The Most How I Met Your Mother Episode - "Lucky Penny" (S02.E15)
Written by Jamie Rhonheimer
Directed by Pamela Fryman
“Lucky Penny” is one of the purest distillations of How I Met Your Mother. From theme, to structure, this episode is one that demonstrates exactly what the series aims to be as a whole.
“Kids, never underestimate the power of destiny, because when you least expect it, the littlest thing can cause a ripple effect that changes your life.” – Future Ted
As with nearly every episode, this one begins with a short monologue by Future Ted. In this line he not only states the theme of the episode, and the entire series, but also informs how the rest of the episode will unfold.
Destiny has always been a strong concept in How I Met Your Mother. From episode one, it is said that everything that happens is important because it led Ted to where he needed to be to meet the mother of his children. He started his story eight years prior to the meeting to keep from leaving out any important moment could have influenced his chances.
The present-day story of “Lucky Penny” is quite a short one. Ted and Robin arrive late to the airport, causing Ted to miss a flight to Chicago. These scenes take up a very small percentage of the episode, as the majority is taken up instead by flashbacks where they try to find who is to blame for their current situation.
At first the two agree it must be Barney’s fault. We move into flashbacks to when Marshal broke his toe, and Barney took his place in a marathon to win a bet. Without any prior training, Barney manages to succeed, but his legs give out while on the subway home. He calls Ted, begging for help. When Ted arrives at the subway, he has no choice but to jump the turnstile to try to get to his friend in time. Because of this, Ted has a court date on the same day as his flight and ends up late.
For a moment they seem content to blame Barney, but then Ted has a realization and decides it is instead Robin’s fault. We flashback further than the last time and see that Robin walked in on Marshal rubbing petroleum jelly on himself (to help the chafing that came from his marathon training). Her sudden appearance scared him, leading him to breaking his toe.
But Robin refuses to take the blame and quickly passes it off to Lilly. Flashing back further still, we learn that Ted and Robin were walking down the street, eating hot dogs, when they stumble upon a line up outside of a store. The line up is for a wedding dress sale that Lilly is desperate to attend and talks Robin into waiting in it with her. They are kept up all night by a car alarm, and so Robin ends up going back to Ted’s apartment for some sleep, where she ends up walking in on Marshal.
But in the end, Ted realizes the story goes back even further than that. He can’t blame anyone else’s actions for where he was. We flash back then to the beginning. The reason Ted and Robin were getting hot dogs, is because Ted found an old penny on the subway. He was convinced he could sell it to a collector for enough to buy them dinner and ends up with just enough for a street vendor. Though everyone is involved in the story, Ted’s destiny can always be traced back to his own actions. Somehow, finding a penny, months prior, kept him from being in a position where he had to move to Chicago.
Every episode of How I Met Your Mother is built with flashbacks in mind, but “Lucky Penny” employs them in a way that becomes so much more intricately connected to theme. The flashbacks make up the bulk of the episode, pushing the usual format to its fullest possibility. With each step further into the past, we are shown how little choices can have a big effect on the direction one’s life might go. This is one of the main points of the series, and this is an episode that sets out to prove it.
Fun Facts:
“As Fast as She Can” (S04.E23) employs the same structure as this episode.
The titular 1939 penny is first mentioned by Ted all the way back in “The Scorpion and the Toad” (S02.E02).
Ted’s daughter in named Penny.
Ted’s job interview was supposed to be for an architecture firm in Chicago. In the final season, Ted is supposed to move to Chicago after the wedding.