‘How I Met Your Mother’ season 9, episode 5 review: Anyone else catch the Slutty Pumpkin?

The poker game – That is the title of this “How I Met Your Mother” season 9 episode, and this was also the setting of almost every major event that happened. For Barney and Robin, it became an issue all about control, and trying to figure out whether or not he should fully be on her team.

At first, it felt like Barney had learned some sort of valuable lesson about being on the same side as his wife, but then he somehow interpreted the two standing up for each other after fighting back against his brother as deciding that they were all “dead to him” over some really small things. This is shaping up to be a disaster for next week’s episode, and a possible way to get both James and his mother to leave before the wedding even happens.

The season of giving – The other story (still sadly, no mother) took place almost entirely in the past, as the mystery started to surface about whether or not Ted actually gave Marshall and Lily a wedding gift so many years ago. It was a pretty useless storyline and an excuse to fill time, but we cannot complain too much about what was a pretty sweet ending to it. Marshall realized in the end that Ted had given him a gift, and he had also received another one in the form of a pizza on the road. This story ended up serving as validation that Ted is probably the best friend ever, and it’s too bad that he’s fictional for that reason.

So in the middle of an episode with very little purpose to it at all, what we actually ended up appreciating here the most was a lovely little callback to the Slutty Pumpkin during one of the flashback scenes. Was this footage filmed back when she last appeared? Or was this just a quick little cameo? If it’s the latter, then we have to give some props to Katie Holmes for finding a way to come in for a spot with nobody finding out about it. Regardless of whether or not it was Katie in the scene (hard to tell), just getting the character in the scene was pretty cool.

What did you think about this “How I Met Your Mother” episode? Click here if you want to read some more news about a major mystery guest star that is coming on board the show.

Photo: CBS