“Welcome to Bangtoberfest!”
I must say it’s great to finally have Barney Stinson back on How I Met Your Mother. When I say back, I mean the womanizing, scheming, lying Barney that we’ve all come to know and love. I said last week that I was sad to see Quinn go, and I am, but this week Barney was back with a bang (actually, quite a few bangs).
Barney being back meant that the humor was back too. Nannies finally tipped the scales heavily in favor of humor and was very light on the plot developments. Yes, this may be the last season, but the show is a sitcom, and I’d like to be laughing out loud at least a few times an episode.
The past few years have shown huge growth out of Barney, and I’ve enjoyed watching his character develop. That being said, much of the show’s success is built on him, and it isn’t a relationship-committed character that most fans are looking for.
I personally thought he was at his least entertaining when he was with Nora. Watching him work that hard to stay with her got a bit bland, and that had crept back with Quinn, though it was saved by how much deeper of a character she was. Still, it wasn’t the same as having single Barney.
People love Barney when he’s awesome, so the fact we now have that awesomeness back, albeit with the growth not completely gone, should lead to quite a few more entertaining Barney episodes.
This episode begins with Barney using $7,000 of merchandise to announce his return to the single life, the month of which he has dubbed “Bangtoberfest.” Throughout the episode we are finally treated to Barney once again finding ways to sleep with women, starting with his old standard of “There is one way I could get you off…” a line that works as both a cop and a judge.
Sadly, Barney isn’t content using the same line he has a thousand times before, so he searches for a new way to seduce his female targets. To his dismay, he is fresh out of ideas. He’s just been out of the game too long. He’s completely frustrated and vents that “Bangtoberfest used to mean something,” until a brilliant idea comes to him courtesy of the Bro upstairs (almighty five). But we’ll talk about that later.
It’s quite obvious that Barney has tried to start pursuing women again too soon. It never mattered to the old Barney what line he used, as long as it got the job done. We saw Barney immediately bounce-back from his break-up with Robin, but eventually the effect of that break-up leaked through. It looks like that process may be a repeating one for Barney.
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