After the brief detour last week, How I Met Your Mother returned to Barney and the ongoing plot about his father. It dives into the central conflict of Barney’s character, that Barney only seems to care about sex and nothing else, which isn’t much of a character at all. There have been glimpses here and there that Barney cares about more, but he’s never confronted these issues head-on.
Seeing and talking with his father, however, has changed his outlook. After Jerry pretends to get drunk and do all these things, he tells Barney the outright truth about drinking and growing up, and Barney admits he is fundamentally broken. With such a revelation and admission, what’s next for Barney? We’ve gone down this road before, but Barney and Robin?
Robin has a small plot of her own, teasing something in future regarding Michael Trucco’s character and we also learn the origin of Ted’s red boots. While the whole thing wasn’t necessary plot-wise, it added the humor that Barney’s plot didn’t necessarily have.
Score: 8.8/10
