How I Met Your Mother S08E17 – The Ashtray

When Ted receives an unexpected call from The Captain, the gang reminisces about their last awkward encounter with him.



While the guys are hanging out at his apartment, Ted notices that he has a message from The Captain on his answering machine, asking him to call him back when he is free. Ted thinks that The Captain is mad, and it has to do with the last time he saw him which was a year and a half ago. He tells Marshall and Barney what happened that time.

A few weeks after he and Zoey broke up, Ted got back together with Becky. Lily had invited him and Robin at an art gallery opening, which The Captain was also attending. When The Captain approached them, he started behaving rudely by interrupting Ted to complete his sentences. The Captain introduces his art consultant Shelly. After Shelly left, The Captain invited them to his apartment to see a painting he had just bought. At The captain's apartment, thinking that he is still mad at Ted for dating Zoey, Ted begins to clarify himself, but The Captain took out a harpoon gun and pointed at at him. However, Ted told him that nothing happened between him and Zoey until after she and The Captain had split up, and took the gun from him. However, The Captain told him that he is not mad at him anymore and that he is in love with someone else. Jokingly, he asked Ted not to steal this one from him. After everyone one had left the room, Ted looked at the picture of the thing that The Captain had said was his love, and was shocked to see that it was Becky's.

Just as Ted finishes telling the story, he gets a call from The Captain who asks him for Robin's number. Ted talks to the guys if he should give it to him. Marshall tells him to give it; if The Captain wants to hook up with Robin, she will let him down easy and Ted be on The Captain's good side. Barney agrees to this, saying that Robin won't mind.

At the bar, Robin is mad at Ted for giving her number to The Captain. She says that Ted probably doesn't remember the night when they met The Captain at the art show that well as he had shared "a sandwich" with Becky earlier that night. Robin tells the guys what happened at that night.

At the gallery opening, The Captain was shamelessly flirting with her, making her feel uncomfortable. At The Captain's apartment, when she went into his Room, she saw him lying on his bed, waiting for her. However, seeing as The Captain was on a rebound, she told him to take some time to pull himself together and call her in a year and a half. She also says that Ted told the story inaccurately; The Captain was only completing his sentences because he was too high to finish them and that he didn't point a gun at him but only had a remote in his hand.

Marshall advises her that she should call The Captain and let him down easy so he can move on with his life. Robin calls him, telling him that she is engaged. However, The Captain says that he actually looking for Lily, and had gotten her and Robin's name mixed up. She asks Marshall who tells her to give Lily's number to The Captain, saying that she won't mind.

At the apartment, it turns out that Lily does mind that they gave The Captain her number. She says that her past has finally caught up with her and explains what she means.

Before the gallery opening, Robin had shots with her coworkers after a meeting at work and was drunk, and she was the one flirting with The Captain. Lily complemented the painting of an elephant which resulted in Shelly, The Captain's art consultant, questioning her taste in art. Seeing Lily's interest in art, The Captain invited them to see the painting he bought. Lily told The Captain that she thinks the elephant painting would look nice in his room and she likes it better than the one The Captain bought. However, The Captain says that it doesn't matter what she likes as she is "just a kindergarten teacher". As The Captain was being a jerk, she decided to punish him and stole an expensive ashtray from his apartment. Lily also says that the picture Ted saw was actually of magazine cover with a boat on it and there was just a small picture of Becky in the corner.

Marshall is shocked that Lily took the ashtray and asks the others to leave them alone as they are going to have a fight. He asks Lily to return the ashtray, but Lily tells him that all her rulings are final and she is not taking the ashtray back. Marshall asks her why does it bother her so much that The Captain told her that he is "just a kindergarten teacher". Lily says that he was right; she IS "just a kindergarten teacher". Although she has a degree in Art History and she was meant to do something with it, she didn't. She forgot to pursue her dream and now she is old and a mom and it's just too late for her. Marshall tells her that it is not too late; she is going to quit her job and she is going to pursue her dreams. He promises her that her best days are ahead of her but she says that there comes a point in life where that stops being true. She apologizes to him for stealing that ashtray and tells him that she will return it.

The next day, Lily goes to The Captain's apartment to return the ashtray but The Captain says that he didn't even realize it was missing. He takes Lily to his room and she is surprised to see the elephant painting hanging there. He tells her that he bought it the night of the gallery opening as he liked what she said about it. He tells her that he just sold it for four million dollars. In the year and a half since he bought it, the artist has become famous in the art world and she was the only one who saw it coming. He tells her that he wants to get back in the art game and offers her a job as his art consultant. At the bar, Lily tells the gang that she said yes to The Captain's job offer and they all celebrate.

Meanwhile, Barney keeps interrupting Ted, Lily and Robin when they are telling their versions of the story, saying that he was at the gallery opening. When this gets out of hand, Ted asks him why is it so important that he be part of the story. Barney says that crazy stories are "his thing". The others have a passion that drives them and his passion is taking life and turning it into a series of crazy stories and if they can do that without him then he doesn't know who he is anymore. To make Barney feel better, Ted and Robin say that they Barney was have been at the gallery opening and they just didn't notice him because he was in disguise doing one of his plays that had something to with art on Shelly. Barney says that his play worked on Shelly.

In the end, Barney is shown doing his play "The Royal Archduke of Grand Fenwick" to hook up with Shelly, meaning that he actually might have been at the gallery opening.

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