Jenkins (How I Met Your Mother)
| "Jenkins (How I Met Your Mother)" |
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"Jenkins" is the thirteenth episode of the fifth season of the CBS situation comedy How I Met Your Mother and 101st episode overall. It originally aired on January 18, 2010. The episode hit a season high with 10.52 million viewers and high overall ratings.
Plot
Future Ted discusses the three places a 30 year-old New Yorker shouldn't be caught in: New Year's Eve in Times Square, Rockefeller Center during the holiday season, and any college bar. Ted and Marshall walk into a college bar, and Ted is worried about meeting his students there. Marshall returns to the bar on a regular basis to maintain his skeeball high score.
Marshall then announces that they'll be meeting Jenkins, a co-worker, at the bar. He had told the gang a collection of hilarious stories about Jenkins, Ted imagining him as a fat funny-man. Barney then interjects with his desire to sleep with Jenkins, and Marshall has to explain that Jenkins is a woman (Amanda Peet), a fact he failed to make clear when discussing Jenkins with Lily.
The next day, Lily unexpectedly shows up for lunch with Marshall, and finds out that Jenkins is a woman. However, Lily is not at all jealous. Ted and Robin explain that it isn't Marshall's loyalty that prevents her jealousy, but that, in every relationship, there is a "reacher" (a person who reaches beyond their level of beauty), and a "settler" (a person who settles for someone below their level of beauty). Flabbergasted, Marshall forces Lily to classify herself as one or the other, and she, after much hesitation, says "settler."
In an attempt to get Lily jealous, Marshall plans to show her how Jenkins flirts with him. While inviting Jenkins to go out again, this time with Lily, she kisses him. Marshall runs home and apologizes to Lily, who jokes that she's going to go punch Jenkins in the nose, when she obviously thinks he's just lying to make her jealous. Jenkins later apologizes, saying she was drunk from a late-night drinking game (see below), and plans to apologize to Lily, which Marshall knows will prove he is not just a "reacher."
Lily calmly listens to Jenkins' apology and promptly punches her in the nose, and continues beating her up, as Future Ted mentions that Marshall never tried to make Lily jealous again.
Meanwhile, Robin encounters fans of her pre-morning news show. When she met the boys at the college bar, one of Ted's students comes over to tell her that he's a big fan of her work. Full of pride, she interrupts Ted's class the next day to loudly announce that she is the host of the show. After she leaves, the class explains that they are fans because her show comes on as their night of drinking is coming to an end, and her interjection, "but...umm" is the basis for a drinking game.
Ted and Barney test this game the next night, watching Robin's show, and get thoroughly drunk. After Robin continues to brag about her wide viewership, Ted explains the drinking game. That night, his class invites him out to join their game, but as revenge, Robin uses the phrase "but...umm" excessively, prompting the whole group to drink to dangerous excess. It is in fact this excess drunkenness which clouds Jenkins' judgment when she kisses Marshall.
During the next day's class, Robin interrupts again, startling the hungover group with a megaphone.
Music
- "Adagio for Strings" by Samuel Barber
- "Kaboom" by Ursula 1000
Continuity
- Jenkins and Marshall commiserate over his love of the Minnesota Vikings, a fact revealed in Little Minnesota.
- Ted shows that since he spent years with his "Vomit Free since '93" he now has thrown up at least twice since the start of the series.
Barney's blog
Cultural references
- When Jenkins is asking Marshall if he is a Vikings fan, concerned that she may be out to get him, he says his wife has a "very particular set of skills" in reference to Liam Neeson's character in Taken.
- "Adagio for Strings" is used as a reference to Platoon, which also uses it. It plays when Ted realizes that Robin is saying "but...umm" on purpose and he tries to stop his students from drinking. It plays again when Ted and his students suffer their painful hangover in class the next morning.