Slapsgiving

"Slapsgiving"

"Slapsgiving" is the 9th episode in the third season of the television series How I Met Your Mother and 53rd overall. It originally aired on November 19, 2007.

Plot

It's the gang's first Thanksgiving with Marshall and Lilly as a married couple. Lily is freaking out over making sure it is perfect, Robin has invited her older boyfriend Bob to Thanksgiving dinner, and Marshall is psyching out Barney in the days leading up to Barney's third slap across the face from the Slap Bet. When Robin and Ted are the only two members of the group to show up to a night of baking pies, they verbalize how awkward their relationship has been since they broke up—they are not really friends and they have nothing to talk about when they are alone together. They fight, but end the night with sex.

The next day is Thanksgiving, and after Robin and Lily decide that Robin and Ted need to talk about what happened and Ted, Marshall and Barney have decided they must ignore it, Robin and Ted argue again and Lily forces them to talk it out. In the end, they decide they simply aren't friends, but over dinner they share a moment and realize that they still care about each other.

Meanwhile, a frustrated Lily had decided earlier as slap bet commissioner that there would be no slaps on Thanksgiving, but as Barney begins taunting Marshall in the last ten seconds of the countdown, Lily tells Marshall that the slap can happen, resulting in the third slap of the slap bet. Marshall then sings a special song written just for this occasion, much to everyone's (except Barney's) enjoyment.

Music

• "Flight of the Bumblebee" by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov
• "Still Alright" by Adam Merrin of The 88
• "You Just Got Slapped" by Marshall Eriksen

Continuity

• This episode marks the third out of five slaps in Marshall and Barney's slap bet over why Robin hates malls, the rules of which are laid out in "Slap Bet". The first slap also occurs in "Slap Bet", while the second takes place in "Stuff": Marshall slaps Barney during his one-man play, ending the play.
• Marshall introduced the Slap Countdown in "Wait for It", at which point there were 55 days until the next slap.
• Barney gets his fourth slap in the ninth episode of season 5, "Slapsgiving 2: Revenge of the Slap", originally aired on November 23, 2009.
• Ted and Robin's smoking histories are hinted at in this episode, as they both carry cigarette lighters.

Errors

• The first slap depicted in the slap flashback refers to the first slap delivered by Marshall in the episode "Slap Bet", but is not the first of the "5 slaps for eternity" agreement struck at the end of the episode. The slap that should be shown occurred when the group first watches the Robin Sparkles video, at the very end of the episode.
• In the episode "Slap Bet" the only real rule was "No rings", however, Marshall slaps Barney with his left hand, which seconds later is shown to hold his wedding ring.

Cultural references

• When Ted wanted to speak about piercing, he changed the topic that 'Pierce Brosnan is his favorite Bond actor' (He played this character in GoldeEye and Night Watch episodes).

Critical response

Donna Bowman of The AV Club rated the episode B.

Eric Goldman of IGN gave the episode 8.5 out of 10. He describes the slap bet as one of the funniest running jokes of the series. Goldman was also impressed by how well Neil Patrick Harris took the punch describing it as "like Biff Tannen taking a punch from George McFly".

Entertainment Weekly put it on its end-of-the-decade, "best-of" list, saying, "After winning permission to slap Barney in a bet, Marshall renames Turkey Day in 2007. Slapstick ensues, setting the stage for "Slapsgiving 2" in 2009. Did we mention it's a real knee-slapper?"

External links

• Template:Tv.com
• Slapsgiving at IMDb