How I Met Your Father finale tries to redeem Barney Stinson

How I Met Your Mother was a lighthearted sitcom that generated plenty of laughs. Many of these came at the expense of breakout character Barney. His behaviors, actions, and words were wildly inappropriate, only squeezing out hearty laughs because of Harris’ spot-on, exaggerated performance. He portrayed Barney more like a caricature of a human than an actual person. Nonetheless, it would never fly today.

When he first appears in How I Met Your Father, Barney emerges from his car after Sophie rear-ends a vehicle with the license plate LGNDRY. She was preoccupied on a phone call, frantically revealing to her mother that she thinks she might be dating her father. He buttons up his suit jacket and declares “dude?” when he sees the damage and the scared young woman who is responsible.

This puts the now single Barney (the timeline in How I Met Your Father would occur long after Barney and Robin had divorced) in a perfect position to try and bed a vulnerable young woman who now owes him for the damage. But that’s far from what happens.

In fact, before Sophie can even speak, he reads from a piece of paper introducing himself as a “recovering serial womanizer,” delivering an apologetic speech he has likely recited more times than he can count in case the woman happens to be a victim exacting revenge. When he makes an inappropriate comment about her chest, his STD (shock therapy device) goes off and he shudders in pain. He explains it’s an experimental new electro-shock treatment, and the device is programmed with thousands of problematic statements that, should he utter one, will trigger it.

Barney flubs a few times, suffering through enough electricity, as he describes, to “power Staten Island.” It brings fans back to the old Barney who could barely go a moment without saying something inappropriate. But more importantly, he shows mercy on the clearly troubled young woman. He decides to listen to her sordid tale of potential daddy-daughter love and let her off the hook for his car if the story is “juicy enough.”

The conversation from there introduces fans to a sweeter, more caring, more respectful version of Barney. He relates his story about envisioning Bob Barker as his father when he was growing up and mentions how when an “old friend” (Marshall) lost his father, it inspired him to track down his own. As Sophie opens up about her wishes and fears about finding her own father, Barney delivers sage advice.

The clincher, however, is when he talks about his daughter, Ellie, who he calls “the best thing to ever happen to an idiot like me. The moment I saw her,” he continues, “I knew I had to change.”

His words weigh heavily on Sophie and convince her to finally look for her own father. In this respect, Barney’s cameo was more than just a meaningless appearance to appease fans of the original. It was an apology.

If this is the last time fans see Barney Stinson on screen, the character has been redeemed in a satisfying way. He made grave errors in judgeent in the past. He disrespected women and his actions and words were unacceptable. But he’s learning, growing, and changing.

It’s an important lesson about a person’s ability to look in the mirror and decide to be a better version of themselves. The short cameo will cause fans to see How I Met Your Mother in a whole new way once they realize Barney’s character arc is far more meaningful and progressive than the finale might have let on. That’s a good thing for both shows.