Barney Calls the Plays

Barney was back and in a very big way this week!  Not that he abandoned everything that makes him great  while he was in a serious relationship, but it was nice to be able to both root against and for him and his never-ending quest to find the most creative way to pick up girls.  Sometimes I wonder if his ridiculous schemes would ever work in reality, and this week, I thought The Scuba Diver could possibly work (if everything played out as planned).  One thing is for sure, Barney is always a step (or two) ahead of the rest of the gang.  He got them so good, and he used them with one little trick.  Of course, his acts are a way of avoiding being himself and feeling vulnerable, but hey, it works for Barney.  For now anyway.

While Barney was busy getting over his break-up by hitting on every girl he could find who would fall for one of his silly schemes, Robin was taking a different approach to get over her split with Barney.



She decided to throw herself into her work.  This popular coping mechanism seemed to be working just fine until Barney's ridiculous hook-up plans proved to be too much.  It was definitely one of those "too soon" moments when Barney asked her to defend the Playbook.  Meanwhile, Marshall and Ted kept insisting that the moment you decide that you don't want a relationship and you bury yourself into something like work, you wind up meeting the person of your dreams.  And I can speak to the validity of this statement.  It happened to me much like finally finding those frozen waffles when looking for popsicles happened to Marshall (great analogy, by the way).  Things, including relationships, tend to find you when you're not looking.  Robin wasn't convinced and she quickly dismissed the hypothesis.  So, she went back to burying herself in her work and that's when she met Don -- her new co-anchor.  Looks like love might have found Robin just when she had sworn off relationships for a while.  Uh-oh!

How I Met Your Mother airs Mondays on CBS. If you missed last night's episode, watch it for free at cbs.com.