This one's been tough, because it's hard to work out what Barney's logic is (well, that's always the case, but in this episode especially- him inviting Jerry out seems unexplained. And the too-far-gone speech always seems OOC to me). Anyway, if you've stuck with this from Ch1, thanks very much.
He says, "Son, can you play me a memory
I'm not really sure how it goes,
But it's sad and it's sweet and I knew it complete
When I wore a younger man's clothes,"
-Billy Joel, Piano Man
6.21- Hopeless
Fishing with his dad sucks. It sucks so much that Barney might even prefer to be in one of Ted's architecture lectures. He and JJ and Jerry are sitting in their rented wooden boat; JJ with his chin in his hands gazing into the water, Jerry fiddling about with the rods and Barney in the middle, wondering why he agreed to this in the first place. He's tired and stiff, and if he gets any water or pond-y crap on his suit he may have a breakdown.
The sun's glaring sweatily down, and Barney wonders how long it's been since the last tug on the rod (not a euphemism). They haven't caught a single fish, which- last time Barney looked- is contradictory to the entire point of fishing.
Yup, this definitely one hundred per cent sucks.
Barney thinks back to yesterday when his dad called, and how he'd point-blank refused him-
"Look, would you like to go fishing with me and JJ on Sunday morning?"
He nearly bursts out laughing. His father's a failure. A disappointment. Barney doesn't want to hang out with a plain old man, or a snotty kid named after him.
"Ooh, hold on, let me check my personality. Oh no, turns out I would never do that in a million years,"
He doesn't care how spiteful it sounds. He's got every right to behave however he wants to his father. Jerry deserves nothing from him.
"So I'll see you. Or maybe not. Bye,"
And he turns his attention back to the blonde chick.
But the more he had thought about it, the more an idea had germinated in his brain. There were two aspects of his current situation- One; Jerry left Barney to grow up fatherless, feeling like an abandoned loser and growing up to be cold and afraid of normal relationships. Two; that Jerry was not the man Barney expected him to be. Barney had wanted the rock 'n' roller he remembered from when he was a kid, not the married man with the wife and kids who went fishing.
The first issue was obviously much bigger than the second, but if Barney separated them, he reckoned he had a solution to Part Two. A mad night out to show Jerry just how awesome the life he'd given up- the life Barney lives and loves- is. To win back Crazy Jerry. And it was gonna be legend- wait-for-it…
Hmm. His big idea hadn't gone well at first. Hopeless wasn't as exciting as Barney remembered, and Jerry looked keen to slink off back to suburgatory. So obviously, Barney had the perfect solution-
"Let's do shots!"
Shots are going to make his dad the guy who Barney wants to hang out with.
"Uh, no, thank you, Barney. I have that fishing trip with JJ early tomorrow,"
Choosing the kid over him. Again. Again. Barney feels like he'd been doused with hot, stinging water. He's half deciding to give up, to resolve that this was a terrible idea and he shouldn't have called back inviting Jerry out. A bitter remark is in his mouth -screw you and your son and your perfect family, and thanks again for leaving me without that; and then he'll never call, he'll pretend this didn't happen, like he should have done after the night of the basketball hoop, like he should have done after the museum.
"But I want to hang out with you," protests Jerry, sounding lame and pathetic as usual. Barney wonders why he's spent so long wasting his time on what's obviously a hopeless case.
"I want Crazy Jerry. Not Stay At Home Jerome," he says bitterly.
He's tried to make his father legendary, but it hasn't worked. Barney doesn't do second chances, and if he's calculated correctly, by now Jerry's had a second and third chance- and he's still weak and boring, and he still doesn't want Barney.
But then Jerry had done something entirely unexpected. He downed a shot, then another, then another.
"Fine. You want Crazy Jerry? There! You got him!"
Barney gapes in amazement. And then he grins- half-triumphant, half-wary- and orders himself a round of shots. Jerry's still weak, he still doesn't want Barney, but he might be about to redeem himself from "boring,"….
He thought it had worked. He thought that he'd reverted his father to Crazy Jerry, the sort of guy who is the father of Barney Stinson.
"Can you believe it?" he exclaims, "This is awesome!" Jerry's finally being the person Barney wants him to be and realising that there's more to life than mortgage-paying and PTA meetings.
And then…Jerry's dancing like a giraffe having a seizure, and Barney's toes are curling in his shoes and he feels a strong desire to fidget with his tie and to get out of here- preferably without Jerry.
"Barney, how is that awesome?" Robin grumbles sceptically. She has a point. Jerry's being so embarrassing right now. He's trying to be cool and failing miserably. He's got his tie around his head and is jerking erratically out of time to the music. In short, Jerry is making a complete fool of himself, and Barney wants to deny that he is any relation to the old dude acting like an idiot.
And he's never felt more whole.
"I finally know what it's like to be embarrassed by my dad,"
And so before long, they had ended up wasted, careering down the street picking fights and tearing up bins.
His father was cool- he was legen-wait-for-it-Jerry; legenJerry! They were more alike than Barney had realised- his father obviously shared his penchant for trouble and madcap stories and living like there's no tomorrow.
And it's this attitude which they both share, which resulted in them handcuffed together beside a police car.
"It's okay, Dad,"
He calls him Dad. It feels like when he called Robin his girlfriend-not 100% safe but it didn't feel awful either. But he ploughs on talking so as not to make a big deal of it, "I never thought tonight would be so awesome! So next stop, strip club…" he'll get Jerry the best strippers there are, and they'll both get lap dances, and-
"Oh, for corn's sake, Barney, I'm not drunk!"
"What?" What?
"I told you, I don't party anymore, and you wouldn't take no for an answer. So I used a little sleight-of-hand to make you think otherwise,"
No. No, this is Crazy Jerry. This is Barney and his manic, wonderful father getting arrested together for puking on a police car. This is how it's meant to be. His dad's been like this all night- he'd proved that he wasn't just some docile house cat, that he was everything he had been; everything he should be- everything Barney wants him to be.
"But all those crazy things you did…" Barney murmurs, bemused.
"Do you happen to remember what a magician's best friend is? A drunk audience," and Jerry explains how he's been conning Barney all night.
"Well, why do all those things?" Barney doesn't know what else to say.
"I figured if I showed you what 'never stop partying,' really looked like, you'd realise you can't do it forever,"
"You lied to me all night… for your own selfish reasons?"
Barney's pretty sure that he can party forever, but that aside- perhaps this actually confirms how alike they are. Because lying for his own selfish reasons is what Barney does all day every day- lie to the Koreans, lie to his colleagues, to his friends, to himself- for no other reason than that he enjoys it, or that it'll work in his favour. And Jerry's exactly the same.
"Daddy!"
In all his life he's never called anybody that.
"I wanted to hang out with you- you're my son,"
In all his life nobody's ever called him that.
He's never going to forgive Jerry. He's still going to feel hurt and abandoned, and he's always going to value James and his Mom and his friends way more than he values Jerry. But perhaps Jerry can be Barney's dad after all. He's lame and-it turns out- not so legenJerry after all- but they're similar. They're both liars and cheats, and they're both magicians. And although Barney wants Crazy Jerry, perhaps he needs Stay At Home Jerome. Perhaps that's who he's always needed.
Jerry had been keen to return to the suburbs in time for this fishing trip. Barney was averse to doing anything that tedious- now he wishes that he'd followed through and not come- but he'd thought that he could help his father out. In truth, Barney's more into card and fire tricks than escapism, but he'd had an idea and…
…a bit to the left…and if he squashes his fingertips up together and tenses his wrist….
"Hey, you know, a pretty good magician like you probably knows how to, say, get out of a standard set of handcuffs,"
I've got this, Barney thinks, almost there….left a bit more and back…
"Perhaps," says Jerry. Nah, not perhaps- definitely.
Barney can't hide the smirk on his face. He'll finally prove something to his father. Then Jerry might want him a tiny bit more than he did before.
"Well, here's something you didn't know," there's a clinks as the handcuffs slip off his wrists and onto the pavement, "I'm a pretty good magician, too,"
He withdraws his hands from behind his back and holds them up in front of him. Jerry blinks a couple of times, confused. Then he looks at Barney and he smiles.
Barney smiles back like an idiot, because for the first time, he's made his father proud.
Later, they'd been driving back to Jerry's house in the early morning. Barney was in the middle seat, framed behind Jerry and the old lady (What was her name? Parsons? Perkins?) and tapping his fingers impatiently on his knees.
"How did you do it?" he asks.
"Do what?"
"How did you become this?" Jerry used to be a head case dude with long hair, and now he's got a wife and kids and he teaches old ladies to drive. Barney can barely comprehend the change.
"I mean, I love my life, but I'm not sure I like loving it," He has everything he wants- money and sex and- well, that's about it really. It's hardly anything real, but so what?- he isn't Ted, he's not got some saddo desire to search for meaning in life. Money and sex are enough for him. But Barney wonders; if Jerry had stayed-could he have been ordinary? The thought of some other (better?) life he could have had is frightening, and he's trying to grasp some reassurance form his father, but Jerry's busy correcting the lady driving the car.
"Hey, I'm trying to open up to you," Barney protests. Jerry putting someone else in front of Barney. Again.
"Perkins, you're drifting! Go on, Barney,"
"When I think about going for anything more than that," which he promised himself he never would, and in truth he doesn't want to change- not now at least… but with friends like Ted and Lily, and with Robin still around and still making him tongue-tied at times, he can't help it if sometimes he wonders what settling down would be like. Nora made him think about it specifically- a pool and three children, and it had made it seem more…more like the sort of thing that could happen. It's more of a hypothetical experiment than an actual goal, but he does wonder.
And then there are occasions when Barney says something and somebody looks at him like he's an utter freak- and it hurts more than he admits. On top of that, there's everything he wrote in the letter which he can't forget about.
Maybe, if he wanted to change, he couldn't. Not now.
"I look at my life, and who I am, and" he's awesome, but- "I'm too far gone. I'm broken,"
Jerry broke me, is what Barney means. Well, not broke- I've never been fixed. I could never be regular without you around.
He'll never forget that.
Barney's father turns around in his seat
"Son, I was far more broken than you'll ever be," I highly doubt that, thinks Barney bitterly, you broke me before I had a chance to form properly. Not on the inside, anyhow.
"And look at me now," Weak. But he still…he's still more human than Barney.
"Don't get me wrong- settling down is a challenge. It's the biggest challenge of your life,"
"So how do you do it?" asks Barney, incredulously. He doesn't want to- not yet, perhaps not ever- but if he ever did, could he?
"A magician never reveals his greatest trick," says Jerry. Barney almost rolls his eyes, because he's the one trying to connect, and his father's being cryptic for the sake of it. "But I'll give you a hint," continues Jerry. Barney listens, although more out of curiosity than necessity "You gotta meet the right girl," Gee, what a Ted thing to say. "Who knows?" Jerry adds cheerfully, "Maybe you'll meet her tomorrow,"
Barney gazes blankly into the gap between the front two seats. He thinks about Shannon and how much she'd hurt him, but how perhaps that was the most honest relationship he's ever had. He remembers making that tape and crying. He remembers storming out when Lily played it years later, and visiting Shannon and her having a kid. It could've been his kid. Could've been his life.
He thinks about Robin and kissing her for the first time, and being frightened for the next year because he had no clue what to do about being in love with her. He remembers their summer together, when it was just them in their own world, being happy. The first month or so of their official relationship was kind of similar- but then they'd started to fight and they couldn't stop, and they'd both stopped being awesome. Neither of them wanted to be defined by their involvement with the other. In the end, their relationship simply didn't work. Neither of them expected them to. However, he still- well, he still…he isn't sure. As Robin herself had once told him, emotional stuff isn't his thing. He tries not to entertain ideas about them too much. Even at night when he's alone, he's got good at blocking out memories and lingering feelings. They're fine as friends now. They wouldn't work out a second time. Barney remembers what he said earlier- "You know you were never happier than when you were with her". He's phrased it as something Jerry would say, although he had no idea if it was. Barney and Jerry hadn't met when he and Robin had been dating. "You guys were cute together,"- Jerry wouldn't know, would he?- he wasn't with them when they dated. But Barney ignores that. He ignores the truth about never being happier than when he was with her, as well.
He thinks about Nora, and her being the only person to ever made him seriously consider the marriage/ children/ family scenario. She'd snuck under his skin and wheedled it out of him before he knew what she'd done. Barney isn't sure if he really wants that- he's honestly not sure whether he was lying or telling the truth to her about all that. But she'd made him think seriously about it, and that's a hell of a lot.
Then, Barney remembers being hit by the bus on his way to hospital. It was so sudden he doesn't remember the pain- he remembers very little about that day. What he does remember, however, is Robin. Between the shocked confusion of the bus hitting him, and everything going black- in that split-second of terror, the last thing he thought of was Robin Scherbatsky's laugh.
What if Parker lost control of the car and it crashed right now. What would be the last thing he'd think of?
He has a terrifying feeling that it'd be the same thing.
"Maybe I've met her already,"
"And park," Jerry had said, tugging Barney from his thoughts, "And emergency brake,"
He had resolved then to sort his relationship with his father out first, then perhaps move on to girls. Because emotional stuff isn't his thing, so he'll try to deal with the Trouble bit by bit.
"I did have a good time tonight," Jerry had said. That meant more to Barney than he'll ever admit, even to himself.
"And hey, if you want to go fishing, we've got room in the boat,"
He's not that far yet. Things aren't okay and he's not ready to go on some family day out- not with the family he never had and JJ does have. Someday Barney might join him on a fishing trip, but not today.
"Maybe some other time," he says vaguely.
"Okay," says Jerry. He doesn't sound disappointed. He sounds like he knew it was coming. But then he does something Barney isn't expecting. Jerry reaches out and passes his hand by Barney's ear, like Barney himself sometimes does with Eli. Jerry holds out the button, smiles gently and says,
"Oh, and, thanks for taking such good care of this,"
Barney gawps. It's the same button Jerry used when he left almost thirty years ago!
"It means a lot to me that you kept it safe all these years,"
That was the first time Barney had considered that Jerry possibly feels a little bad for leaving him. Perhaps Jerry can-slightly- empathise with Barney. Maybe he thought of him.
His father gets out of the car. Barney watches him go- back into his house with his family where he's settled down with the right girl. That isn't the life he had as a kid. It isn't the life he wants now. But Jerry perhaps remembered him, and he had tried hard for Barney last night, and he danced embarrassingly like people's dads did, and he did magic like Barney does, and there was one moment when Jerry was proud of him.
"I'm going fishing with my dad!"
Barney wonders how wise a decision that was, because this is not fun. JJ's not trailing his hand through the water, and if he dares flick anything at Barney, Barney will throw the stuck-up idiot into the water.
He's fidgeting with his pockets, and it vaguely reminds him of being in school when his teachers would nag him again and again to stop fiddling or pay attention.
Barney considers launching into a rousing rendition of the dirtiest drinking songs he can think of, although without and Ted and without Robin and without alcohol, it'd be pretty stale.
He has to face it then- this trip is torture and there's nothing he can do to relieve any of the tediousness.
Then, Barney remembers something- If you were going to be some lame, suburban dad, why couldn't you have been that for me!? This is what lame, suburban dads and their sons do. This fishing trip sucks, and they're going to come home tired and dirty and fed up, and later he'll complain to his friends about how crap his weekend has been. And that's exactly what other kids do with their fathers- Barney can remember his school friends moaning about their own unsuccessful fishing trips when he was a kid. This is what boys who have dads do with those dads. This is what he missed out on as a kid. This is what he was so angry that JJ has that he didn't.
This is him, Barney Stinson, on a crap, tedious fishing trip with his dad.
Barney glances round once more at Jerry and JJ and the boat and the lake, and he's bored to death- but this kind of bored to death is awesome, because maybe it's exactly what he's wanted all along.