Recap after the jump.
Still spooked by the sudden death of Marshall's father, the whole gang are getting their hearts checked out; except Barney who has already decided he has no problems. He's also denying any attraction to Noora despite the fact he has arranged a dinner date with her, against his rules of life but allowed to be subverted because she's hot. He gets sick just prior to the date though, so when they meet up rather than eat, she forces him home and nurses him.
The next day, he relents and gets his heart checked, taking Lily along (because he's scared) and a mild arrhythmia is detected. It's not suspected to be anything serious, but the doctor has him wear a heart monitor for 24 hours just to be on the safe side. Having rescheduled their date, Barney meets Noora in the restaurant for dinner where she admits right away that she dreams of getting married and having a house and family - all the romantic ideals. As a condition of her accompanying him to the doctors, Lily had made Barney promise not to lie to Noora, but he claims that he wants those things too.
Later, they head to McLarens together where Barney has blackmailed everyone into presenting him in an unnaturally favorable light. Impressed by their stories, she takes him home but as they head up to her apartment, he tells her he lied. She slaps him and leaves him in the street. When retelling the story, Lily slaps him too - saying that he broke his promise that he wouldn't lie, see he was lying about claiming he was lying - he really does secretly desire a real relationship with Noora. Encouraged by Lily to reconcile with her, Barney tracks her down the next day having brunch with her parents. He enters, apologizes and admits his true feelings, she forgives him and introduces him to her parents... in his head. In reality, he can't bring himself to walk inside and just leaves, sadly.
In the side adventure, Robin wants to get a new dog but Ted doesn't want to thinking that he will have to end up taking care of it all the time. Marshall points out that the pining for a dog is just a substitute for a boyfriend and tells her to get out there and meet someone. She indeed meets a fellow Canadian named Nate, nicknamed Scooby. He's excitable, friendly and somewhat scruffy. It quickly becomes clear that in fact, he is essentially a human-shaped dog. He has the same personality and all the tics - Robin even leaves him in the care of Ted when she gets called back to work. They go back to the apartment where Scooby bakes some sandwich-brownies for them. Afterward, they find he has gone missing. They find him outside peeing against a fire hydrant but when they call out to him, he runs into the middle of traffic. Fate: Unknown!?
The structure of this episode was fun, with the story being told from the perspective of explaining irregularities in the heart monitor readings to the doctor. The kicker at the end was so depressing, even though I have to say it wasn't really established why Noora was so great besides Robin and Lily saying so over and over. It doesn't seem like she'll brought back real soon. With Barney's stance on his future softening and Robin's inability to find a good suitor, my concern grows that they are soon to be pushed back together. That aside, this was an enjoyable episode without being really great.
"How I Met Your Mother" airs Mondays on CBS at 8:00 pm EST.
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