034. Spoiler Alert (How I Met Your Mother)

"Brother, you're driving the "I wanna have sex with her" truck, and it has a huge blind spot"

ORIGINAL AIRDATE: 12th November 2007
EPISODE NUMBER: Season 3, Episode 8
WRITTEN BY: Stephen Lloyd

How I Met Your Mother has some great observations about life, or specifically, friendship dynamics. Spoiler Alert presents the idea of love blinding you to people's flaws. When Ted wonders what's wrong with his girlfriend, the gang are reluctant to tell him out of fear they'll end up shattering his illusion. It's funny, and it's also very true.

After his illusion is shattered, Ted's perspective on the dinner scene is revisited to show the reality. How I Met Your Mother isn't afraid to play around with reality, so this was the perfect way to present it. The recurring "glass breaking" sound effect almost becomes a joke in itself.

There's a small subplot involving Marshall waiting to find out if he's passed his Bar Exam and being unable to retrieve his password. Barney enacts a long con, purely for the purpose of tricking Marshall into watching a dumb video. Classic mischievous Barney. There's also a hilarious monologue from Barney where he brags about his lovemaking prowess for no reason in particular, and some good running jokes like Marshall's love of sugar.

There's more to the illusion shattering idea though. Towards the end of the episode, the main cast all start to have their flaws pointed out, which is interesting. Watching everyone's reaction to revelations about their friends is very funny, but the heart of the episode is how they learn to love eachother despite their flaws. Because nobody's perfect.

007. The Playbook (How I Met Your Mother)

"Why would she be inconsolable? Lorenzo's balloon won't disappear over the Arctic for another week"

ORIGINAL AIRDATE: 16th November 2009
EPISODE NUMBER: Season 5, Episode 8
WRITTEN BY: Craig Thomas & Carter Bays

It's pretty undeniable that Neil Patrick Harris is the star of How I Met Your Mother. His hilariously shallow life philosophy makes every guy wish they were Barney Stinson. Usually relegated to a few choice words, this episode brings Barney's words of wisdom to the forefront as we are introduced to the playbook, a list of ways Barney picks up chicks.

The playbook segments are reminsicient of short sketches, and an episode full of them would be hilarious in its own right. The more ourageous the lie, the better. And seeing Barney dress up in various costumes, such as Scuba gear, will never get old. Lily plays the role of the voice of reason, scolding Barney about the wrongs of such manipulation.

The point of the episode was to demonstrate that Barney hides his insecurities about himself by constantly pretending to be somebody else. NPH even got to flex his acting muscles and explore a different side to Barney we hadn't seen before, when Barney open up in the finale and admits the break-up with Robin has been tougher on him than he's admitted. It doesn't even matter that it turned out to be a ruse, because the con was impressive and made a punchline.

In the end, Barney is so endearing we don't mind that he has the last laugh.