Rebooting How I Met Your Mother for the 2020-2021 Network TV Season
by Chris Vanjonack
After Carmen Maria Machado
“Pilot”: Having weathered the traumatic events of the last six months together, Marshall proposes to his longtime girlfriend, Lily, prompting his best friend and roommate, Ted, to renew his quest to find “the one,” or, at least, a warm body with whom to pass the days until the pandemic is over. Ted solicits their friend Barney — a serial philanderer — to be his wingman at the patio of their neighborhood bar, where they meet Robin, a local news anchor. Although they share an instant attraction, Robin declines Ted’s invitation to go back to his apartment, expressing concern that he’s not taking social distancing seriously enough.
“Purple Giraffe”: Ted attempts to repair his situation with Robin by doubling down on precautionary measures. She’s impressed when he introduces her to his friends over a Zoom happy hour, but his plan backfires when she discovers that he’s been hoarding N-95 masks. Marshall tries to write an important paper for law school, but is distracted by the sound of Lily crying one room over. He feels awful; he’d hoped the glow of their engagement would last longer. Meanwhile, Barney attempts to end a relationship he unknowingly started with a cop.
“Sweet Taste of Liberty”: Hoping to forget about Robin, Ted joins Barney for an impulsive trip to Philadelphia, but experiences shame when he’s seated next to someone on the Amtrak who lost their father to COVID-19. Cooped up in her one-bedroom apartment, Robin regrets having adopted five dogs: she’s always known that they were needy, but now that she records her newscasts from home, she sees that they are always barking, always howling. She wishes she could give them more space, more attention, more love, and she feels exasperated and exhausted, guilty.
“Return of the Shirt”: Ted’s continued search for someone — anyone — leads him to reach out to ex-girlfriends in hopes of rekindling an old flame, but he is disappointed to learn that each of them have already reconnected with a previous partner towards the start of the pandemic. Meanwhile, Barney dares Robin to slip misleading information about COVID-19 into her newscasts. Ratings skyrocket, and Robin wonders if something is broken inside of her.
“Okay Awesome”: Marshall and Lily host a fancy wine and cheese Zoom party on the same night that Robin hosts an informal virtual happy hour, and Ted agonizes over which to attend before opting instead to spend the night masturbating. After a recent sexual partner tests positive for COVID-19, Barney is so shaken that he turns down casual sex for the first time in his life. He takes a walk alone that night instead, tries to smile through his mask at his neighbors. He doesn’t know their names, he realizes, and he wonders what that says about him, that he never bothered to learn a thing like that.
“Slutty Pumpkin”: Marshall and Lily are excited to participate in a couples’ costume contest at the neighborhood bar, but their plans are thwarted when Robin reminds them that just because Halloween is on a Saturday doesn’t mean that the pandemic is over. “Do you want to watch a scary movie instead?” Marshall asks, but Lily tells him that she’s tired. “It’s 6:00 PM,” Marshall says, and Lily shuts the bedroom door behind her. Meanwhile, Ted makes his annual visit to the rooftop Halloween party in search of a woman in a pumpkin costume who he met several years ago, but of course the rooftop is empty. Ted sighs, looks out over the city, and wonders how many connections this pandemic has robbed him of, how many love stories.
“Matchmaker”: On election night, Robin directs Ted to a new dating app, but he’s too anxious to respond to any messages across the uncertain days that follow. After the race is called, Lily is surprised to discover that her despair has only intensified: the authoritarian threat has been neutralized, but the virus remains, and so too do her feelings of emptiness. Her engagement hasn’t helped; Trump’s defeat hasn’t helped. She worries that nothing will.
“The Duel”: Robin’s voice goes out from screaming at her dogs to stop barking. Ted compares his loneliness to a black hole. Barney wakes up in a cold sweat to the sound of sirens.
“Belly Full of Turkey”: Robin and Ted are surprised to learn that Barney volunteers at their local food bank. “It’s the least I can do,” he tells them, holding back tears. “This winter is going to be so bleak, so awful.” He asks if they can form a pod together, the five of them, and when they accept, Barney embraces his friends for the first time in months.
“The Pineapple Incident”: Lily plans a romantic dinner at home to celebrate Marshall having finished law school, and it should feel joyous, intimate, but they burn through conversation quickly and eat the remainder of the meal in silence. After waking up to a sprained ankle, a burnt jacket, a woman in his bed, and a pineapple in his room, Ted self-isolates for fourteen days.
“The Limo”: On New Year’s Eve, everyone fantasizes about post-pandemic NYE plans. Ted hopes to kiss Robin at midnight, but he changes his mind after she drunkenly confesses that she released her dogs into the streets of Brooklyn. “You don’t understand,” she says. “I had to.” The others console her and silently agree to never speak of this again.
“The Wedding”: Ted knows he should be overjoyed when Robin agrees to be his date to a friend’s Zoom wedding, but it all feels wrong somehow. He doesn’t think he’ll ever be able to look at her the way he used to.
“Drumroll, Please”: After the ceremony, Ted shuts his laptop and Robin puts her hand on his back. “That was really nice,” she says, and he fakes a smile.
“Zip, Zip, Zip”: Marshall and Lily wonder if their relationship has nearly run out of milestones, if their relationship has run out of passion, if they will ever travel again, if they will ever hug their families again, if this will ever be over, oh God, oh God, if this will ever be over.
“Game Night”: After Ted accidentally invites one of Barney’s old flames to a virtual game night, Barney reflects on his past relationships with women. It’s been four months since he’s been intimate with anyone, and he resolves to never again take the company of another person for granted. Barney psyches himself up to apologize to his ex, but it ends up being a non-issue once Ted’s game night is cancelled due to lack of interest.
“Cupcake”: As a little treat to herself, Lily attempts to order a cupcake from her favorite bakery, but is disappointed to learn that it went out of business months ago. She’s been trying so hard to find joy in the little things, to be grateful, but every day comes another blow, and every day she feels Marshall slipping further from her. Meanwhile, Ted runs out of things to masturbate to.
“Life Among the Gorillas”: Barney attempts to disguise himself as an old man to secure early access to the vaccine, but he stops once he catches himself in the mirror. “What’s wrong with me?” he asks, staring at his reflection. Meanwhile, Marshall and Lily argue over his new job at Barney’s firm, which Lily alleges is unsafe because he’ll have to work in person. Marshall tells her that he doesn’t give a shit if it’s safe or not; he’s sick of this apartment, of these walls. “It’s been a year,” he screams. “And nothing makes you happy. I don’t give a fuck what happens to us anymore.” Lily’s face crumbles. “Oh, God, I didn’t—” he says. “Lily, I didn’t mean that.”
“Nothing Good Happens After 2 A.M.”: Longing for physical touch, Barney considers proposing an orgy to the rest of the group. Meanwhile, Ted and Robin at last consummate their friendship. Neither comes close to finishing, and afterwards, Robin rests her head on his chest. “I think I’m falling in love with you,” she says, and in the distance, Ted hears the sound of barking.
“Mary the Paralegal”: Marshall feels conflicted over his flirtation with a co-worker at Barney’s firm, but spitefully decides to continue it after learning that Lily has applied to an art internship in San Francisco without telling him. Meanwhile, Robin invites Ted to an in-person awards banquet at which she is being honored for one of her newscasts. When Ted asks why she’s not as concerned about social distancing as she used to be, Robin begins to cry. “It’s just so hard,” she moans. It’s the first time Ted has really seen her in months. He holds her and they do hand-stuff until neither can take it anymore, the sadness of it all, the gravity.
“Best Prom Ever”: Lily’s niece laments her prom’s cancellation, prompting everyone to share stories from their own prom nights. The anecdotes are lively, warm, but by the end of the Zoom call, the mood has turned — all these people have left are their stories. Lily’s niece begins to cry for reasons she can’t articulate, and after she logs off the call, Barney suggests that they all do a line of coke, take their clothes off, see where the night takes them. Amid a tangle of bodies, Ted and Robin at last achieve orgasm.
“Milk”: After they run out of 2%, Ted reminds Marshall that they should limit grocery trips to once per week. Robin encounters a stray outside of her apartment. It looks nothing like any of her old dogs, but she approaches it anyway. “I’m sorry,” she says, crouching. “You’re on your own now—we all are.”
“Come On”: Just as they’re about to have another orgy, Marshall begins sobbing. “This is our life now,” he says. Lily’s art internship has been canceled after a recent outbreak in the Bay Area, and so she consoles him that at least they still have each other. “You don’t want this,” Marshall says, crying even harder. “I can tell by the way that you look at me. Neither of us do.” Ted’s eyes drop to the floor and he pulls his pants up. Cases are spiking again, and he doesn’t know how much longer they can go on like this. He considers proposing to Robin but decides to masturbate in the bathroom instead. Sitting on the toilet, he knows that one day, long from now, his kids are going to ask about the pandemic. He wants so badly for this last year to have changed him. But he worries, deep down, that it won’t, that just like at every other point in his life when he would have done anything to be anywhere else in time, that when this is over, he will go right back to fixating on minutia, on petty drama, on episodic conflicts that position he, and his friends, and their bullshit, at the center of everything, and that this will just be one season of perspective in a lifetime of solipsism. From the living room, he hears Barney trying to hype everyone back up for group sex. “Come on,” he says, desperately, “it’ll be legen...wait for it…” He pauses, clears his throat, and Ted ejaculates into his hand as Barney coughs it out.
Chris Vanjonack is an MFA candidate at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, an editorial assistant at Ninth Letter, and a former language arts teacher from Fort Collins, Colorado. His fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in One Story, Hobart, The Rumpus, CRAFT Literary, Carve Magazine, Quarterly West, and elsewhere. Find him on Twitter @chrisvanjonack and read more stories at chrisvanjonack.com.
