“How I Met Your Mother” Recap: Dowisetrepla

As this week’s episode begins, Barney is regaling Ted with the story of his latest conquest: Meg, a girl who is “so perky and full of life and not at all fake” — or at least that describes her boobs. As the camera pans back, we see that while Barney is painting a word picture of Meg’s breasts for Ted, Lily and Marshall are trying to enjoy a romantic dinner just a few feet away. After a quick montage of Ted’s other recent “jackassery,” Marshall determines that he and Lily need to buy their own apartment — a decision that ranks with jumping off his house as a kid while wearing wings and balloons, and shaving a bald streak down the middle of his head on his wedding day as the three biggest mistakes of his life.

Marshall and Lily meet with a realtor (played by Maggie Wheeler, who was Janice on Friends) at an apartment in Dowisetrepla. Marshall and Lily have never heard the neighborhood name, which is apparently short for something, but they pretend to be familiar with it to avoid embarrassment. Even though the apartment is out of their price range, Marshall can’t help but imagine raising a family there — a scenario that includes a family band and chocolate pancakes — and he makes an offer to buy the place. Lily’s own vision of family life also includes chocolate pancakes (only they’re called “crepes au chocolat”) and a mother-daughter exhibition at The Met, and she does nothing to stop Marshall even though Robin pulls her aside to remind her about her enormous credit card debt.

While Marshall and Lily are raising families in their minds, Barney pulls the realtor aside and feigns interest in the apartment. He gets the lock combination to the front door under the guise of wanting to come back and look at the apartment after his friends leave, but really he intends to bring Meg there to consummate what he intends to be a very brief relationship.

The gang celebrates Marshall and Lily’s big purchase at McLaren’s, where Marshall makes another big purchase — literally. He buys the giant champagne bottle that he’s had his eye on for years, despite the fact that it’s warm and there might have been a fish in it at one point. In just one of the examples throughout the episode when someone should have said something but didn’t, Marshall doesn’t warn Ted not to point the giant cork at the waitress and she winds up with a black eye.

Things go more smoothly for Barney at his temporary apartment, as he tricks Meg into thinking that he loves her (and commitment in general), that the Chinese couple in the photographs all over the place are his parents, and that he’ll actually still be there when she gets out of the shower.

Meg’s not the only one up for a rude awakening. Marshall and Lily apply for a loan, and after Marshall requests the money in all singles so he can put it in a kiddie pool and swim around in it, Lily’s big secret is revealed. Her debt won’t prevent Marshall and her from buying the apartment, but it might as well since they are only approved for a loan with an 18 percent interest rate.

Back at their old apartment, it’s clear that a fight has ensued. Ted — a veteran of the Mosby Police, who once cracked the case of the missing retainer — goes all C.S.I. on Robin and Barney, using various clues to reenact the episode. While he’s convinced the catalyst for the argument was an open jar of peanut butter, despite the fact that Robin tells him about Lily’s debt, he does successfully lead them to the phone — and the discovery that someone has dialed the number of a divorce attorney.

After Ted, Robin and mostly Barney commiserate over their friends’ impending breakup, Robin and Marshall explain what really happened. Lily’s plan was to get a divorce — on paper only — so Marshall could buy the apartment without the specter of her debt looming over him. Marshall rejected the idea, they went ahead and bought the place anyway, and all is well. That is, until they arrive at their new apartment and find out what Dowisetrepla is short for: “Down wind of the sewage treatment plant.

It was a good but not great episode, which is fine with me because I have a feeling we’re less than two weeks away from the next great one.

Other highlights: Robin once again having to Americanize herself when her Canadian references go over their heads (Mt. Waddington? Metres?); Ted explaining to Robin why her name is Robin, not Batman

Best Barneyism: “C” — in response to Ted asking Barney if he was describing Meg’s boobs. It’s not Spanish …