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The funny as hell sitcom came back with another episode, in this case when Ted’s new friendship with Zoey tests the theory that men and married women can’t be friends, he invites her husband, “The Captain,” to hang out with them. Meanwhile, Marshall and Robin decide to spend alone time together.
Best Quotes from How I Met Your Mother S06 E11 – The Mermaid Theory
Marshall: I know what´s so creepy about the captain
Marshall: He hates that he loves them
Barney: Rule number one: Don´t use the husband condoms. That´s rude
Lily: The most important rule of all
Barney
: Lubricant is public property
Robin: Right Marsh Madness?
Marshall: No doubt Robo Cop
Ted: I was pretty sure I was going to die that night
Barney: Hey, who is the Eye Brocoli?
Barney: Sure, you see Iris as a Manati now. But her mermaid clock is
starting to tick.
Ted: Ok you gotta swim for it Mosby
Barney: If a baby is on board, that train is back to Manati City, where the grass is green and the girls ain´t pretty
Recap of How I Met Your Mother S06 E11 – The Mermaid Theory
Recap by Werewolfbarmitzvah
Zoey is firmly entrenched in the group now, and The Captain drops her off at the apartment. They were trying to figure out what’s so creepy about The Captain. Marshall figured out that the bottom half of The Captain’s face was smiling and happy, but the top half wants to murder you. Marshall demonstrates this theory with a very large photo of The Captain’s face.
Zoey wants to go to a Frank Lloyd Wright retrospective and no one else wants to go. This opens a can of worms and Lily starts to lay out the rules of a single guy hanging out with a married woman. She gets to Rule #1, but Barney interrupts by saying, “Don’t use the husband’s condoms — that’s just rude.” Lily continues, “Don’t go anywhere that has candles.” Rule #2: No sharing food — and this extends to anything involving shared saliva. And, finally, “no lying to the spouse about anything you do.”
Marshall admits it’s hard to be friends with a single person of the opposite sex, unless you’re old friends. He and Robin decide to hang out after they realize they don’t hang out together alone very much. Lily gives the OK, “but no candles.” Barney asks Lily if she wants to hang out and Lily says, “Nah!” Barney is deeply offended, but Old Ted has trouble remembering exactly what Lily said to him. (He thinks she called him an “octopus face,” but that doesn’t seem to make any sense).
The next night, Ted admits something weird happened with Zoey. She told The Captain she was “out with friends” when she was alone with Ted. She asks if that was OK and Ted said it was alright. But the gang doesn’t think it was OK. Ted asks if he has to stop hanging out with Zoey. Lily says he just has to spend time with both of them together.
Robin and Marshall go on their dinner night and realize they have nothing to talk about. They quickly exhaust the topics of cold weather, sports and cold-weather sports. They have inner-monologues about how awkward the moment has become. At the bar, Barney is still mad about “something” (Old Ted can’t remember). But, wait, it isn’t in the bar, they’re outside and Lily saves Barney from a passing motorcycle. Barney seems ready to end their fight, but Lily stops Old Ted from getting to the happy ending and Lily gets one more shot in.
Ted and The Captain set sail, but Zoey can’t be there. It’s just Ted, The Captain and six hours in frigid international waters. Ted is pretty sure he’s going to die.
Marshall and Robin suffer through some more awkward conversation when they finally talk about it. Marshall says they haven’t spent a lot of time alone together because of “The Mermaid Theory.” He remembers when Barney explained to him how the myth of mermaids came to by. The more desperate sailors got out at sea, they started to envision manatees as half-fish, half-women. Barney said Marshall’s unattractive secretary’s mermaid clock was just about to begin.
“It took one year, three months and 16 days, but eventually…” Marshall explains, as we see him walk in to see his beautiful mermaid of a secretary. Marshall tells Robin that, as Lily’s best friend she’s not allowed to turn into a mermaid. Ever. He tells her she’s a “big-time manatee.”
Meanwhile, out at sea, The Captain marvels at how isolated he and Ted are. He mentions that someone could scream for help and not be heard. Finally, The Captain brings up Zoey. Ted’s sure, again, he’s going to die.
Old Ted is piecing together his memory of the Barney and Lily story, thinking that Barney cried because Lily called him fat. But that isn’t right, and he remembers it was actually Lily who was upset and offended by Barney calling her fat. Then Barney shows LIly and magic trick by making a bottle of beer hover in front of her in mid air. Old Ted realizes this doesn’t make sense, either, and gives up on the story, admitting to the kids that he will never remember it. “I’m sorry for wasting your time,” he says.
At sea, Ted is trying to make a quick cell phone call when The Captain accidentally knocks his phone out of his hand and overboard. The Captain goes into graphic detail about how the chill and pressure of the deep ocean is ravaging the remains of Ted’s cell phone. The Captain goes below deck to get something special for Ted and Ted begins to consider swimming for his life. When The Captain emerges with a bottle of scotch (because Zoey mentioned Ted was a scotch drinker), Ted realizes he’s safe. But just when he relaxes, the boat hits a bump and Ted falls overboard.
Robin asks Marshall if it’s possible to un-mermaid a woman. He says yes, but it’s only if the mermaid gets pregnant, according to Barney’s rule. That’s when Old Ted remembers why Lily was upset with Barney — but it wasn’t at the same time. It was a couple of years later, when Lily was pregnant and Barney called her a manatee, then saved her from a motorcycle, then balanced a beer bottle on her pregnant belly. He tells Lily that she can become a mermaid again when she breast feeds. “When those things swell up to three times their normal size, so do I,” he says. Lily thinks it’s sweet, and they hug. That’s when Ted walks into the bar in a green dress and says, “OK, now we’re even!”
Old Ted tells us and the kids that’s the ending to whole other story. “We’ll get there,” he says.
Ted is back in the boat, shivering, and admitting to The Captain that he was worried he’d be killed. The Captain jokes that if he wanted to kill Ted he would have taken him to his hunting lodge, which is far more remote. He says he jokes because he doesn’t usually get along well with Zoey’s younger friends, but because Zoey likes Ted he wants to be buddies, too. Ted agrees, “just not on a boat.” “The hunting lodge it is, then,” The Captain replies.
Marshall and Robin, both drunk, get home from their night home and seem relieved that the awkwardness faded once they stopped trying so hard. Marshall worries, though, that Robin is turning into a mermaid in front of his eyes. She’s still a manatee, but she had a blond wig on, and a seashell bra. And just when Marshall gets really nervous, Robin pukes on his shoes. She’s suddenly just a disgusting manatee again, which is just fine with Marshall, who never worried about Robin turning into a mermaid again.
Zoey meets Ted at the bar and admits she wasn’t really sick for the boat trip. She says she thought it would be good for them to spend some time together. They agree that if either of them starts having feelings for the other, they shouldn’t hang out anymore. They agree that neither of them has such feelings. And the clock starts ticking.
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