Anyone who has been following How I Met Your Mother this season would know right off the bat that the episode title “Change of Heart” could only be referring to Barney.
Viewers have been teased with rampant rumors about the identity of the mother for over six years, but the writers have more tricks up their sleeves than expected — one of which involves diverting the fans’ attention away from Ted and towards other equally intriguing story lines.
This episode was one that needed to be written. Out of HIMYM’s five main characters, Barney Stinson has had the least character development, with the possible exception of Lily.
Retraction: there had been about two season’s worth of character development for him actually, but it was all thrown out the window in season five for no apparent reason other than viewers complained about missing the “old” Barney.
In this week’s “Change of Heart,” the show sets him on his way to start falling for Nora, a gorgeous and clever guest star introduced back in the Valentine’s Day episode.
As his feelings grow, so does Barney’s denial, as well as the viewers’ realization that Barney Stinson cannot forever be the sleazeball (but somehow still loveable) jerk he has been throughout most of the series’ run.
Now, this is pretty standard as far as sitcom plots go, but as always, HIMYM keeps viewers entertained by the clever ways it presents the story. Even the exposition is interesting, made so through montages of flashbacks, witty signs, hilarious character expressions and brilliant acting.
But the tool most often used and most original to the show is the framing devices for each episode, and this week’s was no exception.
It was actually fairly ingenious, involving both continuity (Marshall’s dad had a heart attack back in December, so the gang all head over to the doctor’s to have their hearts checked out) and uniqueness (the doctor spots a couple irregularities in the twenty-four hour heart monitor Barney had, she asks about them, he fills her in about what happened at the time his heart did something weird).
And the “something weird” all had to do with Nora. She is special — special in this case meaning “not the usual brainless bimbo Barney usually picks up” — and he goes out with her a couple times.
This is allowed, because though he has his rule to “never go out with the same girl more than once,” there is the addendum “unless she’s hot.”
Then she’s all “Hey, Barney, just to be upfront — I want to get married someday, have the kids and the picket fence and the waking up next to the same person forever and ever” and he’s all “uh, yeah, me too” except everyone knows he’s lying.
Even she finds out he’s lying, specifically when she asks him up to her apartment and he tells her that he was making up all that stuff about wanting a family in order to get in her pants.
The clichéd catch is, however, that Barney was actually lying about the lying. He does want all that gooey romantic stuff, and he wants it with Nora.
The doctor’s office highlights this when they look at the record from his heart monitor and discover that his heart literally skips a beat when he sees her walk into the room.
Right? Right? All this cotton-candy fluff is enough to make your teeth rot. It’s enough to give you whiplash from trying to follow Barney’s complete 180-degree turnaround.
So he runs to where Nora is having brunch with her parents and he tells her that he’s sorry, that he was lying about lying, that he is ready to go to this new relationship plane with her, and then he meets her parents and shows them a magic trick, and you are literally sitting there going “Oh, my god, this is so bad. I cannot believe they just crammed a year’s worth of character development into one episode. How is this supposed to be believable?” and then the camera pans over to the door, where the real Barney is standing, staring at Nora sitting with her parents.
And then you just feel like someone sucker-punched you in the stomach, but it’s the best kind of sucker-punch because these kinds of beautiful reveals is what How I Met Your Mother does best.
The unreliable narrator, even the unreliable camera eye, creates these reactions, like the very first time you read “And then he woke up. And it was all a dream.”
So Barney just stands at the door, imagining what it would be like to take that step forward and do the scary apologize-to-the-girl-and-start-a-real-relationship thing, before he turns and walks away with a dissatisfied, angry shake of his head.
And it’s wonderful because it’s just the right amount of growth, a tiny epiphany enough to shake you up but not to cause drastic change. Not yet. It’s what happens in day-to-day life; it’s realistic.
Nora was special enough to affect Barney in this way, to make him realize that he wants to change and grow.
However, she’s not special enough to actually cause that change — he wasn’t able to step through the door for her. For that, someone more significant, more suitable to him, more awesome, is needed to help him make that leap (Robin! Robin! Robin!).
The juxtaposition of these deep feelings overloads with good, honest comedy. The B-story in this episode is all silliness, a complete throwaway irrelevant to the main plot-arc, but it’s loveable and fun and hilarious.
Robin tells the gang that she wants a dog; they tell her no, what she actually wants is a man (because that makes complete anti-feminist logic) and then she meets Scooby at the park. Scooby is a man. In theory.
Except for the fact that he chases squirrels, fetches keys, is entranced by moving objects, sticks his head out the car window, chases his tail, pees on a fire hydrant and there are at least a dozen more of these but you get the picture.
The only thing lacking in the Scooby storyline was the missed opportunities. He eats a pan-full of chocolate brownies and doesn’t get sick like dogs famously do when they eat chocolate. He brings the gang “sandwiches” (yes, the “sandwiches” make a reappearance this episode) and not once are they referred to as Scooby Snacks.
And if the frustrating-but-ultimately-gratifying character development for Barney and pun-tastic opportunities of Robin dating a dog-man aren’t enough, here are some more stray reasons for why this week’s episode of HIMYM was legend – wait for it –
— Barney blackmails the gang into lying for him, and the viewers are given “The Goat”-like teasers of what may come in later episodes. Keep an eye out for Robin’s Mr. T dream and Ted’s thermos.
— Marshall eating a calzone off the sidewalk. It’s infinitely more amusing than it sounds.
— Barney calling God, “Beardy.”
— As it was previously mentioned, the return of the sandwiches. Ted, Marshall and Lily bake sandwich-brownies and then they lose Scooby, and have to wander around New York City, high, searching for the dog-man.
— Marshall with a mustache, but not Mustache Marshall.
— The brief reemergence of Big Fudge and the Bangity-Bang song.
— Lily looking disgruntled as Barney crouches in the fetal position on her lap.
— 19 dog puns in under a minute. 19 DOG PUNS IN UNDER A MINUTE.
— Ted mentioning how he went to an N’Sync concert in 1998. He caught JC’s shirt. You know that he has a shrine to it somewhere in his closet. It is entirely likely that Ted secretly dork-dances around his apartment to “Bye Bye Bye” while wearing JC’s unwashed shirt and singing into a hairbrush.
— Neil Patrick Harris’s acting this week was phenomenal. His storyline was not an easy one to sell, and he pulled it off with absolutely flying colors.
— And there actually is no “dary,” because Barney tries to say it, but then sneezes instead.
The main disappointment about this season is the complete lack of How I Met Your Mother guest stars/outside love interests actually becoming real people.
The guest actors can only be around for a few episodes, sure, but the manipulation of what they are doing for the characters is so heavy-handed that the viewers can almost see the puppet strings dangling from the writers’ fingers.
There is a definite consensus among the fans that they are getting bored, and it would be interesting for the show and for the viewers if HIMYM were to attempt to introduce another “Stella” — that is, someone who the viewers won’t automatically know isn’t the mother, someone who sticks around for longer than three or four episodes — something to mess with the show’s collectively sharp-eyed fan base.
All in all, this week’s episode was solidly entertaining, occasionally laugh-out-loud, not without its flaws but, in the end, definitely worth a half hour of your time. How I Met Your Mother is now on hiatus, with new episodes returning on March 21st.
