HIMYM S4E12: Benefits

"I love you."

I’m reasonably certain that HIMYM has never made me tear up before, but this was a sad one. The show isn’t particularly complicated, but that being said, Barney is a surprisingly complex character – and one that Neal Patrick Harris plays to perfection. How the man manages to make his lines both hilarious and utterly depressing is beyond me.

In “Benefits,” Ted and Robin find themselves fighting about mundane things once they move in together. They decide that the reason they never fought before was because they were having sex. So, they start “casually” sleeping together even though everyone warns them that someone will get hurt. Barney is visibly distraught, but apparently Ted and Robin are assholes who don’t pay attention to the world around them. Finally, when Ted comes home to find Barney cleaning the apartment because he “can’t stand it when they fight,” Ted figures it out – although Barney won’t admit it even then. Marshall, in the meantime, has overcome his fear of pooping in the office bathroom, and his victory inspires Barney.

Barney goes to Ted & Robin’s apartment to tell Ted the truth, and finds Robin instead. She tells him that Ted called off their arrangement, and she thinks its because he can’t “just have sex.” “He’s not like you,” she says, and Barney blurts out that he loves her. Because of the conversation, though, Robin assumes that Barney is “playing the role” of Ted and proceeds to drive the nail in a little deeper by asserting that she doesn’t want to date a friend anyway. And, in the end, Ted’s voiceover ponders that, “It’s true, someone does always get hurt. It just didn’t happen to be one of us.”

I hope this goes somewhere good. Also (possibly because I missed the last three eps), I want Lily to have more to do.