Victoria joins the gang for a game night, where they play a game Marshall invented called Marshgamin. This game turns out to be a series of questions about Victoria's romantic history. At Game Night, Lily tells Barney that some girl named Shannon gave her a video tape, which he tries to destroy. The gang ends up watching it to find Barney looking like a hippie and crying as he sings a song to a girl trying to win her back.
Barney storms out, and when he finally returns to the gang at the bar he agrees to tell them his story, but only if they reveal their most embarrasing moments. Marshall reveals falling down naked in Lily's kindergarten class. Lily reveals having sex while Marshall's mother was on the phone and could hear them. Robin tries to tell the story of her falling in horse poop, but everyone knows it. Victoria tells a story that we don't hear that, Marshall calls "the best story ever." Ted is forced to tell the re-return. On the night of the events of the pilot, Ted re-returned for Robin only to throw up on her rug and run out.
Throughout these stories, Barney reveals his own story. After college he went through a Granola phase where he dated a girl named Shannon. They were going to leave for the peace corps, but she ditched him for some guy in a suit. This prompted Barney to change into the suit wearing Barney he is today. In the present time, he confronted Shannon and finally had sex with her, proving how awesome he is.
The gang realizes Barney won game night, as everyone deals with having revealed their embarrasing moments.
Notes
This is pretty much the first episode where Barney is the main character. He's stolen the show a lot before, but this episode is all about his backstory. We get to see Granola Barney for the first time, and how his rejection shaped him from the good natured hippie into the rather cynical suit wearing Barney he is now. The truth is that Granola Barney isn't completely gone. He referenced that he wrote a Zine as Granola Barney, and this has been transferred to him writing a blog. He also got his catch phrase "Legendary" from Shannon. Barney is really this innocent guy who just wanted people to understand him and care about him, but he got hurt really badly and has become unwilling to go through that again. To this end he has developed armor or rather a defensive "suit" to protect himself. This suit is his tendency to be kind of a douche, espescially towards women. However while he doesn't open himself up to women, he has opened himself up to Bros, and Ted in particular. He's commited to the gang, and later episodes will explore how much he is threatened by the idea of the other members of the gang abandoning him like Shannon did. On a different note, this episode shows how good Marshall is at games, which we will see throughout the series. Also we find out that Ted isn't really vomit free since 93.
Review
My only complaint about this episode was that Marshall's most embarrasing story wasn't very funny. Everything else in this episode was perfect. I love how good Marshall is at games. It makes a lot of sense, since he is basically one big kid. Granola Barney is hilarious, and I loved the homage to Star Wars as Barney Suits Up for the first time like Darth Vader. The Robin-Ted-Victoria triangle continues, and I like how the show manages to focus on this issue for multiple episodes. It's definitely leading to a boiling point.
Ranking
9.5 out of 10.
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