‘How I Met Your Mother’ season 9 spoilers: The art of a slap

Is there some sort of art form to the way in which slaps happen in the “How I Met Your Mother” world? Maybe when you are preparing for the biggest slap of all time, you need to have some specialized training to ensure that it is as effective as you are hoping for it to be.

That is basically what we get out of this new photo from “Slapsgiving 3,” which makes it look almost like Marshall paid a visit all the way to the Far East in order to get training, much like Batman did during his own origin story. Jason Segel’s character knows that the time to completely decimate Barney is near, and he may be hoping that it lasts for all eternity in the process..

To be honest, though, we cannot imagine there being any way that the show really manages to match all of the relentless hype and buildup that they have for this event at this point. When something has been plotted out for so long, expectations rise and rise to the point where they are almost insurmountable. There were some people who didn’t even like the “Breaking Bad” finale, which we personally felt like was one of the best things ever created for television. We almost have this same sort of feeling now about the March 31 series finale, since there has been a similar amount of buildup that has been given to that over the years.

What do you think about this photo, and just how badly are you hoping that the slap bet lives up to its literal years of buildup? Share some of your thoughts below.