Farhampton

Plot

Sitting alone at a train station in Farhampton ten hours after Barney and Robin's wedding, Ted recounts recent events to a nearby older woman. Earlier, Robin asked to see Ted before the ceremonies, inquiring about Barney's state. Ted assured her Barney was fully committed, even as Barney tried to flee with Marshall and Lily restraining him. Robin confessed she was not ready to marry and wondered if she could escape through a window.

Ted then narrated how he and Victoria fared at her own wedding. In a flashback to May 2012, Ted drove with Victoria, who had forgotten to leave her fiancé Klaus a note about running away. Ted forced her to write one and returned to the church—the same venue as Barney and Robin's wedding—to leave it. He encountered Klaus's sister Uta, whom Barney distracted with phone sex, allowing Ted to deposit the note.

After forgetting his car keys in the bride's room, Ted saw Klaus also escaping to the Farhampton train station, giving Victoria an alibi. Meanwhile, exhausted Marshall and Lily struggled to soothe their newborn son Marvin, misinterpreting conversations with Barney, Quinn, and Robin. Robin and Lily agreed to be Quinn's bridesmaids, but Robin worried about awkwardness due to her history with Barney. Barney revealed he had doctored or purged mementos of his relationship with Robin to avoid Quinn's jealousy.

Lily accidentally disclosed that Barney once dated Robin. An angry Quinn demanded Barney explain everything in under a minute, which he did in 52 seconds. Quinn nearly left until Robin assured her she was seeing someone else. After meeting Robin's boyfriend Nick at MacLaren's, Quinn allowed the arrangement. Barney then gave Robin a key to a storage unit where he had kept all the mementos intact.

Critical reception

Donna Bowman of The A.V. Club gave the episode a B, stating that the comedy did not suffer from the many mother-related threads needing attention. Max Nicholson at IGN rated it 6/10, writing that it lacked the classic elements that once made the show great. Angel Cohn of Television Without Pity graded it a D+, calling it a shitty story with random non-sequiturs, though he noted the countdown clock when Quinn gave Barney a chance to explain himself as the only redeeming element.