense.  Cue Ted entering to speak with Barney’s bride…Robin!

Dun, dun DUNNNNNNNNNNNNNN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Anyway.

So, let's ignore any potential continuity issues that might arise from Robin getting married at some point in the future.  All we've seen is a few short moments out of context, and while Ted supposedly met the mother at Barney's wedding, no one said that a potential wedding between Barney and Robin would necessarily be the one to which he referred.  In any case, we know Future Ted to be a somewhat unreliable narrator anyway.

So while the big twist presents as either shocking or predictable given your outlook, the writers still have plenty of time to write through this one, and the episode getting there was more than heartwarming enough to forgive it.

Did you enjoy “The Magician's Code?”  Who would you have most preferred to be Barney's bride?  What did you think about the episode in general? Join us next seas for all-new episode recaps of ‘How I Met Your Mother’ on CBS, and tell us what you thought in the comments below!