The Playbook (How I Met Your Mother)

Last updated
"The Playbook"
How I Met Your Mother episode
Episode no.Season 5
Episode 8
Directed by Pamela Fryman
Written by
Production code5ALH08
Original air dateNovember 16, 2009 (2009-11-16)
Guest appearance
Episode chronology
← Previous
"The Rough Patch"		Next →
"Slapsgiving 2: Revenge of the Slap"
How I Met Your Mother season 5
List of episodes

"The Playbook" is the eighth episode of the fifth season of the CBS situation comedy How I Met Your Mother and 96th episode overall. It originally aired November 16, 2009. A book based on the episode was published in 2010. [1]

Contents

Plot

Future Ted explains the key to dating is self-confidence, which Barney had in spades, but usually that confidence was in one of his characters. One night, Barney appears in full scuba suit while drinking scotch. Lily pulls aside Claire (Sarah Wright), a blonde woman at the bar, warning her of Barney's villainy, and she sits down with the rest of the gang as they explain the events that lead up to that night.

Barney and Robin are coping with the end of their relationship in their own different ways. Robin says she wants to focus on her career, but Marshall and Ted are convinced she will find the love of her life, citing several friends who gave up on dating to focus on their work, only to be married months later. Barney, on the other hand, decides to re-enter the dating scene, using his sacred "Playbook". The book describes a set of con artist scenarios designed by Barney to manipulate girls into bed.

Meanwhile, Lily tries to set up Ted with Shelly, a fellow teacher. When she had originally tried to get them to meet, Lily found Ted and Marshall in the middle of a chicken-finger mouth-stuffing attempt, so she convinced her coworker that Ted was not there. However, Ted is stood up by Shelly; when Lily confronts her, she discovers that Shelly was seduced by an exotic man at MacLaren's. Lily realizes it was Barney and angrily confronts him. Barney describes the play he used, the "Lorenzo von Matterhorn", using fake websites, [2] [3] a smartphone, and an exotic name.

Barney's next move is a play called "he's not coming", where he seduces vulnerable girls at the top of the Empire State Building. One of the girls Barney picks up, however, is an actress friend of Lily's, and she steals the playbook when in Barney's apartment. Lily reveals the ploy to Barney and threatens to post the playbook on the Internet if he does not stop using it. Barney shows up at the apartment in a scuba suit, saying he has one last play, "The Scuba Diver". While preparing to post the playbook, Marshall is bamboozled as "The Scuba Diver" is not in the playbook, having been torn away by Barney. They go down to the bar, where Barney sits in a booth, planning to seduce Claire, the blonde by the bar.

As they conclude the story there with Claire, they ask Barney what "The Scuba Diver" is, and he breaks down, saying his breakup with Robin was hurting him more than he thought, and this was how he coped. Touched, the gang convinces Claire to go out with Barney for a cup of coffee. After they leave, the gang gets a text message from Barney and finds the description of the "Scuba Diver" under their table at MacLaren's. It was actually an elaborate con; involving Lily's disgust at the playbook, revealing Barney's tricks to Claire, Barney's fake breakdown over his breakup, and his friends encouraging the prey to go with Barney.

Finally, a new co-host, Don, arrives at Robin's pre-morning show, and Robin suddenly realizes that Ted and Marshall may have been right.

Music

Non-original music used in this episode includes Mozart's Rondo Alla Turca and a piano version of Nino Rota's "A Time for Us" from Franco Zeffirelli's 1968 film Romeo and Juliet . [4]

Critical response

Donna Bowman of The A.V. Club graded the episode an A− in her review; she cheered the return of the "unredeemed essence" of Barney in the wake of his breakup with Robin. [5] Brian Zoromski of IGN gave the episode 9.6 out of 10. [6]

Cindy McLennan of Television Without Pity gave it an A because "it was supremely funny", even as a stand-alone. [7]

Related Research Articles

<i>How I Met Your Mother</i> American sitcom (2005–2014)

How I Met Your Mother is an American sitcom, created by Craig Thomas and Carter Bays for CBS. The series, which aired from September 19, 2005, to March 31, 2014, follows the main character, Ted Mosby, and his group of friends in New York City's Manhattan. As a framing device, Ted, in 2030, recounts to his son, Luke, and daughter, Penny, the events from September 2005 to May 2013 that led him to meet their mother. How I Met Your Mother was a joint production by Bays & Thomas Productions and 20th Century Fox Television, and syndicated by 20th Television.

"Spoiler Alert" is the eighth episode in the third season of the television series How I Met Your Mother and 52nd overall. It originally aired on November 12, 2007.

"Shelter Island" is the fifth episode in the fourth season of the television series How I Met Your Mother and 69th overall. It originally aired on October 20, 2008.

"The Fight" is the tenth episode in the fourth season of the television series How I Met Your Mother, and the 74th episode overall. It originally aired on December 8, 2008.

"Three Days of Snow" is the 13th episode in the fourth season of the television series How I Met Your Mother and 77th overall. It originally aired on January 19, 2009.

"The Stinsons" is the 15th episode in the fourth season of the television series How I Met Your Mother and 79th overall. It originally aired on March 2, 2009.

"Sorry, Bro" is the 16th episode in the fourth season of the television series How I Met Your Mother and 80th overall. It originally aired on March 9, 2009.

"The Front Porch" is the 17th episode in the fourth season of the television series How I Met Your Mother and 81st overall. It originally aired on March 16, 2009.

"The Rough Patch" is the seventh episode of the fifth season of the CBS sitcom How I Met Your Mother and 95th episode overall. It originally aired on November 9, 2009.

"Rabbit or Duck" is the 15th episode of the fifth season of the CBS sitcom How I Met Your Mother and 103rd episode overall. It originally aired on February 8, 2010. In a nod to CBS hosting that year's Super Bowl, the episode features NFL commentators Jim Nantz and Phil Simms in guest appearances as themselves.

"Hooked" is the 16th episode of the fifth season of the CBS sitcom How I Met Your Mother and 104th episode overall. It originally aired on March 1, 2010.

"Of Course" is the 17th episode of the fifth season of the CBS sitcom How I Met Your Mother and 105th episode overall. It originally aired on March 8, 2010.

"Robots Versus Wrestlers " is the 22nd episode of the fifth season of the CBS sitcom How I Met Your Mother and 110th episode overall. It aired on May 10, 2010.

Barnabus Stinson is a fictional character portrayed by Neil Patrick Harris and created by Carter Bays and Craig Thomas for the CBS television series How I Met Your Mother (2005–2014).

"The Stinson Missile Crisis" is the fourth episode of the seventh season of the CBS sitcom How I Met Your Mother and the 140th episode overall. It aired on October 3, 2011.

"Nannies" is the third episode of the eighth season of the CBS sitcom How I Met Your Mother, and the 163rd episode overall.

"The Over-Correction" is the tenth episode of the eighth season of the CBS sitcom How I Met Your Mother, and the 170th episode overall.

"Weekend at Barney's" is the 18th episode of the eighth season of the CBS sitcom How I Met Your Mother, and the 178th episode overall.

"The Ashtray" is the 17th episode of the eighth season of the CBS sitcom How I Met Your Mother, and the 177th episode overall. It originally aired on CBS in the United States on February 18, 2013. In the episode, Ted, Robin and Lily recount their previous encounter with George "The Captain" Van Smoot at an art gallery, with the former two recalling events inaccurately due to their then inebriated frame of mind. Written by series creators Carter Bays and Craig Thomas and directed by Pamela Fryman, the episode featured guest appearances by Kyle MacLachlan as The Captain, Laura Bell Bundy as Becky and Becky Baeling as Shelly.

References

  1. ↑ "9 Plays From Barney Stinson's Playbook That Could Work IRL" by Deepa Lakshmin, February 13, 2015, MTV.com
    Stinson, Barney; Kuhn, Matt (October 5, 2010). The Playbook: Suit up. Score chicks. Be awesome . Touchstone. ISBN   978-1439196830.
  2. ↑ "Lorenzopedia, the free encyclopedia". Lorenzovonmatterhorn.com. Archived from the original on February 10, 2012. Retrieved August 13, 2017.
  3. ↑ "Phallumegaly – Lorenzo von Matterhorn". Extremities Quarterly. Retrieved August 13, 2017.
  4. ↑ How I Met Your Mother – "The Playbook": Soundtrack at the Internet Movie Database.
  5. ↑ Donna Bowman (November 16, 2009). "The Playbook". The A.V. Club . The Onion . Retrieved August 13, 2017.
  6. ↑ Brian Zoromski (October 17, 2009). "How I Met Your Mother: 'The Playbook' Review. Barney's back on the singles scene". IGN . News Corporation . Retrieved August 13, 2017.
  7. ↑ Cindy McLennan (November 16, 2009). "The Lorenzo Von Matterhorn". Television Without Pity . Retrieved August 13, 2017.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.