'How I Met Your Mother' Season 7, Episode 18 Recap - 'Karma'

After a couple of weeks of earth-shattering moments on "How I Met Your Mother," it looks like we've finally found a sense of equilibrium here. Barney's hitting on strippers, Robin is making penis jokes at Ted, and Marhsall and Lilly are hanging out with their friends.

Except Barney is in love with and being played by said stripper, Robin is a penis-joke-slinging ghost in Ted's aparment, and the real Robin is hanging out with Marshall and Lily in the dreaded suburbs. So, never mind. Sh*t, as they say, is cray.

Barney runs into Quinn at the strip club, which is to say he sees her performing, and he finally realizes she's a stripper (and he hasn't recognized her all the times he's been in there). But Barney has already accepted the fact that he is, in the words of one of our generation's greatest poets, in love with a stripper.

So he begins his attempts to honestly and earnestly get a date with Quinn (who goes by Karma at the club), but she has other ideas: namely, lead Barney on and trick him out of all of his money. Poor Barney falls for it without hesitation, and thus gets a taste of his own seductive medicine.

But all is well when actual karma kicks in and Barney runs into Quinn/Karma at the coffee shop, where he (probably accidentally) convinces her to have an actual date with him. You know, one that isn't in the champagne room.

Ted, meanwhile, is dealing with Robin's ghost and trying to figure out what to do with Robin's old bedroom. Ted is mostly good for sight gags until the end of the episode. We'll get there.

Robin, now pretty much homeless (she couldn't have waited until she found another place? Was it that awkward?), stays with Marshall and Lily in Long Island for a bit, and begins a nature journal observing the habits of the suburban peoples. It's a bit of a tired joke, but there are moments that work.

Ultimately, though, it is revealed that Marshall and Lily are more or less miserable in the suburbs, but aren't sure they can move back to Manhattan. Robin makes a good point: is it better for the baby to be here, where the two of them are so unhappy?

So Ted pulls one over on them, calling them into the city to hang out but having them find only an empty apartment (man, these guys move out quickly). Through notes, he reveals that he never took their names off the lease, so the place is now theirs. He also made Robin's room into a nursery, and we all go "awwww."

The events are still a little earth-shattering (maybe just earth-jarring?) as Ted is finally out of that apartment. The whole scenery of the show is about to change. But, this does solve that problem with Marshall and Lily being so removed, and I think that's going to be a good thing going forward for the show.

Notes & Quotes:

- "For an hour afterward I couldn't un-cross my eyes. Which was awesome because when I went back for seconds it was like having a threesome with twins."

- Ted's hobbies tonight included smoking meat, wood, and pottery. Two are clear innuendos, but the third... is it just for the suggestive nature of throwing a cylindrical object?

- "Because that's the Lusty Leopard's policy on Friday nights and I'm so mad at you that I know that!"

- "Shirley's 42 and rides a Rascal, I swear it's the second half of 'Wall-E' up here."