HIMYM 8x10: The Over-Correction

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Barney has over-corrected and is still dating Patrice. Since she's a crazy woman, Robin has decided that even if she doesn't really want Barney, she wants to end his happiness. So, she breaks into his apartment so she can steal the Playbook and show it to Patrice. Fortunately, the Playbook is well hidden and she has difficulty finding it.

The Bro Code's easy to find, though.

While she's searching, Barney returns home and she's forced to hide in his closet and call Ted to save her. He manages to get Barney out of the apartment again, however, Robin's a lunatic and she keeps looking. Fortune smiles upon her, and she recovers the Playbook, but Barney and Ted come back, and she has to hide in the closet again, leaving her purse behind. A second call to Ted for salvation falls upon deaf ears until she mentions that Barney has his read cowboy boots. Her threats to destroy them make him far more receptive.

She's a mad woman.

Ted retrieves Robins purse, but he himself gets trapped in another of Barney's closets. Robin then calls Lily for help, however it turns out that she's hiding in yet another of Barney's closets. The man has ample storage space. Lily and Marshall's place is overrun and it's hard to get any privacy, so she uses her spare key to break into Barney's apartment to pump breast milk and watch The Real Housewives.

Robin manages to sneak out and toss the Playbook on Barney's bed just as Patrice is coming in the room. When she finds it, she confronts Barney, and Robin thinks she's won. It is not to be. Barney proves to Patrice that he is a changed man by throwing the Playbook in a garbage can and incinerating it.

Here endeth the Playbook.

While that should have been enough to prove to anyone that Barney truly is a changed man, Robin's completely nuts, and is still not convinced. Everyone else is, though, and they hold an intervention. I hope it sticks.

Elsewhere, Marshall's mother is in town for a few days and she tells Lily that she's looking to get back out there and meet a nice man. Rather than actually doing that, though, she bangs Mickey in the baby's room, and Marshall catches them. He and Lily discuss the issue with their parents, and they're fine with it until they learn it's not about dating, just sex.

Ew.

What I Liked
-They brought back Stuart. That's Stuart and Brad in the same season. All they need to do is bring back the stripper, and Marshall's bachelor party reunion will be complete.

What I Hated
-It was kinda funny when Patrice would pop up for one scene every now and then, but now that she's been showing up more regularly, Robin really seems like a bitch. I don't want to hate Robin, but if things keep going like this, I'm going to have serious trouble liking her as a character.
-Marshall's fish comedy. I don't know why they keep going back to that joke. Showing me something that's deliberately unfunny isn't going to make me laugh, no matter how many times you do it.

Hickory dickory dock, this joke can suck my...

-The Two Can Play at That Game. Most of Barney's plays are dishonest, and some of them are mean, but this is the first one we've seen that was downright cruel. He was willing to destroy someone's marriage just to get laid. Not necessarily with a hot chick, either; with whatever woman happened to open her door. That's pretty low.
-There's a subplot throughout the episode about how the gang has been borrowing stuff from Ted and not returning it. I think it's just there to give Ted something to do because he's the narrator and he's only involved in the plots in a very minor way, so it would be a bit silly for him to relate this particular anecdote to his kids.

Final Thoughts
This episode hit ten on the "Probably Next Year" Laugh-o-Meter. That's about average for this season.

Regardless of whether or not they decide to end it, I'm done with How I Met Your Mother after this season. The characters are becoming erratic, and what's worse, truly unlikeable. Robin is now a deranged woman who rejected Barney, then somehow became obsessed with him, and who berates her kindly co-worker for no apparent reason. While Barney has flip-flopped so much this season that it's hard to tell if he's serious about this Patrice thing or not.

It seems like he might be, though, which makes things rather complicated for the writers. If the flashforward we got to Barney and Robin's engagement wasn't some kind of trick, then the two of them have to actually start dating, fall in love, get engaged, and have their wedding over the course of the remaining 14 or so episodes this season. That's not a lot of time to fit that all in, especially since Ted is also supposed to finally grow into the man who's worthy of the kids' mother and right now he's still pretty much Captain Douche of the Douche Brigade.

Any episode with Mickey automatically loses points, as does any episode that focuses on Crazy Bitch Robin. Regular Robin is good. Crazy Bitch Robin is a crazy bitch. Beyond that, this episode just plain wasn't very good. It used the standard "Ew, our parents are banging" cliche, and most of the episode was actually kinda sad now that I think about it. Robin's obsessed with a man who doesn't want her, Barney isn't Barney anymore, and no one respects Ted enough to return his stuff. I don't want sadness from sitcoms, I want jokes.