Little Boys

"Little Boys" is the fourth episode in the third season of the television series How I Met Your Mother and 48th overall. It originally aired on October 15, 2007.

"Little Boys"
How I Met Your Mother episode
Episode no.Season 3
Episode 4
Directed byRob Greenberg
Written byKourtney Kang
Cinematography byChristian La Fountaine
Production code3ALH03
Original air dateOctober 15, 2007
Guest appearance(s)

Plot

Lily tells Robin she will set her up on a date with a guy named George. After she lists his good qualities, Ted points out that she has not mentioned his flaw (or as the gang call it, his "but...") though when pushed, Lily reveals that George has a son in her kindergarten class. Despite Robin's personal dislike of children, she goes on a date with George and ends up meeting his son, Doug.

After some initial hesitance and an argument about how cereal should be served, Robin and Doug actually hit it off. However, when Robin decides to break up with George before Doug becomes attached to her, Lily shows Robin a picture that Doug has drawn of his "new mommy". Despite Robin claiming otherwise, everyone else believes the woman in the picture is Robin. Lily informs Robin that if she breaks up with George, she must break up with Doug as well – Robin reluctantly agrees.

Meanwhile, Ted ridicules Barney's latest pick-up plan (a story involving snakes and an eye-patch) and the two argue about who has more "game", while, to his dismay, Marshall is classed as irrelevant. To settle the argument, Ted and Barney select a girl from the bar to see who can sleep with her first. While Ted is distracted Barney makes his move, only to be slapped in the face. Barney explains this is because he had already slept with the girl the year before and therefore, has won the bet, but Ted rules otherwise and begins his pick-up attempt and succeeds.

Ted and Stacey, the girl from the bar, have begun dating so he gloats to Barney about winning the bet. However, Barney makes Ted uncomfortable with thoughts that Barney has already been with Stacey and Ted breaks up with Stacey, admitting to Barney and Marshall that he was unable to get past the thought of her and Barney together. Barney reveals that he had not slept with Stacey at all; on the night of the bet, he asked Stacey to slap him to make it appear as though she hated him to set up the entire ruse that they had slept together. As Ted gloated his dates with Stacey, Barney learned various details about Stacey's life so that he could be there for her when she broke up with Ted. However, one month later, he finds himself bored and frustrated for agreeing to Stacey's request to take things slowly since her experience with Ted.

Robin goes to see Doug and takes advantage of the fact that he has never been dumped before by using "every cliché in the book" but she is interrupted by the arrival of George's new girlfriend, Brooke, whom she realises is actually the woman in Doug's drawing. Lily tries to comfort Robin after her breakup, but cannot believe she was dumped by a six-year-old. Robin claims she is done with kids but Future Ted narrates that she would eventually make her peace with kids and go on to appear in some important works of art – pictures drawn by his kids of themselves with "Aunt Robin".

Critical response

Donna Bowman of The A.V. Club rated the episode C−. She complained the episode had a Friends-esque pair of premise and is "executed with a tin ear and slack discipline"[1] a criticism she even reiterated the following week.[2]

Staci Krause of IGN gave the episode 8.5 out of 10.[3]

Omar G of Television Without Pity gave an episode a B rating.[4]

gollark: #10 is of course fairly beeoidal, as ever, but you don't actually care about my opinion on it.
gollark: I would hope you don't actually combine the no-english with the claimed stricter enforcement, given that people like discussing Toki Pona and such.
gollark: Ubq apparently considers it quite funny that it has specific examples for advertising but not inciting racial hatred or something.
gollark: Having an overly broad harshly punished rule and then selectively enforcing it is worse than a narrower rule which might not cover some cases, except we have never actually had advertising issues not covered already.
gollark: This is excessive though.

References
  1. Donna Bowman (November 15, 2007). "How I Met Your Mother "Little Boys"". The A.V. Club. The Onion. Retrieved December 20, 2017.
  2. Donna Bowman (November 22, 2007). "How I Met Your Mother "How I Met Everyone Else"". The A.V. Club. The Onion. Retrieved December 20, 2017. The team was responsible for some of the best episodes of the first and second seasons, but also for last week's limp, tin-eared "Little Boys".
  3. Staci Krause (October 16, 2007). "How I Met Your Mother: "Little Boys" Review. Robin gets her heart broke and Barney shows 'game'". IGN. News Corporation. Archived from the original on December 29, 2010. Retrieved April 4, 2010.
  4. Omar G (October 14, 2007). "How I Met Your Mother: Little Boys". Television Without Pity. NBCUniversal. Retrieved December 20, 2017.
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