Sigh. Take a drink. (Thank you, Linus.) Let's get on with this.

Okay, we're one hour closer to the wedding. Barney has a great plan for his wedding weekend - get Ted laid. Only it has to be the right girl, otherwise he'll be mopey and celibate the rest of the weekend. He uses "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade" as an analogy. Ted will pick the wrong cup and explode, while Barney will pick the right cup - his bride, I guess - and have an epic dance/beach party. Excellent, this is the Barnacle we know and love.

With Robin's help, he has lovingly selected the top candidates for Ted's hookup. Either it's Robin's noisy college roommate, Barney's mom's friend's daughter who is a former gymnast, and Barney's horny coworker. With trepidation, Ted approaches the roommate - but is interrupted by a new conquest, "Cassie", who is giggly and cute and played by Anna Camp. However, the knight dude from Barney's Indiana Jones fantasy shows up to tell him it's a mistake. What, is he some kind of mystical STD detector or something? Opening credits.

Barney and Robin point out their minister, who scares the crap out of Lily. This feeling apparently has merit, because the first thing he says is a comment on Lily "dressing like a whore". This is ridiculous - she looks professional yet sexy. Say, why are Swarkles being married by a minister, anyway? They don't seem to be religious, neither do their families, and it's not like they're desperate to be married in a church or anything. Just seems kind of odd. Anyway, the minister is a bastard and hellish adventures will soon begin.

We cut to Marshall and Daphne, who are somewhere between Chicago and New York. They discuss Marshall's impending judgeship. He's convinced he can tell Lily without pissing her off. Daphne thinks he's an idiot. Considering that Marshall is exhausted and has almost totally lost his marbles, yeah, she's right.

Cassie tells Ted she doesn't want to do the whole "meaningless wedding hookup" routine - they'll switch it up and have sex first, then try to flirt a little after. She then gets a phone call telling her that she's fired, and all her co-workers and students hate her. (As a teacher trying to settle into my first job, this hits a little too close to home for me. Another drink!) The "You Chose Poorly" guy comes back to haunt Ted. Nonetheless, he still tries to comfort her. That is, comfort the pants off her. It doesn't work.

Lily approaches Barney and Robin with a confession: she told the minister the story of how she and Marshall met. She needed help fixing her stereo, he was right down the dorm room hall, it was adorable. We heard this way back when, but I can't even remember which season(s) so it was probably time for a recap. Anyway, how is this a problem? Weeeellll, Robin and Barney told him the same story. About them. Yeah, they made up their own romantic history to look better. That is just stupid. Of all the people who should be confident in themselves and their love story, it's these two. They just ooze DGAF-ness. But yeah, they lied to him so that they could present the perfect love story and get married in his cute little church. (Yup, it was the church that sucked 'em in. Just ask my dad, the archbishop - there are tons of people who marry in our local cathedral because it's purdy.) Furthermore, I really don't see Robin as going all Bridezilla-y, or Barney caring that much. The whole wedding planning stuff just seems...off.

Anyway, the minister is a draconian bastard with a never-ending list of requirements. He especially hates drinking skanks from Manhattan. So they made up a cover story. Ehhh. I just don't buy it. The Barney and Robin from the early show would have said "Fuck 'em" and gotten married somewhere zany instead.

Barney claims they "had to" lie in order to get this dumb church, and now the wedding will be cancelled and All is Lost. Lily says that's ridiculous...but the minister calls them away abruptly.

Meanwhile, Cassie has just lost her job, her car, her boyfriend all her stuff, and is coming down with the flu. Ted is sincerely second-guessing his decision to hook up with her, especially when she starts banging her head on the table. He decides he'll bail and look for Sophia - after one more drink with Cassie. They go into the dining room, where they find - uh-oh - Cassie's parents!

Daphne tells Marshall to be tough. He's of course, still a "Marshmallow" as always. They practice Marshall's "We're not going to Italy" speech in the car. However, Marshall sucks at it. Daphne continues with the pointers. We get a hilarious video of Sherri Shepherd's voice dubbed over Alyson Hannigan footage. Seriously, it makes me giggle. Unfortunately, this does not improve Marshall's performance. Daphne persists, making him start over each time he makes a mistake. The Lily-video continues. It's creepy and funny all at once. "What the damn hell?!"

Okay, maybe you had to be there.

The minister tells Barney and Robin that he's horrified...because their maid of honor just stole their love story. (Side note - isn't Lily a matron of honor? She's married, after all. Not that it matters, just curious.) Of course, Robin and Barney immediately throw their friend under the bus, declaring her a "lying little tart" and implying that she's into drugs. Stay classy, guys!

The minister then accosts Lily, telling her what a jerk she is. It turns out B&R have stolen even more of the story, right down to "Barnmallow" and "Robinpad" (which doesn't even make sense). Lily is taken aback, to say the least. However, as Lily is a true friend, she goes along with the story - only to mention that she and Marshall met because Ted was in love with her, and eventually they split up after Ted made it rain. Yes, she pulled a Barney and Robin on Barney and Robin, and How I Met Your Mother turns into How I Seduced Lily. Lily makes a terrifying Robin, but Marshall is not half-bad as Barney. I'd hang out with him. During the course of this tale, Lily convinces the minister that Barney and Robin stole the story. Because they broke the Ninth Commandment (which, contrary to Barney's beliefs, is not "no fat chicks"), they are banned from the church and the wedding is off.

Ted is finishing up a disastrous dinner with Cassie and her parents. The woman cries the entire bloody time. I don't blame him one bit. Should have gone with the horny coworker. However, her parents are just as wise to their daughter's bullshit and quickly leave. Ted has no excuse to ditch the crying girl. The knight is laughing at him.

More Lilyphne and Marshall roleplay. They test out different scenarios. Marshall fails every time. "What the damn hell?!" appears again.

Barney and Robin go to the minister, begging for forgiveness. They come (sort of) clean about their past. However, in a beautiful example of Christian kindness, the minister kicks them out of the church and demands they find a new officiant. If he were real he would so have a thread on FJ. Needless to say, this is not a Thing in your average church.

Ted is bitching to himself, when he is stuck with the evening's bill. Insult to injury. Just then, Cassie returns and tells him how lucky she is to have him. He's about to ditch, but she suggests sex and he just cain't say no. As they head upstairs, they run into Sophia (Robin's old roommate), who is dating...Cassie's ex-boyfriend. Who has just been informed by Cassie's parents that Ted is her current boyfriend. Cassie tries to play it off, but her constant crying gives her away. Ted uses the opportunity to try to hit on Sophia, but just invokes the wrath of everyone involved. 

Daphne finally reveals why she's been so invested in Marshall's career change - she went through a similar situation with her then-husband, and it was hell. Now, however, she finally has the strength to do good in this world. For the purposes of this recap, I'm going to pretend her ex-husband was Tracy Jordan and she just had to change her name to hide from NBC or something.

All joking outside, I like her speech, and Shepherd performs it well. A spouse (of either gender) does deserve consideration, guys! Unfortunately, Daphne's work is antithetical to Marshall's - while he's an environmental lawyer, she's a lobbyist for Big Oil. What the damn hell, indeed.

Robin and Barney plead with the minister some more, but he's having none of it, since they're both filthy liars. They realize that yes, it is better to tell the truth - and finally embrace their weird past. They go into a ton of detail in the process, of course, which traumatizes the minister. Especially when they get to the part about having sex in the minister's office, on the desk...and just like that, the minister keels over dead.

Yeah, he pulled an Ida Blankenship. Far from being thrilled at the chance to turn his wedding into Weekend at Bernie's, Barney is stunned. They caused a lot of trouble by getting together, but damn, up until now they've never actually killed anyone. 

Ted and Cassie are getting physical, but she keeps crying. It's actually some of the most hilariously incompetent dirty talk I've ever heard. Anna Camp kills it. Desperate to escape, Ted gets her to admit that she's not up to it, and they stop the proceedings. She gives him her blessing to "go have fun", though he is a bit peeved at missing out on all the crazy stuff she promised. When he gets downstairs, though, Lily happily congratulates him on finding someone. Apparently, everyone thinks they got together, and really got together, not just wedding-shag got together. However, all is not lost - Horny Coworker (Grace) arrives late, having heard none of the gossip, and is happy to have a drink with him.

Barney and Robin tell Ted about the minister's death. They have the church, but no officiant. Wedding At Bernie's is brought up (yeah, you knew that would happen), but Robin vetoes. Ted decides to make a toast to the deceased clergyman, against the knight's warnings. Cassie walks in at that moment to find out that the minister - or as she calls him, "Uncle Robert" - has gone to that third-season sitcom in the sky. The entire room stares in horror, Cassie cries, and Grace gives Ted a "no way" look. He accepts defeat and leaves. We get a Bob Saget narration about how if he hadn't met Cassie and destroyed her weekend, he would have undoubtedly hooked up with a filthy, filthy young lady - and of course, never met The Mother. I just wonder who will foot the therapy bills once Ted's kids have heard all this.

Marshall admits that Daphne was right about how to tell Lily. That's when Daphne admits something terrible - she texted Lily a while ago to tell her the news herself. WOW. Way overstepping bounds, lady! That is maybe one of the worst things someone's done on this show, and we're talking about a show that has Barney as a breakout character. The phone rings. Marshall stares in horror. End credits. Everyone on this show is stupid.

For all my griping about this season, I'm starting to settle into the routine. Sure, this episode had dumb moments (read: everything involving the minister up until he died), but overall it worked. There were some good laughs, and it felt like it captured the soul of HIMYM. Maybe the season needed to find its feet, just like we did.

Next week is supposedly a Halloween episode, though I'm not sure how they're going to pull it off when they're still waiting for the wedding (or Slapsgiving, which yes, is apparently happening soon even though it's May in the show). Flashback? Hallucination? Either way, I really hope we get to leave that fucking hotel. Until next time, kids...

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