Where Were We? (How I Met Your Mother)

Infobox Television episode
Title = Where Were We?
Series = How I Met Your Mother


Caption = Marshall, Ted and Robin listening to Barney's speech
Season = 2
Episode = 1
Airdate = September 18, 2006
Production = 2ALH01
Writer = Carter Bays & Craig Thomas
Director = Pamela Fryman
Guests = George Clinton (Himself), Gilbert John (Joey Adalian), Joey "Coco" Diaz (Angry New Yorker), Jenae Altschwager (Sunshine)
Episode list =List of How I Met Your Mother episodes
Prev = Come On
Next = The Scorpion and the Toad

"Where Were We?" is the 1^st episode in the second season of the television series "How I Met Your Mother". It originally aired on September 18, 2006.

Plot

As the summer begins, Ted is extremely happy because of his new relationship with Robin while Marshall wallows in depression due to his break-up with Lily. Marshall can't even eat pancakes on Sunday (Pancake Day) because they remind him of Lily, and Ted constantly monitors him so that he won't call Lily. After 40 days, Marshall has yet to leave the apartment and Robin, Ted, and Barney discuss the situation. Barney takes Marshall to a strip club, telling him that he hasn't gotten over Lily yet because he can still picture her naked. Barney says that he needs to replace the naked pictures of Lily in his head with pictures of other naked women. Ted then takes Marshall to a New York Yankees-Cleveland Indians baseball game, but when a couple becomes engaged a few rows down from them Marshall freaks out, throws a hot dog at the couple and security escorts him out of the stadium.

Robin, who has hidden the fact that she likes guns from Ted, finally takes Marshall to a firing range, and they shoot some rounds, which cheers him up a little. His good mood is short-lived though when he finds one of Lily's credit card bills in the mail. Looking at the charges on her bill, Marshall imagines that Lily has hooked up with George Clinton and they do everything that he and Lily didn't, like playing tennis and owning a ferret. Barney gives Marshall the idea to look at her online credit card statement to see more recent charges and Marshall discovers that there are charges on the card for a hotel in New York. Despite Ted's best efforts, Marshall calls the hotel and a man answers the phone in Lily's room. Trying to convince Marshall not to go to the hotel, Ted finally gets tough on him, telling him that as pathetic as Marshall is at the moment he won't have a chance to win back Lily. Marshall agrees not to go to the hotel, and Ted and Robin leave for a romantic weekend, putting Barney in charge of staying with Marshall. As they leave town, Robin and Ted discuss whether or not Ted was too hard on Marshall, and Ted reveals that Marshall told him about the firing range. Feeling guilty, Ted calls Barney to see how Marshall is doing. Barney, who had taken Marshall to another strip club, realizes that Marshall is gone. Ted and Robin turn around and head to the hotel to find Marshall.

Ted finds Marshall in the hotel bar, and Marshall tells him that he had already gone up to Lily's room and punched the guy who opened the door. He then found out that the guy in the hotel room wasn't Lily's new boyfriend -- he had stolen Lily's credit card. Ted tries to reassure Marshall that Lily didn't come back into town without calling him and she didn't have a new boyfriend, but Marshall is upset that the last link that he had to Lily was a lie. Ted reminds Marshall of the first time that they met in college, before Marshall had met Lily. Ted tells Marshall that he is someone outside of his relationship with Lily and encourages him not to let his break-up with Lily ruin his life. While Marshall doesn't immediately bounce back, one Sunday morning he makes pancakes for Ted and Robin. As Marshall begins going out again, Lily appears at MacLaren's one night. She sees her friends having drinks and leaves without speaking to them.

Music

* George Clinton - "Give Up the Funk (Tear the Roof Off the Sucker)"
* Grant Lee Phillips - "Boys Don't Cry"

Notes

* Sunday is "Pancake Day."
* Barney pretends to kill himself three times in three different ways: putting a gun in his mouth and shooting himself, hanging himself, and committing seppuku.
* Marshall is afraid of ferrets because, "they're like fuzzy, tube-shaped rats."

Trivia

* The name of the hotel that Lily's identity thief is staying at, The Kellet Hotel, is a reference to one of the show's writers, Gloria Calderon Kellet.

Cultural references

* Lily's mention of dancing on stage with George Clinton "Courteney Cox style," refers to Bruce Springsteen's video of "Dancing In The Dark," in which Springsteen chooses Cox from the crowd to dance with him on stage.
* Barney's speech about how he, Marshall, and Ted are going to womanize together is a callback to Tom Joad's speech at the end of "The Grapes of Wrath".
*When Robin says men don't handle heartbreak well, Barney asks if her plan involves eating Haagen Dazs and watching "Love Actually," a movie whose tagline was "The Ultimate Romantic Comedy."

Continuity

* Robin and Ted's disagreement about firearms is referenced again in "Moving Day" when Robin tries to cancel her subscription to "Guns and Ammo" as Ted moves in with her. Robin also mentions owning a gun in "." In "We're Not from Here" Robin pulls out a gun to get rid of some unwanted Australian visitors invited to stay by Gael.

Errors

* On Day 22, Ted says that it is Sunday, and Marshall also says it is Sunday on Day 67. But if Day 22 were a Sunday, then Day 67 would be a Wednesday.
* When Ted and Robin are in the car there is music playing, but in a later episode it is established that the only tune the car can play is I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles) by the Proclaimers which is stuck in the player.
* When discussing Ted and Marshall's meeting Ted says Marshall was lying on the bed, listening to music and confident, where as in How I Met Everyone Else, when Ted enters the room he is standing up and scared that Ted is the Dean.

External links

* " [http://www.tv.com/how-i-met-your-mother/where-were-we/episode/841287/summary.html Where Were We?] " on TV.com
* " [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0863640/ Where Were We?] " on the Internet Movie Database