“Ring Up!” shows a bit of Ted’s desperation at finding a girlfriend while Robin discovers that her previous single status had some benefits.
“Ring Up!” mostly focuses on Robin’s story of the differences between being single and engaged to be married. Suddenly, her glamorous life of no lines to wait in, free drinks, and free rent have disappeared with her “You’re not precious” ring. I would be amiss to say that I myself am not immune to the ring, often changing my own behavior, however slightly, upon noticing such objects.
“Ring Up!” also gives us a weird short musical number in the middle of the episode, akin to last year’s “Girls vs Suits” featuring Barney. It doesn’t last long, but it does seem oddly out of place. Of course Lily quickly quips in with a comment about “birds helping you dress in the morning” as a semi-fourth wall breakdown.
Meanwhile, Ted is once again falling into his desperate ways, doing all manner of uncharacteristic things to attempt to stay with a new fling, this time unknowingly targeting Barney’s half sister Carly.
We finally get to meet the half sister Carly, mentioned back during Barney’s dinner with his recently found father. Until now, she had been away at college in the city, but it seems a chance encounter has led Ted and her to meet up. Carly epitomizes the young hipster scene in New York, which, while always a fun target to poke at, seems to be overly targeted in this episode. It’s as if the writers have had one too many run in with these whippersnappers and have some unreleased (and admittedly deserved) rage towards them.
Though incidentally, this episode merely makes me feel really old, and I’m not sure how I like that too much.
Other Observations
- Hipster-madlibs, diet of pointlessly weird combinations, and clubs located in places that no sane person would go to.
- Ted was in a bunch of layers out in the freezing January cold, yet all the hipsters around were in barely anything at all.
- Robin has never paid rent before
- Lily still has a thing for batboys, and Marshal has a thing for housewife types.
- “She doesn’t have daddy issues, she has granddaddy issues!”
Barneyisms
- Retraction five – with reversed sound “high five”
- “Be my stand in, and put your gland in.”
- “Don’t quit on a body that won’t quit.”
