HIMYM 8x02: The Pre-Nup

Barney's getting married, so like all modern men, he needs a pre-nup. However, like all modern women, Quinn's not really cool with that, especially when it turns out that Barney's pre-nup is about 1000 pages.

No man should smile when delivering a pre-nup to his fiancee.

Why so long? Because it's not just rules for the divorce, it's regulations for the relationship. Now, I'm all for contractually-mandated sub-cranial hairlessness, but including provisions like that one pretty much undermines all the character growth Barney underwent last season. Everything that made Nora and Quinn want to date him and made him a man who would actually want to get married is suddenly gone.

Although, one does see the allure of Barney's vision.

Insane though his requests may be, the whole idea of making changes to their relationships intrigues Marshall, Nick, and Ted. Marshall wants Lily to let him play a little more roughly with baby Marvin. Nick wants Robin to stop watching TV while they get it on. Ted wants Victoria's ex-fiancee to move out. All of these seem like fairly reasonable requests, but the ladies get together at MacLaren's and decide that instead of talking things over with their respective partners, they should all gang up on Barney and deliver him a pre-nup of their own.

These ladies are very pleased with themselves.

There's a big fight at GNB, and love is only saved through the intervention of Bob Odenkirk. Marshall reveals that he's afraid he's not as good a parent as Lily, and she says she has issues because her dad wasn't there for her. Ted's worried that keeping Klaus around will keep them rooted in the past, while Victoria wants to help him because she feels guilty about being happy with Ted. Nick thinks Robin's sexy and he's worried she doesn't feel the same about him, she just thinks it's hot to watch herself do the news while they get it on. That's cool.

TV Robin is awesome.

But, Future Ted's been telling his kids that it's the Autumn of Breakups, so it can't all be happy endings. Barney and Quinn don't trust each other. They each think they need thousands of pages of pre-nups before they can get married, and if you need that, you should probably rethink the whole wedding thing. So, that's one couple down, two to go. The countdown to Robin and Barney's stupid BS "A little ways down the road" wedding has begun.

What I Liked
-They got Bill Fagerbakke and Suzie Plakson for a thirty-second flashback to Marshall's childhood. I like how they do their best to get the proper actors, even if it's only for tiny parts
-Robin gets turned on by watching herself on TV. That's pretty hot.
-Klaus can hear through he wall. He hears everything! That's pretty hot.

What I Hated
-Klaus' German sitcom. Saying something is funny but not showing it is the opposite of what you're supposed to do on a sitcom.
-Klaus is naked a lot. See, it's because Germans are weird. It's funny! Wait, no it's not.
-Bob Odenkirk needs to express his love to his dog. See, we all thought he was calling his ex-wife, but he really wanted to talk to the dog. It's funny! Wait, no it's not. Honestly, I'm not a big fan of Bob Odenkirk's character at all.
-Barney's regression. He finally had some character development and they just poofed it away without explanation. He told a woman who he supposedly loves that she needs to get her boobs done every five years. That's nothing like Season 7 Barney, that's like a fake, exaggerated version of Season 2 Barney.

Final Thoughts
This episode started off relatively funny, but it quickly devolved into sad relationship drama stuff. I don't think that's why anyone watches a sitcom.

They sure got rid of Quinn in a jiffy. Barney proposed to her a mere two episodes ago, and now she's gone. It's something that had to be done because Barney ends up with Robin for some reason, but I wasn't expecting it to be so abrupt. We still have two doomed relationships to deal with, which makes me wonder why they bothered introducing Nick at all.

I got 16 laughs out of this episode, but things just went to crap in the last half.