Back at Farhampton for the third installment of tonight's Recap Challenge. We've met the mother, assembled the wedding guests and gotten Barney sober. What ever could come next?

Sunday, 2 PM, four hours left until matrimony. Robin is happily reunited with her mom, who barely made it to the wedding because she has a deathly fear of flying. She is also inexplicably British. And played by Tracey Ullman. She wound up having to be restrained on the flight, and concludes that she will take the train home. Opening credits, and boy, isn't it amazing how young everyone looks in this? It can't have been nearly a decade.

Marshall tells the guys about his new job, though he admits to feeling guilty about Italy. Ted points out that Lily has chosen to go with Marshall's plan (heh), but Marshall still insists that things are weird after the fight. Billy Zabka pipes up that he saw Lily up the road in the middle of the night, getting into someone's car. Marshall inquires after the license plate, and quickly deduces that the car belonged to the Captain. This raises all sorts of troubling questions, except for Barney, who is mostly interested in eating weird amounts of food. Wait, wasn't he suffering the world's worst hangover a couple of hours ago? So confused.

Mrs Scherbatsky has never met Barney, and is pretty curious about him. Lily gets him on the line, but he can't be interrupted during the Saltine Challenge. However, he promises to come by and meet her in a minute. Lily, Robin and Mrs Scherbatsky (I keep wanting to write "Scherbatskaya" - damn you, Russian influence!) muse on how men do really weird things when faced with the altar.

Marshall's spitting nails because he assumes that the Captain (as Barney puts it) "has moored his dinghy in Lily's lagoon". Oh, boy, more manufactured bullshit to create conflict for twenty minutes. Where's the vodka when you need it? Marshall wipes away his tears and wants to put things aside so that Barney can have a good wedding. Barney, however, is up for a challenge, so Ranjit, Billy Zabka, Barney, Ted and Marshall all drive over to the Captain's house to fuck shit up. Robin turns pale when she gets Barney's phone call (about "teaching someone some manners") and wonders if there are elk on Long Island.

We get a delightful little musical number, as apparently the Captain is straight out of Gilbert & Sullivan and addresses all his household staff in patter. However, Barney interrupts the number - and the Captain opens the door to a punch in the face from Marshall.

Robin complains that Barney is just like her dad, but Mrs Scherbatsky scoffs at the idea. Why, Robin Sr. was once engaged to marry an exotic dancer before he married Robin's mom! No way Barney would ever do that. Or dress up like a Prussian aristocrat, or always side with his mother, or hijack the rehearsal diner, or, or... When Robin's mother admits that she didn't know what her husband did for ten years, only hearing the word "Please" when she asked, Robin looks like she might faint. Lily just gratefully accepts another drink from Linus.

The Captain is gentlemanly about getting punched. We get another appearance from "Boats Boats Boats", the girl from the boat commercial a few seasons back, though Barney unhelpfully has to point out that she and Ted once knocked "boots boots boots". Marshall demands an explanation. It's revealed that Lily's mysterious phone call was to the Captain, where she went into the "powder room", stayed there for a while, and then returned to the Inn. (I've had a theory for a couple of episodes now that Lily's pregnant again - maybe the drinks are virgin, and it would make sense as to why she agreed to stay in New York - but no one listens to me.) Even the Captain is confused by this, and they have a think about it.  Despite the explanation, though, Marshall still wants to do some more punchin', and proceeds to go after the Captain while Barney eggs him on.

Over at the Inn, the bitchfest over Barney-is-basically-Robin's-Dad continues, which is dull and drawn-out and way too specific and was already done in Season 7 with "Noretta", one of the show's worst episodes. Yawn. Lily finally comes to her senses and calls Barney in. However, he's a little preoccupied, because Marshall and the Captain are staging a duel. With real swords. Oh, and the Captain is a three-time Olympic gold medalist in fencing. Lily concludes that she is "busted".

Everyone's eagerly watching the fight, but Ted notices Billy Zabka and Boats-Boats-Boats chewing gum - and hey, doesn't he remember Lily chewing gum the night before? He stops the duel, claiming to have solved the mystery. He's concluded that Lily is hiding something, though he doesn't elaborate on the details. Instead, he'll enjoy the suspense and make everyone want to kill him. He executes a Poirot-style speech, much to the group's annoyance, which details the composition of the Captain's powder room - including a potted plant with a daisy. The Captain is sent to go get it. Ted tells them that when Lily and Marshall are apart for a while, Lily always takes up smoking - but that's not true, as any discerning viewer knows from that episode with the last cigarette. Also, Lily is chewing gum, which she never does. "What never?" "Hardly ever!" is uttered by Ted and the Captain, and I squeal even though it's 3:30 AM here. She went over to the Captain's to sneak one last smoke after the fight. The cigarette was thrown into the plant. Case closed. Except when Ted digs into the plant, he finds a positive pregnancy test instead.

The story is retold, only now Lily throws up on the train, she asks for non-alcoholic drinks from Linus, she's deeply hurt by the fight and runs out to buy a test, whereupon she ends up at the Captain's. Marshall immediately heads back to the hotel. He and Lily reconcile, Barney and Mrs Scherbatsky have a great first meeting, and Marshall tells his wife that no matter what, they're going to go to Rome to pursue their dream. Out on the balcony, Robin's mom tells her that her marriage is going to be just fine.

We go ahead a year to find Lily and Marshall in Rome talking about Funyuns, a callback to Marshall's previously-demonstrated lack of Italian. Lily's dad is with him, and they all take the kids out for gelato. Marshall's mom is also there, and seems to be having an affair with Mickey. Everyone speaks fluent Italian for some reason. As an expat, I lol'd. Marshall goes over and talks to his kids - Marvin the little blond cherub, and a baby girl named Daisy.

Well, there's that storyline finished, though I'm not sure what will happen to Marshall's judgeship. Though the Robin's-Dad-is-like-Barney story was a complete wash, the Lily stuff was okay, if far-fetched (though the G&S references and Ted's Poirot act were hilarious). All in all, I'm tired of this endless stretching out of the series, and especially tired of the pointless manufactured hour-long conflicts that just fizzle out anyway. The series has three more episodes left, and well - I'm ready for it  to be done. Also - now that we know Lily and Marshall have a daughter, does this mean our theory about The Mother's death is moot? I guess we'll find out...

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