S06E16: You know a show is doing something right when it can solicit the same response from you as a bad play during a game does your dad. I’m a firm believer that no matter how loud you might yell at your TV, it will never suddenly become a microphone directed solely at your intended target’s ear. This is especially true for sporting events, but even more true for prerecorded (not to mention FICTIONAL) television shows. Didn’t stop me from yelling at this week’s How I Met Your Mother though.
“Kids, the heart is a mysterious muscle.” – Future Ted
So our main story and narrative arc comes courtesy of Barney and his new hot friend that he has feelings for: Nora. After Marshall guilts everyone into getting their heart checked out, Barney finally goes for the check-up (his hold out was that he was scared, so Lily (the group mom) went with him to hold his hand). The doc has him wear a heart monitor the night of his big date and the next day they go over the night explaining the heart irregularities. Of course, during his tale he gets slapped, but it wouldn’t be a Barney tale if he didn’t.
“…. unless they’re hot.” – Barney
Now during his date, Lily told Barney not to lie so he doesn’t. We should’ve known that there would be several twists, because this is HIMYM and if there is one thing HIMYM does right, it is twists. So Nora wants marriage, kids, the whole nine yards. And Barney does too. It gets really sweet (yet Lily and the Doc still slap him — he deserved it) but Barney comes clean to Nora and admits he was lying. There’s more slapping and then Barney realizes that his heart did skip a beat when he saw Nora. So he runs off to find her with her parents. He finds her, pauses at the door, then barges right into a life of Nora. Only he didn’t. He was still standing outside the door.
Nooooooooooooooooo!!!!! How could Barney do that? I mean, I know how Barney could do that, he is Barney after all, but for once I thought he might have had a change of heart (huh, hey — guess that’s why they called the episode that). I mean, we’ve had six years of Barney being Barney, for once I thought we might see him grow up. But alas, it was not meant to be. It was frustrating, sure, but we can’t fault Barney. He enjoys his life and if he is not ready to give it up, why should he? Perhaps though, that grown up Barney is still in the cards. Last week my theory was that Ted will meet the mother at Barney’s wedding after knocking up Nora and not wanting to be like his own missing father. I’m still fairly certain this can happen. HIMYM could totally still get Barney and Nora back together (they’ve put worse couples together under lesser circumstances) and with Barney meeting his dad next month (we’re without new episodes until late March) my theory could still work.
“What part of Canada are you from? Speak.” – Marshall
“Labrador.” – Scooby
Meanwhile, Robin got a new boyfriend-of-the-week. It seems the writers took notice of my complaints last week of there not being a lot of Robin lately (called it!) so she was back in the spot light. Or rather, her new boyfriend was. Scooby is a nice guy, but a total dog. Literally. He chases his tail, is overly friendly, and if you leave the door open he’ll escape. Also, he has a huge bag of weed. I don’t know how that makes him more like a dog (besides the Scooby-Doo reference) but it worked for me. So combining his dog antics and the thousands of dog puns we were bombarded with, this was a delightful subplot. It was light and easy with a ton of wordplay — absolutely wonderful. Scooby probably won’t be around next week (I guarantee a “farm upstate” joke) but he sure was a good boy when he was around.
I would be remiss if I didn’t mention how easy it was for Barney to blackmail everyone. Also, the coda with Marshall dropping the calzone on the ground and then picking it up again was delicious. Not calzone delicious, but still really funny. Barney’s look of complete quiet disgust was worth it. How NPH hasn’t won an Emmy yet for this role is beyond me.
