Future Ted explains that the key to date was self-confidence, which Barney had in spades, but usually that confidence was in a character. We turn to see Barney sitting in MacLaren’s in a full scuba suit drinking scotch. Lily pulls aside a woman at the bar, warning her of Barney’s villainy. The woman (Claire) sits down with the rest of the gang as they explains the events that lead up to that night.

After their breakup, Barney and Robin were taking different approaches to coping. Robin said she wanted to throw herself into her career, but Marshall and Ted are convinced she will find the love of her life, citing several friends who gave up on dating to focus on their work, only to be married (or in a civil union) months later. Barney, on the other hand, decided to re-enter the dating scene with a vengeance, using his sacred “Playbook.” The book describes a set of con-artist scenarios designed to seduce a woman.

Meanwhile, Lily tries to set up Ted with a fellow teacher. She had originally tried to get them to meet, but she found Ted and Marshall in the middle of a chicken-finger mouth-stuffing attempt, so she convinced her coworker Ted wasn’t there. But Ted is stood up, and after confronting the woman, Lily finds out that she was seduced by an exotic man at MacLaren’s. Lily realizes it was Barney, and is understandably perturbed.

Barney describes the play he used, the “Lorenzo Von Matterhorn”, using fake websites, a smartphone, and an exotic name.[2] As revenge, Lily steals the playbook and threatens to publish it on the internet if Barney does not stop tricking women into sleeping with him. He promptly shows up at the apartment in the aforementioned scuba suit, saying he will be at the bar. The “Scuba Suit” con is not in the playbook, so the gang goes downstairs to find out what it is. Claire, the girl Lily had approached at the beginning of the episode, is also curious to find out what the scuba suit is for, so the gang sits with Barney.

He begins to act cocky, but Barney eventually breaks down, admitting that his breakup with Robin was hurting him, and this was how he coped. Touched, the gang strongly advises Claire to go out with Barney for a cup of coffee. After they leave, the gang gets a text from Barney and finds the description of the “Scuba Suit” under their table at MacLaren’s. It was actually an elaborate and long con, involving Lily’s disgust at the playbook, revealing Barney’s tricks to his prey (Claire), Barney’s fake breakdown over his breakup, and his friends encouraging the prey to go with Barney. The gang had been elaborately fooled.

Finally, a new co-host, Don, arrives at Robin’s pre-morning show. Future Ted than says, “That was the day she met Don”. Then, the episode depicts Robin saying, “Damn you, Marshall,” as if she were suddenly realizing that Ted and Marshall’s taunting may have had some truth.

“The Playbook” is the eighth episode of the fifth season of the CBS situation comedy How I Met Your Mother and 96th episode overall. It originally aired November 16, 2009.

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