HIMYM 7.19: "The Broath"

“Fine, I'll fill her in, and I am so angry I am not even going to make a joke about filling her in. Which I did three times last night. Self-five!”
-Barney

So I didn’t love this episode of HIMYM. I know I’ve been saying that about a lot of shows lately. It’s not just me being contrary, I promise! When I finally get around to blogging the “Game of Thrones” season premiere, there will be raves on this blog. Raves, I tell you! Part of the problem with this episode in particular is that I really don’t like Quinn at all. I dislike her for different reasons than I dislike Nora. Nora was kind of a non-entity- the poor man’s Robin, really, with the laser-tagging and all. Quinn is pure evil. She brings out the worst in Barney and erases all the growth he has made over the years, especially last year in the arc where he met his father. Marshall and Lily were rather intolerable in this episode as well. They spent most of it preoccupied with the fact that Marshall can’t tell “sex stories” because everyone knows he’s only ever been with Lily. The only redeeming aspect to this episode at all really was Ted and Robin having some genuine conversation and trying to deal what they’ve recently been through.

At the beginning of the episode, Saget!Ted tells us that Barney had been off the grid for a few weeks, likely all caught up in Quinn Land, the scammiest place on Earth. Then, out of the blue, Barney text Ted. Ted goes to Barney’s apartment, where Barney greets him dressed in a toga. He wants Ted to swear a “Broath” on the Bro Code that he will not tell the rest of the gang that Quinn is a stripper. He wants them to meet her with an open mind and get to know her before they find out what she does for a living. I do have to admit that the trappings of the “Broath” were pretty funny. Barney even got some monks to record themselves chanting “Bro” over and over. Ted swears the Broath not to tell the gang about Quinn, then he immediately runs to MacLaren’s and tells everyone that Quinn is a scammy stripper.

The gang agrees to meet Quinn anyway, and they do their best to keep an open mind, but it doesn’t go well at all. Quinn comes off as ridiculously controlling, even telling Barney when he can and can’t go use the rest room. Nobody likes her, and I don’t blame them. She does mention, however, that she’s moving from her apartment soon because she and Barney are going to move in together. This starts a bit of a competition between Ted and Robin, because they are both in need of some new housing. Since they both moved out of the apartment and gave it to Lily and Marshall, Ted has been living in university housing, and Robin has been living with her kind of annoying coworker, Patrice. They are both rather desperate for a place of their own, even though the college Ted, Lily, and Marshall clones that Ted encounters in university housing are pretty hilarious. Marshall 2.0 is even eating a sandwich, of course. Also while the gang is at Quinn’s apartment, Lily finds evidence that Barney and Quinn are taking a trip to Hawaii. They figure it’s yet another expensive gift Quinn swindled out of Barney.

Not liking what they’ve seen on Quinn at all, the gang hauls out the trusty old intervention banner. Marshall decides it needs a little upgrade to say “Quinntervention,” which I thought was kind of stupid, especially when Marshall started insisting they put “Quinn” in front of all manner of words. When Barney is confronted with the Quinntervention, he is mostly upset because this means that Ted blabbed to the rest of the gang and broke the sacred Broath. Barney warns that the breaking of a Broath can have dire consequences, and we get a funny fake history flashback to “Broman” times to illustrate. One of Caesar’s bros tells him that there is no conspiracy to kill him, then ninjas suddenly appear. Caesar kicks ass and defeats the ninjas, and the disloyal bro gets a throwing star to the head. The gang realizes they’ve put their collective foot in their mouths when Barney says he knows nothing about the trip to Hawaii. Quinn then appears in the doorway and says that she bought the trip for Barney. Quinn is pissed when she finds out Barney asked Ted not to tell the others about Quinn’s job, because she thinks it means Barney is ashamed of her. Barney says that if Quinn leaves, it proves that the gang was right about her. Quinn slaps Barney and storms out, leaving the gang feeling pretty sheepish.

Despite having a lesson in treating other people decently, Robin and Ted continue to squabble over who should sublease Quinn’s apartment. They eventually take the conversation out into the hall. Robin reveals that she thinks she’s going to lose her job. She’s been very distracted what with the broken short-lived engagement to Kevin and Ted professing his love and having to move and all, and a meeting has been called for Friday afternoon, which is otherwise known as “Fire O’Clock” at World Wide News. She desperately wants things to go back to normal with Ted because she needs her best friend to vent about stuff like this. Ted says he can’t do that. Later, Robin and Ted meet again at MacLaren’s. It turns out that Robin didn’t lose her job after all. She got a promotion, and she is now Sandy’s co-host. She also has gotten herself a nice new apartment in Central Park West. Ted will now be able to take Quinn’s apartment. Robin and Ted decide to go back to “normal,” but Saget!Ted tells us that he didn’t see Robin for a while after that conversation.

The gang all goes over to Barney’s apartment to apologize for breaking him and Quinn up. He makes them all swear a Broath to never interfere in his personal life again. Everyone swears the Broath, complete with a Robin/Lilly kiss where Lily is way more into it than Robin, and then Quinn appears. It turns out that this whole turn of events, from the original Broath on, was an evil plot hatched by Barney and Quinn because Quinn “loves chaos.” She’s just generally evil. But the gang all thinks they’re perfect together. Obviously, I don’t. Quinn brings out the worst in Barney and erases all the character development that has happened for the past few seasons. Barney and Quinn announce that they’ve decided to move in together for real. At the end of the episode, when Barney and Quinn are alone again, we see them talking about if Quinn would ever stop stripping (Barney’s a little jealous). She says she might if she ever got married. That bride we’ve been teased about for the past few seasons had better be Robin. That’s all I’m saying.