Tailgate (How I Met Your Mother)

"Tailgate" is the 13th episode of the seventh season of the CBS sitcom *How I Met Your Mother*, and the 149th episode overall. It first aired on January 2, 2012. The story centers on Marshall Eriksen visiting his father’s grave on New Year’s Day 2012 to uphold their tradition of tailgating while listening to the Chicago Bears vs. Minnesota Vikings NFL game on the radio.

Marshall’s attempt at a private moment with his father is interrupted when his brothers show up with the same plan. Then, mourners from a nearby funeral gradually join the tailgate, taking advantage of the food and game. Frustrated, Marshall nearly loses his temper until someone accidentally calls him Marvin—his father’s name—and remarks that he’s just like his dad. Remembering how his father always welcomed others at past tailgates, Marshall invites his brothers to join him, deciding that private moments are overrated.

Before the cemetery scene, the episode shows what the five friends did on New Year’s Eve. Lily and Marshall are decorating the baby’s bedroom in East Meadow when Marshall learns Lily hasn’t told her father she’s pregnant. He convinces her to call her dad, who is at a board-game convention in Chicago, but Lily is disappointed by his nonchalant reaction. Marshall then tries to narrate his favorite childhood book, *Enigmas of the Mystical*, but Lily admits she can’t believe the stories. Realizing she’s upset, Marshall apologizes and explains that his father made him believe in the magical. Lily reveals her dad taught her to believe only in herself.

Meanwhile, Ted and Barney turn Ted’s apartment into an impromptu bar called “Puzzles” after getting frustrated with the New Year’s Eve crowd at MacLaren’s. They recruit Kevin to tend bar and Doug, the MacLaren’s bouncer, to handle security. They start with reasonable drink prices but are forced to raise them when rowdy patrons become hard to manage, eventually causing everyone to leave.

Robin is called into work on New Year’s Eve because anchor Sandy Rivers starts drinking on air after the female producer for World Wide News breaks up with him. He then disappears. Robin struggles to get him back on air, but close to midnight he vanishes again. She calls Kevin in despair, and he convinces her to take Sandy’s place—even though Kevin later finds a comatose Sandy in Ted’s bathtub, which he doesn’t tell Robin.