Natural History - Recap

The show opened with Barney and Lily getting ready for a black tie and tuxedo event at a historical art museum at which the best of the best local art was going to be shown and to be auctioned off as a fund raiser for a charity. Barney was reminiscing about his college days as he best but sometimes mistakenly recalled it: the care free days he spent with Lily, how much time he seemed to have just for goofing off with friends doing silly things, where did the time go, what happened to the legendary stamina he seemed to have in large quantities in those days, why he didn't seem to be able to accomplish the goals he had set for himself back then, etc. Lily, with considerably more common sense and reality-based judgment, was trying to explain to him that those were his younger days, that his daydreams for himself back then might have been just a bit wild and unreasonable, and that he was a much better man today, more mature, longer lasting when it counted, and so on. Lily helped Barney into his tuxedo and tied his tie while he agreed with her outwardly, but appeared to be flogging himself within just a little because he seemed to feel he had somehow failed his long ago self and dreams.

Meanwhile, Marshall and his lady love were also preparing for the grand party, him in his tuxedo and her in a shimmering dark blue gown of some silky material. Marshall was having his college day moments also, feeling that somehow he had missed out on something very vital between then and the present. It seemed to be something in the air tonight and it was not affecting the women, just the men. The men couldn't seem to accept the fact that people and things change with the times, usually for the good, that daydreams were just that, something to be left behind.

Flashbacks to college days were in abundance and old jokes were dragged from the memory attic where they had lain dust covered and limp. The women didn't seem to appreciate the men's weak attempts at asserting themselves as they drove to the big black tie event. Once there, Marshall and Barney seemed to feel inadequate to rise to the occasion, as it were, making boastful statements about their past prowess in business, personal conquests, and looking about them at the women and men decked out in finery. Barney was bragging to Lily about how, when he was just six years old, attended by his uncle Jerry, whom he later found out was in actuality his biological father, had allowed the child to drag down the blue whale exhibit, an icon of the old museum. Barney got into a goofy mood, seeming to want to act like the six year old he had been, daring Lily to touch an Egyptian king's outfit, complete with gold crown. He touched it, looking round him in quasi-fear for a museum guard or staff, almost hoping that he would get caught and reprimanded. He was not caught, at that point, and it gave him courage to slink across the huge room, looking for something else to touch. A stuffed mastodon caught his eye and he touched it carefully, followed by Lily. This was proving to be rather boring and bigger game was sought by the two. Later in the show, a female Amazon warrior-clad Lily, carrying a long decorated spear, showed up beside the Egyptian king exhibit and she began scoping the crowded room for Barney. Not seeing him, she heaved a big sigh and was startled out of her wits when the Egyptian king moved and spoke to her: it was Barney wearing the gold regalia. Not long after, a museum guard did show up right beside the two and demanded that they follow him to his office where he proceeded to scold them soundly and tell them some of the shenanigans that past hooligans had pulled on his watch through the years. He crowned it off with the one pulled off years ago when "that rowdy six year old boy" accompanied by his uncle...and then Barney piped up and said that he had been that young child all those years ago. He stood up and took a shallow bow as he face the guard and Lily and told her to try and top that one off! Of course she could not and had to agree that he had won the day. At that point, Barney realized somehow that his Uncle Jerry was actually his biological father and sat down in shock, but he recovered.

Meanwhile, Marshall saw a lovely blond woman across the room talking to an older but very fit man who appeared to be quite well off. Marshall realized that it was his old friend and flame, Zoey Pierson, who had married a rich mature man. As the older man left to tend to some business, Marshall walked up to Zoey and struck up a conversation. He had no love for her husband's business, and began to trash it in front of her. She had a tape recording going which caught all the derogatory terms Marshall used and then revealed it to him, threatening to let her husband listen to it. The husband happened to hear the tail end of her threats and when Zoey left, he said that he would get the tape away from her and throw it away, that he felt that it was wrong of her to do that sneaky maneuver. Marshall thanked him and when the man invited him to one day sail on his eighty five foot sloop, which Marshall said he would like to do when the time came.

Later, when Marshall met accidentally in another room with Zoey, he scolded her for being so sneaky and asked why she had done so. She teared up and began crying, telling him that her life was not all a bed of roses, that there were things that he had no idea about, but she refused to get into details and said that she was trying hard to work them out. She hoped that they could be friends and that she was sorry for anything she might have done in the past to upset him. She said that she had married her husband initially because of his flash lifestyle but that she had come to realize that not was all as it seemed.

Barney, at the end of the show, was chatting with Lily about his Uncle Jerry, whom he now realized was his father, and he said that he had not seen him since that museum incident clear back in 1981, that he really missed him and where was he now? No idea, but he would like to locate him. Lily agreed with him and said that it must have been a shock to realize who his real father was, but that was the way life was sometimes.


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