Barney Stinson (Neil Patrick Harris) is the classic TV party boy, he’s known for being “awesome” and doing whatever he wants. Not only is he known to be fun, but he’s also notorious for getting exactly what he wants on the TV series How I Met Your Mother, usually using his own manipulation.
Barney is always throughout with his approach, nothing he does is close to being an appropriate amount of sleazy. Instead, he meticulously plans everything out and sometimes makes people jump through ridiculous hoops, only for them to realize it was a dumb setup to get his way.
Barney lies to Marshall to get him to watch a YouTube video of a dog (‘Spoiler Alert’)
In this episode, fans finally get to see if Marshall (Jason Segel) passes the bar. Unfortunately, the results are held behind a login that Marshall forgot the password to. At the same time as the results are coming out, Barney tells everyone that he has an absurd video of a dog pooping on a baby that he must show them.
Sadly, no one pays attention to Barney’s “hilarious” video. Which gets the ball rolling for a long-winded Barney plan. First, he convinces Marshall that he can help him out with retrieving the test results. After Marshal agrees, Barney returns a few days later with a CD that he claims has top-of-the-line hacking capabilities. The filled with suspense Marshall is let down by seeing the video of a dog pooping on a baby instead of his test results.
Tricking Marshall to work for Goliath National Bank (‘Cupcake’)
Marshall’s lifelong career goal, after passing the bar, is to become an environmental lawyer. But, Barney has different plans for his friend Marshall. He first tries to kindly ask Marshall to work for his company, but Marshall politely declines. This denial forces Barney to take a different approach.
Barney acts supportive and uses this to his advantage. He convinces Marshall to buy a new suit to get his dream job. Not only does Barney persuade Marshall to buy a new suit, but he also tells him “his guy” would set him up with an amazing deal. But, this was only just a trick to trap Marshall, because when the bill comes back, Marshall is charged 4,000 dollars. Because of the high price point, this purchase forces Marshall to take the job at GNB to pay off the suit.
The meatball sub revenge (‘The Exploding Meatball Sub’)
Barney is completely embarrassed because of a joke Marshall made in front of their co-workers about a stain Barney had on his tie. Barney couldn’t take the embarrassment and swore he would get revenge. But, on the day that the revenge was going to spring into action, Marshall decides to quit.
Marshall quitting was only a bump in the road for Barney, ten years later, Barney gets his revenge. He creates a believable, but fake deathbed scene where he asks Marshall, as his last wish, for him to eat a meatball sub. The sub then explodes all over Marshall and Barney gets his revenge.
Getting revenge on his friends for judging Quinn (‘The Broath’)
In the seventh season, Barney starts dating Quinn (Becki Newton) who is one of the strippers from his regular spot. Barney makes Ted (Josh Radnor) go under “Broath” and swear not to tell the rest of the friend group how he knows Quinn. But, Ted ignores this oath and tells the crew anyway. Making them all dislike her.
The couple knows Ted would tell everyone and Quinn suggests they play with the group’s minds. The couple then tricks the group by staging a fake break up which makes them all feel guilty. In a desperate attempt to gain Barney’s forgiveness, the group gets in robes and swears under “broath” again. To play with them even more, Barney makes Lily (Alyson Hannigan) and Robin kiss each other, then Marshall and Ted.
Steals all of Ted’s belongings to prove a point (‘Moving Day’)
Ted and Robin decide to move in together, but Barney warns Ted that this decision isn’t well-thought-out. Ted ignores him and packs all of his things up to move in with Robin. After loading the moving van, Barney hijacks it and steals all of Ted’s belongings.
Barney disagrees so strongly about the move-in that he held Ted’s entire life belongings hostage telling him he must hang out with him to get them back. After Ted finally agrees to hang out, he realizes Barney was right, once again giving another win to Barney.
Barney cab driver side hustle (‘Dopplegängers’)
Lily and Marshall decide once the group spots the final doppelgänger (a running joke on the series) they will start trying for a baby. Marshall thinks he found the dopplegänger during a taxi ride, but it turns out it’s actually Barney.
Barney confesses to Marshall that in order to complete his goal of sleeping with one woman from every country, he became a taxi driver. He sets up a convincing voicemail to make it seem like he’s at work when he’s actually leasing a cab. Barney then sits right outside the UN building to maximize his efforts of meeting foreign women. He even pulls down a map that’s hung inside the taxi with markings of each country he’s “scored” in.
Barney gets in the way of Marshall meeting any other women while he and Lily are broken up (‘The Scorpion and the Toad’)
Barney says how excited he is that for once all the men in the group were single at the same time. But, secretly Barney had other motives and feelings about the breakup between Marshall and Lily.
It was revealed that Barney intentionally stole away every woman Marshall tried to pick up. Barney also flew to San Francisco to convince Lily to come back, telling her that the love she and Marshall had is worth keeping. Although he put up a strong front, he had a secret plan the entire time.
Barney’s play to prove a point (‘Stuff’)
Lily invites the whole group to her play and Barney expresses how bad it is. Lily is offended by this and claims that if Barney had a bad play she would never say it was bad. She tells him that’s not what good friends do. Barney challenges this and decides to put on his own play.
The play’s name “Suck it, Lily” already gives off how elaborate this plan is going to be just to prove a point. Barney is dressed as a robot and does a one-man show to make Lily “suck it”. He weaponizes Lily’s least favorite word “moist”, poorly plays the recorder, and sprays the audience with a water gun. In the end, Lily cannot even hold back how bad the show was and Barney wins, again.
Barney’s fake family (‘The Stinsons’)
At McLaren’s Barney says he has to leave early which raises suspicion among the group. They all decide to follow him which leads them all to Barney’s mother’s house. Relieved for only minutes, the group is shocked by Barney introducing them to his wife and son.
Barney tells the group that his wife is actually a paid actor along with his “son”. A long time ago, while his mother was on her deathbed, she told Barney she wished to see him happy with a wife and kids. In order to make his dying mother happy, he hired actors to play those roles, what he didn’t plan on was her miraculous recovery. Leading him to live a lie ever since.
Barney from the future (‘Intervention’)
One day the group is sitting in McLaren’s bar when they see Barney picking up a woman dressed as an 80-year-old man. It’s then revealed that Barney has been using this trick to deceive women into sleeping with him.
Barney uses this disguise to fool women into thinking he’s from the future. Only to pop out moments later as his actual age. Miraculously these women believe this facade and Barney becomes addicted to it. The group even has to intervene by hosting the first-ever intervention to stop 80-year-old Barney.
