TV Recap: ‘How I Met Your Mother,’ “The Rough Patch”

Courtesy of TV Guide

Who would have ever imagined an ugly Robin and overweight Barney?

But alas, Season 5 delivers. Barney and Robin are settling into their relationship, and not in a good way. They’ve changed into unhappy people who just stay at home and do nothing. They’re in a rut.

Barney graciously (aka on Robin’s orders) gives Ted his huge porn collection. Ted goes for the one called “archisexture” (of course) – as Barney knew he would, as it turns out. Instead of the porn video, Barney has recorded a message. He says that if Ted is watching this, Barney is either dead – in which case he wants Ted to take him on a Weekend at Bernie’s-style trip to the beach (awesome movie, by the way) – or in a relationship . . . in which case he wants Ted to break him up.

Ted doesn’t know whether to take him seriously or not. It’s Barney and Robin, after all. They seem so happy. Marshall and Lily tell him to just let everything run its course.

But the signs keep increasing (and so does Barney’s weight). Marshall decides he agrees with Ted. The tables have turned – now it’s two againnst one in favor of breaking them up. However, Lily informs them that since she’s the one, it doesn’t matter. But Ted and Marshall eventually persuade her to help them break Robin and Barney up, since she’s the master (nice Season 4 reference with Lily breaking Ted up with 7 different girls, including Robin).

Lily decides to restart Robin and Barney’s four biggest fights at the same time to turn it into onne big fight that ends with them breaking up. She plans to have Alan Thicke, a Canadian friend of Robin’s from her Robin Sparkles days, “accidentally” bump into them. Then Meg, an ex of Barney’s, will show up. A stormtrooper will walk by the window (awesome Star Wars reference – and I love that Barney has a life-size stormtrooper in hhis apartment), and finally, a waiter with dirty dishes will come by.

They attempt to pull it off, and things aren’t looking so good when they think Robin and Barney see them and will know it’s them. Lily decides to go ahead with the plan anyway . . . but as Barney and Robin leave the diner, the others see them kiss and decide that it must be meant to be.

But that wasn’t what really happened.

Barney and Robin didn’t see their friends; they saw their own reflections. Disgusted with what they were turning into, they decide on their own to just go back to being friends. Robin (who, by the way, never looked ugly; she just looked a little to late for Halloween) shows up at the bar and meets the other three.

Then all the girls in the bar turn toward the entrance, where a regular looking Barney strolls in. “Daddy’s back.”