‘How I Met Your Mother’ season 9, episode 17 review: Sarah Chalke, Ashley Williams, plus surprises

You would think that “How I Met Your Mother” would follow up “How Your Mother Met Me” with something that was extremely silly, and when it comes to “Sunrise,” that was only partially the case. The Marshall storyline was basically him talking to some other past versions of Lily to resolve his relationship with her, and then you had Barney completely wasting time with some sort of random plot about teaching some other guys about his manner of living.

Then, there was Ted and Robin. Oh boy. You knew that the story was coming up eventually based on what we saw at the beginning of the season, and this is when he finally revealed to her that following the wedding, he was moving to Chicago and starting over. That was his way of getting over the fact that he had lost out in his attempt to be with his ex-girlfriend, and it was also him giving himself a license to move forward.

While he was struggling to deal with his feelings, there were some nice cameos in here from some of the former ladies in Ted’s life. Ashley Williams, Sarah Chalke, and Abby Elliott all guest-starred as Ted tried to track down the locket that he wanted to give to Robin on his wedding day.

All in all, “Sunrise” was a very solid episode of the show. The Barney story aside, there was some pretty strong movement forward on the other major stories. Marshall learned that there were more important things than winning and losing arguments (he and Lily are going to stay in New York, since they already have a kid there), while Ted learned … well, he had another moment or two of clarity. He seemed to finally let go of Robin in the closing of the episode, but who knows if that was really it. If it was, then maybe he is now finally in a place where he can meet someone else and fall in love again. Grade: B+.

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Photo: CBS