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Season 1

  • "The Slutty Pumpkin" has Ted wanting to go to a party in the hopes of meeting a girl he saw there years earlier. Barney however has other ideas, announcing his arrival with Danger Zone and walking in as Val Kilmer in Top Gun.
  • Marshall finding the group in "The Limo." It's the episode's Darkest Hour. The group has failed to find even one good party to attend, Marshall has gotten separated from the group, they were stuck in a limo with a crazed man with a gun, and the limo later had a flat. Lily, Ted, and Barney are standing through the limo's sunroof as Lily literally calls Marshall (as in yelling his name) because the phone circuits are jammed with people calling each other. Barney points out that New Years Eve by nature has and always will be the biggest letdown of the year and that chasing some awesome moment in it is a waste of time. Then you hear Marshall reply to Lily's calls, everyone looks up, she calls his name again, and Marshall positively bellows "LILY!" from offscreen, and he triumphantly sprints out of a plume of steam from a subway grate, throwing up V-signs as "You Give Love A Bad Name" plays. And he brought Barney's "Get Psyched" mix!
  • A friend of the gang is getting married, however when it looks like it will be called off Barney tries to bed the bride to be. Lily sees him sweet talking her and taps her inner Dark Willow.
    Lily: Oh hell no! [Grabs him by the ear and forces him against the bar] Claudia is getting married tomorrow, and so help me god if I catch you even so much as breathing the same air as her I will grab those peanuts you pass off as testicles and squeeze them so hard your eyeballs pop out of your head, then I'll feed them to you like grapes.
    Barney: [Beat] My eyeballs or my testicles?
    Lily: One of each.
  • Ted making it rain.
    Ted: Come on. Come on! COME ON!
    (it starts raining)
    Barney: Come on!
  • Marshall standing up for himself when Lily is about to walk out on him so she can go to San Francisco to study art and telling her outright that if she walks out, that's it.

Season 2

  • When Lily and Marshall are spending the summer apart, Marshall gets incredibly depressed. Robin offers to try and cheer him up but Barney scoffs, calling her "Dr. Estrogen" and saying all she would do was "rent chick-flicks and eat pints of Haagen-Daaz ice cream." Cut to Robin at the shooting gallery with a handgun bigger than both her hands put together firing off a clip to show Marshall how it's done.
    • And then Marshall getting immediately knocked out on his first shot (even sporting the bruise afterwards).
  • At the end of "The Scorpion and the Toad", Lily asks Marshall if she can do anything to make it up to him for leaving him in grave depression over the summer. At his request, she goes to MacLaren's and slaughters Barney with a drink, claiming he gave her chlamydia. She then returns in a hat and does it again, scaring off his dates of twins.
  • Barney has taught Chinese gambling pals to say "Legen—dary" and has mastered a very obscure and complicated Chinese game of chance. Even cooler, Marshall decodes the rules to the game, even though Barney was the only player who spoke Chinese, in time to give Barney the winning move.
  • Another one with Barney, although this is more a Crowning Moment for Marshall. During one episode in Season Two, Marshall and Barney make a bet, called a "slap bet", in which the winner gets to slap the loser. Due to complications, a deal is made that Marshall gets to slap Barney five times, at any time he wants. The first one is done abruptly in an Offhand Backhand manner.
    Marshall: (calmly) That's one.
    • Later in the season, during the episode where Barney puts on a ridiculously long, torturously bad play for his friends (primarily because Lily declared that art can't be bad). As he starts to tap dance, Marshall jumps up and slaps Barney in the face so hard, Barney is sent to the ground. Marshall then turns around, holds up two fingers and says "That's two."
    • Heck every slap turns into one of these. With "Slapsgiving" Marshall plans to deliver the next one to Barney on, well Thanksgiving. But when Lily thinks he's ruining the holiday, she uses her position as Slap Bet Commissioner to ban him. But then Barney goes a little bit far and taunts him incessantly and as the countdown (yes, Marshall set up a countdown) almost winds down, Lily loudly shouts "Marshall you can slap him!". And boy does he, and then he sings about it.
    • The Stinger for the season three premiere counts as well. Marshall sends Barney a link, slapcountdown.com. Exactly What It Says on the Tin, a countdown to when Barney gets slapped. Barney suffers a Villainous BSoD.
  • Barney goes on 'The Price is Right' and is able to effortlessly gauge the exact price to the last cent of every item on the show including the exact price of both his and his opponent's final showcase. And then gives all of his prizes to Lily and Marshall as wedding presents.
  • At the end of Season 2, Barney is standing outside a wedding talking to Ted. He starts to say the word, "Legen-"
  • "Wait for it..."

Season 3

  • "-Dary!" Says Barney at the start of Season 3.
  • In "We're Not From Here", after Ted goes on an elitist anti-New Jersey rant when he and Barney learn their dates are from there and not NYC, his and Barney's tourist scam blows up and their offended dates leave them to go home with an NYPD officer. Ted asks if the officer can do the same for them, only for the officer to reply "Newark, born and raised" and leave the two of them stranded there in the Bronx.
  • Ted's two-minute date with Stella in Ten Sessions, a Oner.
  • One that doubles as Heartwarming:
    Ted: Why don't you start by checking your list?
    Barney: My "list"?
    Ted: Dude. Do not pretend you're not the kind of guy who keeps a list of all the girls he's slept with.
    Marshall: I have one. It's called my marriage license. (high-fives Lily)
  • Double Subversion with Marshall standing up to his boss and quitting at the end of "The Chain of Screaming"-first Marshall just explodes at him. Then his boss says "they don't have to pay him a severance package", leaving Marshall to worry about how he's going to tell Lily. But then she tells him that he did do the right thing regardless.
    • Also, Marshall's "The Reason You Suck" Speech to Barney in "The Chain Of Screaming", when he says that Barney's protecting himself from his shitty life and past by living in a delusional dreamworld of denial where he is incapable of feeling anything or caring about his actions, and that if he (Marshall) keeps working at this job of his, "I'll turn out just like you."
  • Ted's "The Reason You Suck" Speech to Barney in "The Goat".

Season 4

  • Ted's response to Stella's self-righteous vegan sister, Nora, in Shelter Island.
    Ted: I hear the lamb here is great.
    Nora: I'm a vegan. I wish I could tune out that moral voice inside me that says eating animals is murder. But, I guess I'm just not as strong as you are.
    Ted: That's 'cause you need protein. *turns to waiter* I'll have the lamb.
  • The ending of "Three days of Snow".
    • To elaborate: Marshal and Lily are afraid that all their old traditions, the things that made them special as a couple, are falling by the wayside, their lunchtime calls to say "I love you", telling each other all the things they had to eat that day when they got home, kissing on New Years as the ball drops, and when one of them goes out of town, bringing back beer from the place they were visiting; the other coming to greet them at the airport with a chauffeur's hat and a sign with their name on it. When Lily is coming back from Seattle, Marshall spends most of the episode agonizing about whether to go to the airport or not and greet her with the hat and sign. Finally, he goes, only to discover her flight was delayed, and she called him at lunchtime to tell him, but he didn't pick up. He then thinks that this was a sign from the universe and resolves not to go. Lily arrives three days later and realizes she wants to continue their tradition after all, so she rushes out to grab Seattle beer from the nearest liquor store and back to the airport where she waits for Marshal, hoping he would have the same faith. He's not there, though, so she sits down at a nearby bench, ready to cry...only for the man next to her to start playing his flute, triggering people to stand up all over the airport, playing trumpets, horns, and drums, followed by Marshall walking in, hat, cardboard sign and all, walking straight for Lily.
      Marshall: "A muffin, a pastrami sandwich, and a bag of chips and I know it's way past lunchtime but I love you. More and more each day I love you Lily. Happy New Years." [They kiss]
  • In the episode that Ted gets into a fight with a big guy in an alley, he goes down pretty quickly, but when he comes to he sees that the other guy is unconscious too. Future Ted's narration simply tells his kids never to cross Uncle Marshall.
    • Some elaboration: Because Marshall is such a nice, easy-going guy, they laughingly dismiss his claim that he fought with his brothers growing up as painless, good-natured roughhousing. Turns out they were brutal, no-holds-barred cage fights. And being that Marshall is smaller than his brothers, he had to be more vicious to make up for it.
    • While often overlooked, Ted gets a moment when he punches Doug, the crazy, violent bartender because he brought up Ted being left at the altar. He gets another one for learning that fights are really stupid.
  • The end of "The Possimpible", in which Barney reveals that he singlehandedly managed to land Robin a job by finishing her video resume by himself and sending it to every station in the city, thereby preventing her from being deported back to Canada for being unemployed.
    • Not only did he land her a job at a better station (without an audition, no less), he manipulated them into giving her more money in the process.
    • Not to mention the entirety of Barney's own video resume, which is pretty impressive. He really seems to have his finger on the corporate pulse, with his Dilbert-esque statement that what they want is "people who seem like bold risk-takers but don't actually do anything."
  • "I'm cuddly, bitch, deal with it."
    • That entire episode is a giant Moment of Awesome for Ted. For context—Ted gets a girl's number at the bar, and Barney and Marshall tell him that he should wait 3 days before calling because 'that's the rule'. Ted figures that texting doesn't count, and soon he ends up having rather naughty and deep text message conversations with this girl all night. It turns out it's Marshall and Barney playing a prank, having replaced the girls' number with Barney's to bust Ted for calling too soon, but decides to mess with him with texts instead. When Ted finds out, he plans the most epic revenge ever seen on a sitcom—he texts "Holly" that he sometimes has gay dreams about his Best Friend, causing Marshall and Barney to argue over who is the hottest. He then shows up at the bar and says he had an 'odd dream', and they want him to talk about it to find out who he was dreaming about—and he then proceeds to "waste half an hour of those bastards' lives" telling them an incredibly nerdy and annoying bullshit dream about having dinner with famous historical architects, exposes them as pranksters and introduce them to to Holly whom he had contacted at work, thus simultaneously getting his revenge on the guys AND proving that the 3-day rule is bunk! …that is, until we realize the girl is a complete nutjob, but hey!
  • When Tony dumps Stella, she comes to Ted for help, only to get her just desserts.
    Stella: Can you talk to Tony?
    Ted: What?
    Stella: He listened to you. I mean, you changed his mind, you could change it back. I… I know it's an awful thing to ask…
    Ted: Yeah, it's an awful thing to ask.
    Stella: Well, I don't know what else to do okay? I… I love him.
    Ted: Oh, you love him so… what, you're appealing to the romantic in me? Is that your strategy? Because that guy's gone. You can't pull those strings anymore. They're not attached to anything, thanks to you.
    • The fact that Ted does talk to Tony shows that despite the pain, he is still the same hopeless romantic as before and the experience didn't jade him completely.
  • The ending scene of "The Leap"— Marshall has wanted to jump onto the roof of the next building for years, but has never been able to work up the courage to do so. He finally does it and the rest of the cast follows as triumphant music swells and Ted narrates about what the past year has meant for his life.
  • Ted's revenge on Barney when he found out the latter had voted for Sven's design: he tied Barney to a mechanical bull, set it to "Paint Mixer" and left him there for 3 hours. This resulted in Barney missing out on a threesome with two of the Woo girls.

Season 5

  • The scuba-diver.
    • Everything from The Playbook, both the episode and the actual book itself.
  • In "The Rough Patch", Robin and Barney let themselves go because they're not happy being in a relationship with each other and don't realize it. In Robin's case she looks more and more haggard and unkempt, but Barney becomes a compulsive eater and balloons in size (played for laughs in the show because Future Ted admits that neither of them got as bad as he remembers them as being). At the end, after their amicable break-up, Robin returns to looking normal but just as she speculates that Barney will take a while to recover, he walks into the bar, slim and immaculate in his black suit, causing every women in the vicinity to stare at him, and as he casually straightens his tie:
    Barney: [to the camera] Daddy's home. [wink]
  • In the 100th episode 'Girls versus Suits', we get a musical number with back-up dancers and the main cast all dressed in suits. All sung by Barney. Doubles as Awesome Music.

Season 6

  • The ENTIRETY of "Subway Wars". That may go down as the most epic episode of anything, ever.
    • Marshall running across town and tying with everyone else.
    • Barney tackling Ted so that Robin can win. Also a heartwarming moment.
  • "I always knew this day would come."
    • For context: several years ago, Lily tried to learn karate but got the snot beaten out of her by a kindergartner. In the present day, she shows up at the karate place and challenges the kindergartner—now in junior high—to a match, prompting him to say this line.
  • Awesome Music: Subway Wars and when Lily is rushing home to warn Marshall about the soup. Doubles as Crowning Music of Funny, if there is such a thing.
  • "False Positive" has everyone reconsider their lives when Marshall and Lily briefly believe they are expecting a baby. Robin was offered a job at a company she wanted to work for (not the job she wanted, but room to grow), Barney wanted to donate his Christmas bonus to charity (not the stripper) instead of buying a diamond pin-striped suit and Marshall and Lily went on to panic and baby-proof their apartment. When they found out about the false positive, everyone started backing out of their commitments and Ted has an EPIC "The Reason You Suck" Speech and tells Lily and Marshall to go back to work making a baby, calls out New York to chase after Barney and his diamond suit and pushes Robin to take the job. To finish it off his buddy Punchy, who asked Ted to be the best man, called him in a panic over his wedding and Ted calms him down. All of that in the space of about 2 minutes.
    • Earlier that episode, Robin had been mocking Ted as a horrible best man, because he couldn't talk a groom out of making a stupid mistake out of fear (Marshall's mistake on his wedding day). Of course, he does that for everyone in his epic rant, and she is so impressed that she lampshades his awesomeness and asks him to be her best man.
    • Ted's handling of Punchy borders on Offhand Backhand levels of awesome.
      Punchy: [Panicking] Ted, I can't get married!
      Ted: YES YOU CAN, YOU LOVE HER.
      Punchy: You're right, I do, thanks Ted! [Hangs up, shrugs, looking amazed]
  • In Change of Heart, Lily slaps Barney several times. Pretty standard. After finding out about him lying to sleep with Nora however she slugs him. Not slaps, a full on punch that sends him into cardiac arrest.
    Doctor: And that explains your fourteen-second cardiac arrest. [Lily blows on her fist]
  • "We're also a band"
    • Jerry improvises a series of awesome antics after pretending to get drunk and unleash Crazy Jerry.
  • Ted taking a stand and calmly destroying Zoey's influence on his class with eight words: "Anyone not in class tomorrow gets an F."
  • Ted becoming the youngest architect in New York to break ground on a skyscraper, and pressing the button to blow up the Arcadian. "New is always better."

Season 7

  • Barney and Robin's spontaneous dance number in "The Best Man" may be a Big-Lipped Alligator Moment of Awesome.
  • Lily destroying Barney's Batman Gambit to grope her breasts by leaping to her feet and flashing him in the middle of the incredibly complex "shrimp in the pocket" hibachi grilling move he bet her he could pull off. Also doubles as a Funny Moment, with the shrimp tumbling past Barney's gawking face, AND the Japanese chef sailing into the shot to get a eyeful, AND Barney's subsequent epic Big "NO!" putting layers of icing on the cake.
  • Barney's various automatic pick-up schemes in "The Stinson Missle Crisis" are insane and glorious.
  • The very end of "Field Trip" right after Marshall's realization "…we're gonna save the planet…":
    Future Ted: And kids, as we all know… they did.
    • The moment that preceded this one is pretty great as well. Marshall gives his boss a polite yet firm speech to restore his resolve (bolstered by a sonogram of his unborn child), prompting an amazing He's Back! moment where Marshall is saved by his boss entering the board room, denying their offer, and then leaving.
    Marshall: Where are we going?
    Garrison Cootes: [deadly serious] War, son. We're going to war.
  • The end of "Symphony of Illumination". That is all.
  • In Now We're Even Robin successfully landing a helicopter safely after its pilot has a stroke.
  • The Magician's Code, wherein Barney and Marshall are stuck on a bus headed to Buffalo while Lily's in labor at a hospital in Manhattan. Despite both's pleas with the stubborn driver, he refuses to make the stop into the city "unless there's a medical emergency." Cue the nearly full bus of elderly people proclaiming they have heart attacks. And their doctors all happen to be at the same specific hospital that Lily's at. And one is the grandmother of the head cardiologist!
    • Also, Marshall and Lily's son's middle name. Marvin Waitforit Erikson.

Season 8

  • Barney gets major credit (*salutes* Major Credit) for managing to recap seven years worth of relationship drama in 50 seconds. Keep in mind that Barney is extremely ADHD, and he got distracted and went off chasing little white rabbits several times during that spiel. And he still finished with two seconds to spare, which he used to mention his stint on The Price Is Right.
    Barney: Seven years ago when Marshall and Lily got engaged, Ted saw Robin across a crowded room, and I said "Oh yeah, you know she likes it dirty", but Ted really liked her, so we played 'Haaave you met Ted?'. They went to dinner, he walked her home, should've kissed her, didn't, lame, so he stole a Smurf penis, went back to her place, should've kissed her, didn't, lame, he threw three parties they kissed on the roof but decided to be friends, lame. Then Ted wanted to take Robin to a wedding, she couldn't go, he went alone and met Victoria. Didn't kiss her either, lame. Not a great closer, Ted. And he finally kissed her, they started dating, she moved to Germany, Ted kissed Robin, lost Victoria, Ted did a rain dance, got Robin, Ted and Robin broke up, Robin moved to Brazil, came back with a Latin stud. Ted got jealous, got a tramp stamp, not really relevant to the story, I just like mentioning that as much as possible. I hooked up with Robin, Ted and I stopped being friends, Ted got hit by a bus, we made up. *deep inhale* Robin and I started dating, I got fat, her hair fell out, we broke up, Robin dated Don, I dated Nora. Cheated on her with Robin, I dumped Nora, Robin dated Kevin but not for long then I met you and you took my grandpa's watch and I fell in love with you anyway and you let me fart in front of you and I asked you to marry me, you said "Yes" and we came over here to meet little Marvin and that's everything! Also I went on The Price Is Right and I won a dune buggy.
  • Building on the above, Marshall's eventual victory over Brad in what Future!Ted describes as the toughest legal battle of Marshall's career. How does he do it? Brad has already got the judge and jury on his side by using his sex appeal, including showing a video of him swimming in the polluted Frog Lake. Earlier in the episode, we're introduced to some adorable ducklings who've contracted dermatitis from the lake. This gives Marshall the idea to call Brad as a witness, and tell him to open his shirt, revealing that he has also contracted the same dermatitis, swinging the entire case to Marshall. Lawyered. Unfortunately, the judge only awards compensation of $25,000 from a multi-billion dollar corporation, but this only inspires Marshall to become a judge, since they're the ones with the power to effect real change.
    • Lily recounts her teenage years when the others brag about how hardcore they were: a goth badass carrying a baseball bat who took in geeks and forced them to take a level in badass while beating cops and when she walked down the street everybody ran. Hers was the only story to be true and as an adult walking down the same street everyone remembers her and bolts. Meanwhile, the gang looks bemused as it dawns on them that Lily wasn't bullshitting.
  • Admit it. "The Robin" was an awesomely thought-out play on Barney's part.
    • And "The Barney" was an awesome (albeit also harsh, but it's Barney, so…) counter-play.
  • Robin charging into the men's room in "The Time Travelers" was brief and pretty damn awesome. Not to mention what she wrote on the ladies' room wall.
    • When Future!Ted breaks the story by having Ted meet Tracy 45 days early, Ted specifically mentions that, if he can't have those days, he'll be okay having "the 45 seconds before [Louis] shows up and punches [him] in the face" because he loves her. And the reason why he specifies that? Well, when Louis does show up:
      Louis: (shows up with groceries) Can I help you?
      Ted: (confidently) Oh, hey, it's, uh, Louis, right? It's okay. It's fine, um... I'm in love with your girlfriend, and, uh, we're gonna get married.
      Louis: ...what?!
      Ted: Yeah. (Louis drops his groceries; punches Ted)
    • The six-part harmony barbershop quartet version of Billy Joel's 'The Longest Time' as performed by Present!Ted, Present!Barney, 20-Hours Future!Ted, 20-Minutes Future!Barney, 20-Years Future!Ted, and 20-Years Future! Barney.
      20-Years Future! Barney: Okay, guys. I've been waiting twenty years for this! Just like we practiced. No mistakes! Ready?
  • Ted calling Barney out for his behavior as a fiancee in "Romeward Bound" felt much-needed by many fans, even if it was met with a Shut Up, Hannibal! immediately after.
  • Barney's bachelor party.
    • Details: feeling that only he can properly plan his own bachelor party, gives Ted and Marshall a list of requirements they must fulfill. Which they let Robin do, as she calls in a number of favors (most importantly by The Karate Kid himself), but, since, as Barney admits, his "average night is like an average guy's bachelor party", she sets it up so that Barney thinks it's the worst night of his life, making it unforgettable.
  • Ted's Screw Destiny speech to Robin during "Something Old" which deserves to be transcribed in full:
    Ted: Maybe it's dumb to look for signs from the Universe. Maybe the Universe has better things to do; dear God, I hope it does. Do you know how many signs I've gotten that I should or shouldn't be with somebody, and where has it gotten me? Maybe there aren't any signs. Maybe a locket is just a locket, a chair is just a chair. Maybe we don't have to give meaning to every little thing. Maybe we don't need the Universe to tell us what we really want. Maybe we already know that deep down.
    • Crosses into Heartwarming seeing as he was doing it to help Robin.
  • After eight seasons of waiting, in the final moments of the eight season finale, we finally see "The Mother".

Season 9

  • Before the season even began, Ted's kids got one—David Henrie & Lindsey Fonseca reprising their roles for the first time since the second season, and ripping into their father for taking 8 years to tell them the story of how he met their mother.
    Future Ted: So… you're saying you want me to wrap it up?
    Luke and Penny: YES!
    Future Ted: Alright, fine. I'll wrap it up.
    Penny: Fuckin' A!
    • The events of the season made it very clear that it's just a skit done for Comic-Con. Which is a good thing for a lot of reasons.
  • From what we get of the brawl between Lily and The Mother, it was brutal.
  • Marshall standing up for himself and telling Daphne he's picking the music. Although that does beg the question of how Clint's going to get back home…
    Marshall: You threw a live grenade into my marriage. You screwed up my whole world. So from now on, we listen to my music. [puts on "I Would Walk 500 Miles"]
    Daphne: [meekly] ...I hate this song.
    Marshall: Give it time.
  • The Mother completely deconstructing Barney's personality and convincing him to go after Robin. It's both Awesome and Heartwarming at the same time.
  • The writers and actors both deserve one for "Bedtime Stories", an episode done entirely in rhyme.
    • Gus's improvised rap to bail Marshall out of finding a rhyme for "Canada". Lin-Manuel Miranda gets to showcase his fantastic rap skills, and in-universe, it's a pretty impressive verse for him taking it off the top of his head.
  • The rehearsal dinner. Barney keeps mentioning a laser tag surprise rehearsal dinner that Robin isn't throwing for him to throw her off the real surprise: he's throwing a surprise rehearsal dinner for Robin in an ice rink, which is Canada-themed because she wanted to have the wedding in Canada and couldn't. Complete with Alan Thicke singing with James, who is half-dressed as a mountie, half-dressed as Robin Sparkles.
  • Ted giving Darren a One-Hit KO for messing with the gang which, unbeknown to him, incidentally also helps the Mother stay with her band. Which contributes to them hooking up, when you think about it.
    • Earlier in the episode, Ted mentioned he wouldn't go to prison for Barney. Then later he breaks into a nearby liquor store and steals a six-hundred dollar bottle of scotch to replace the one that'd been broken at the end of the previous episode. Barney points out that that's grand theft and Ted could go to prison for that.
  • The last slap. Slapsgiving Three. It actually has a backstory to it, in that Marshall went to Shanghai to learn the Slap Of A Million Burning Suns.
    • Marshall goes to stop the skipping jukebox, and turns it into a pile of scrap. Barney's mocking grin suddenly turns to utter horror. Throughout the rest of the story, Barney turns into a gibbering mess.
    • First, Marshall goes to meet Red Bird (Robin), who has a slap so fast it's almost invisible. Marshall learns how to slap so fast he can actually paint by slapping.
    • Marshall then meets White Flower (Lily), who can slap with such strength it can break windows. He then allows all of Barney's previous conquests to slap him, allowing his hand to glow red.
    • Finally, Marshall goes to meet The Calligrapher (Ted), who then teaches Marshall to be accurate… or at least, he would have, if Marshall wasn't so immensely strong he slapped The Calligrapher's heart out of his body. Except… when a heart is slapped out of somebody's body, they stay alive for ten minutes, which allows Marshall to master The Slap Of A Million Burning Suns.
  • In "Unpause," Ted and Robin get Barney to the level of drunkenness where he can't lie. They ask him to finally tell them what his job is. Whenever they asked him before he always answered with just "Please." It turns out that is his job! "Please" is a Fun with Acronyms for Provide Legal Exculpation and Sign Everything. It's a job where he spends all day signing papers claiming responsibility for the illegal activities of a corporation. He was hired in 1998 by Greg, a Corrupt Corporate Executive who was also the slick asshole who stole Barney's girlfriend back when he was a hippie. After Barney had his Evil Makeover, the guy didn't recognize him. Ted and Robin are alarmed by this and tell Barney he could get in trouble but he lets them in on his "master plan". Future Ted tells his kids that two months after his wedding, Barney went to his boss' office and revealed that the 16 years he spent working there was all part of his Best Served Cold revenge against him for stealing his girlfriend and that he's been working with the Feds giving them evidence.
    Barney: Hey, Greg. I know you're busy, but FYI: I've been colluding with the Feds. They know everything, and they're on their way up right now to shut down this division and arrest you. Door closed, or...?
    Greg: What?! Why would you do that?!
    Barney: Gosh, countless moral reasons...could have applied, but this is pretty much revenge for stealing my girlfriend. See, that day I vowed I would do everything in my power to track you down, gain your trust, and then destroy you.
    Barney: Who am I? Just a guy who served you coffee once. [The FBI arrives, while Barney Stinson: That Guy's Awesome starts playing] Peace out, loser!
    • Adding to this, it's been heavily implied (such as Barney's old apartment being very fancy and having several TVs large enough to cover the entire wall) that Barney was being paid an absurd amount of money for this job, the few times we see him at it he's mostly just goofing around. Barney got to spend 16 years in a cushy job being paid horrendously large amounts of money to do nothing more than sign a few documents every so often, all the while working with the FBI, meaning he even avoids legal trouble for taking the fall for what little he actually had to do at said job. Sure, his main objective might have been revenge, but getting paid tons of money to take revenge on someone brings Magnificent Bastardry to a whole new level.
  • When Lily tells Marshall that accepting the judgeship without telling her is more selfish than anything she ever did, he finally snaps and calls her out about her leaving to San Francisco in the first season. That speech has been eight years in the making, and for some, it was worth waiting every second just to see him finally call Lily out on her selfish behavior and hypocrisy.
    • Not to mention that Marshall reveals his suspicions that Lily only came back to him because she failed in San Francisco, and that if she'd been successful she never would have come back and Marvin never would have been born.
      • And then in the Sunrise, Marshall comes to realize that while he is right, doing things like making decisions without consulting his wife and consistently referring to having "won" and "lost" arguments with her are bad. This realization is represented by Imaginary!Lily telling him that if he keeps doing stuff like that, it will eventually destroy their marriage.
  • Ted refusing to run away with Robin in "The End of the Aisle", telling her that she is just freaking out, he isn't in love with her anymore, and that if she thinks he will go with her, she doesn't know him as well as she thinks.
  • And then the real last slap.

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