Barney carried "A Change Of Heart" through its slow beginning and finished it off by tugging at our heartstrings. 

The dinner date with him and Nora featured a more subdued Barney than we're accustomed to seeing. I didn’t think Barney was playing her and was pretty sure he has said he wanted to have kids before. While Lily did a good job of calling him out, in the end, he couldn’t walk through that door to meet Nora and her parents, despite the happy hypothetical scene played out in his head. 

It's important to note that this wasn’t the first time Barney self-sabotaged himself. After he left a message with his father to call him back on his cell phone, recall the time Barney switched to disposable phones and got rid of the one phone his father could reach him on? It's evident that Barney is missing something in his life; a void has opened up inside him that perhaps a special woman like Nora can fill.

I totally had this image of Nora and him living in a stone house somewhere, with three kids, a pool and a dog named Awesome. Perhaps even a butler who walks around in a Storm Trooper costume and referees the family Laser Tag games.

Barney seemed scared, though. Not a little scared, but a lot scared, like at the doctor’s office. He was scared to listen to his heart because, like Lily said, it was trying to tell him something when it skipped a beat as Nora walked into the restaurant. Amazing timing by the show’s costume designers, who dressed Nora in a stunning red dress back during filming only to have the episode air the night after the Oscars, where red dresses were all the rage.

Barney’s heart wasn’t the only one that skipped a beat when she walked in.

He was so scared to disappoint her that he threatened to air the gang’s dirty laundry if they didn’t play nice and make him look good in front of her. He dangled their secrets like the lasso of truth, my favorite of which had to be Robin’s Mr. T Dream. Robin is pretty scary herself, though, and I would have advised Barney to rethink threatening her like that.

I pity the fool who goes toe to toe with that Canadian because when the gloves come off it’s old time hockey and Robin has never shied away from putting on the foil. Ted eventually caved to the thermos threat, but I loved how he brushed aside the N’Sync concert and admitted that he was front row and caught JC’s tee shirt.

I guess we learned that Scooby does do doobies... or sandwiches, I should say. I felt like the writers should have put a leash on some of the dog references, but I did like the scene where Scooby chased the tag on the back of his jeans and then when Ted commented that it was good that Scooby had his shots as they watched him walk back from the bar, drinks in hand.

Also, Lily’s comment that Scooby’s trip from Canada must have been an Incredible Journey was a real treat. That, and when she jacked Barney up with a strong right hook to the solar plexus.

This week’s closing scene depicted Marshall getting caught picking up the calzone off of the sidewalk and eating it. Pretty sure Marshall had eaten some good sandwiches leading up to the purchase of that calzone, judging by the smirk on his face. Curious to see if Barney’s blackmail case held water, I counted the time that elapsed from the moment the calzone hit the sidewalk to when Marshall picked it back up. By my estimation, Marshall was just inside the Five Second Rule. Therefore, there was no flag on the play, and by rule, the calzone should have been placed back in the marinara sauce so he could repeat taking it down. 

Until next time, I hope you all find that someone special to be confused with.