Disaster Averted

"Disaster Averted"
How I Met Your Mother episode
Episode no.	Season 7 Episode 9
Directed by	Michael Shea
Written by	Robia Rashid
Original air date	November 7, 2011 (2011-11-07)
Guest stars
Kal Penn (Kevin) Teresa Castillo (Maya)
Season 7 episodes
The Best Man The Naked Truth Ducky Tie The Stinson Missile Crisis Field Trip Mystery vs. History Noretta The Slutty Pumpkin Returns Disaster Averted Tick, Tick, Tick... The Rebound Girl Queen of the Furrow

"Disaster Averted" is the ninth episode of the seventh season of the CBS sitcom How I Met Your Mother, and the 145th episode overall. It aired on November 7, 2011.^[1]

Plot

Barney has grown tired of his Ducky Tie and makes up a fake story in order to hide the fact that he has thrown the tie away. However, it is foiled when Lily enters the bar holding the tie she found in the garbage.

While at the bar, Kevin notices a sign out the front of MacLaren's saying "No boogie boarding", which leads the gang to tell him the story of what happened to them during Hurricane Irene. Ted had planned to have his friends ride out the hurricane in his house out of the city, but Barney convinces them to stay in his house, much to Ted's chagrin, saying that the storm is nothing to worry about. Lily and Barney eventually get calls from their parents asking if they are all right, and Robin grows jealous because her father has not called her. When she denies this, Barney fake calls Robin as her dad to prove her jealousy. Ted tells Barney he can't come to his house, as he found a girl in the hallway and said she could take Barney's place, causing everyone to fight over who gets to go or stay. Ted finally says that he is going to go by himself. Marshall turns on the TV just in time to call Ted back to hear Mayor Bloomberg's speech saying that the evacuation time has passed and that everyone must go inside and wait out the storm.

Marshall had no health insurance during that time because of his unemployment. He was seeing death everywhere and refused to go alone anywhere without Lily because he thought he would be attacked by a bear. Lily had complained that he is not giving her enough alone time and that all she wants to do is sit in the bath and read a book. That night, Marshall poured Lily a bath and told her to have a little alone time. Lily said she wanted Marshall to stay and they ended up conceiving their baby boy in Barney's bathroom.

Meanwhile in the present, Barney offers to let Marshall deliver his final remaining slap in their Slap Bet in return for being allowed to take the Ducky Tie off. Kevin then points out that since Barney had not complained about the Ducky Tie in weeks, there must be an agenda to Barney's offer. Kevin hypothesizes that he has to impress someone and deduces that Barney is going to meet Nora's parents, which Barney reveals happens in two days. Lily and Marshall agree that Barney can take off the tie but he must gain an extra 3 slaps to his already existing final slap. Marshall delivers two of the slaps, with two still remaining.

In the end, it is shown that the gang had gone out after the end of the hurricane and played around in the rain, which led to Marshall going boogie boarding and eventually crashing through MacLarens' front windows, thus the warning sign against boogie boarding. Robin and Barney decide to share a cab home and they reminisce about the moment after Marshall's accident when they had almost kissed but Robin's dad had called her. They make fun of what could have happened and eventually end up kissing.

Continuity

• This episode references two bets Barney had lost: the Slap Bet and the Ducky Tie.
• Ted uses the phrase "therapisted" and "boy scouted", Marshall often uses the phrase "lawyered".
• The flashbacks during Hurricane Irene occur in August 2011, before the events of "Challenge Accepted", the Season 6 finale, where Lily discovers she is pregnant (most of the events depicted in "Challenge Accepted" occur in September 2011^[2]) Here the viewer learns the baby was conceived in Barney's bathroom.

Barney's blog

Barney pens down a list of reasons to have sex. This list is presumably in addition to the list of reasons to have sex as made in the entry coinciding with The Naked Man.

Music

• "Hey" by Pixies

Cultural references

• Barney says, "I'm going to like the way I look. I guarantee it." This is a reference to Men's Wearhouse.
• The chase sequence at the start of the episode is a parody of the 1981 film Raiders of the Lost Ark.^[3]
• This episode uses a clip of the actual speech given by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg during Hurricane Irene.^[4]
• Several references are made to Memoirs of a Geisha, the audiobook that Ted plays in the car.
• Lily refers to Marshall's mood as being like "a really clingy Edgar Allan Poe." In the next shot, Marshall is shown standing near a carving of a raven.

Critical response

The AV Club's Donna Bowman graded the episode at A-, stating that it had several of the same elements that made the Ducky Tie a wonderful episode: "constantly interrupted storytelling, callbackariffic structuring, fleet pacing, machine-gun dialogue, and a dollop of sweetness at the end." ^[5]

Angel Cohn of Television Without Pity gave the episode a B+. ^[6]

External Links

• The Slapbet Countdown
• Barney's Blog

References

1. ^ "How I Met Your Mother - Episode 7.09 - Disaster Averted". The Futon Critic. http://www.thefutoncritic.com/listings/20111024cbs04/. Retrieved November 5, 2011. 
2. ^ "How I Met Your Mother’s Carter Bays and Craig Thomas on Last Night’s Finale and Their 15-Year Partnership". New York Magazine. 2011-05-16. http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2011/05/carter_bays_craig_thomas_how_i.html. Retrieved 2011-05-21. 
3. ^ O'Hara, Chris (07 November 2011). "How I Met Your Mother Review: The Perfect Storm". http://www.tvfanatic.com/2011/11/how-i-met-your-mother-review-the-perfect-storm/. Retrieved 09 November 2011. 
4. ^ "Hurricane Irene: Mayor Bloomberg warns New Yorkers to stay indoors - video". http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2011/aug/28/hurricane-irene-bloomberg-warns-new-yorkers-video. Retrieved 09 November 2011. 
5. ^ http://www.avclub.com/articles/disaster-averted,64633/
6. ^ http://www.televisionwithoutpity.com/show/how_i_met_your_mother/disaster-averted.php