How I Met Your Mother: “Weekend at Barney’s” (Episode 8.18)

This week’s episode of How I Met Your Mother tackled Weekend at Bernie’s and Marshall’s last bag of Skittles, reminded us that ‘new is always better’ and finally got rid of crazy Jeanette. So yeah, it should have been a pretty good episode.

Things get kicked off in “Weekend at Barney’s” with Ted RSVP’ing to Barney and Robin’s wedding by saying Jeanette is going to be his plus one. Luckily, she breaks up with him because he’s too clingy by giving him back his apartment key he never gave her. Barney is determined to find him a normal and not as Antichrist-y girl to bring to the wedding. He reveals—wait for it—that he still has the infamous Playbook and he never burned it like we all thought.

Barney’s attempts to aid Ted backfire because of Ted’s inability to say “my penis” the right way; or perhaps it was because Barney’s plays are absurd. Plans get interrupted when Robin finds Barney and his Playbook and when Jeanette shows up to win Ted back.

The main plot splits in two subpar stories. The first forces Barney to explain how even though he is a liar at heart, it doesn’t matter because his love for Robin is more important and it’s the most honest he’s ever been. It sort of reminds the viewers of how creepy Barney really is. But Robin doesn’t seem to mind and their fight lasts less than a scene and ends with a kiss.

The same goes for Jeanette and Ted finally breaking up. It turns out the Playbook is too much for the crazy girlfriend to handle and she goes over the edge one more time, trashes Ted’s apartment and blows the Playbook up with fireworks. It was lackluster at best.

Meanwhile Marshall tries to impress art gallery patrons as Lily has to schmooze with an up-and-coming artist. He’s not necessarily looking forward to going and buys a bag of Skittles to eat because he knows they won’t serve food at the gallery. So, armed with a bag of Skittles and his “most outgoing” personality (voted three times in high school sans junior year) Big Fudge is ready to impress. Only he doesn’t, and everything backfires. He takes a big stumble during a moment of silence as he spills his entire family-sized bag of Skittles. It was a weak B-plot that should have been some crazy, over-the-top explanation as to why Marshall would never eat Skittles again—only it wasn’t and it was just there.

Perhaps the worst part about the episode is that it never really deals with Weekend At Bernie’s. It’s alluded to, but the episode never truly goes there. It was just another HIMYM episode with so much promise that fell flat.