According to ScreenRant, Neil Patrick Harris (A Series of Unfortunate Events, Doogie Howser M.D., Quantum Leap) reprised his legendary role as Barney Stinson, originally from How I Met Your Mother, during the mid-season finale of the second season in the spinoff series, How I Met Your Father. Barney makes an appearance after Sophie, played by Hilary Duff (A Cinderella Story, The Perfect Man, Raise Your Voice), rear ends an Audi belonging to Barney discovering the possibility they may be father and daughter.
Their interaction started with Barney exiting the car, acknowledging Sophie as a female that he doesn’t remember, saying, “Me first. My name is Barney Stinson, and I am a recovering serial womanizer. We are likely speaking today because you are a woman I once concocted an elaborate scheme to have sex with. I fully understand why you’ve exacted revenge on me.”
“Oh my God, stop talking,” Sophie replies. “Why do I have a feeling you have like 50 more creepy things on that list?” Barney then responds, “Pfft, 50? There’s like hundreds.” Later Sophie explains that they have never met and reassures Barney she isn’t seeking any vengeance or retribution.
“I guess I would have recognized the three of you if we had met,” he says, adding, “you and your boobs.” Suddenly he is slightly electrocuted and explains. “It’s my STD: shock therapy device, It’s this experimental new electroshock treatment for guys like me. This sucker is programmed with 10,000 problematic words and phrases. If I utter one of them, it blasts me with enough electricity to power Staten Island.”
Executive producers Issac Aptaker (Love Simon, This is Us, I Want You Back) and Elizabeth Berger (Love Victor, Grandfathered, About a Boy) said the following when asked about Harris’ return as Barney Stinson:
Aptaker: “There was a little bit more that we shot that we took out of the [final] cut, but our thinking was that Barney is a little bit more of a family man now… maybe he’s living the suburban dad life. Even the car he’s driving! It’s still a cool car, but that SUV is a “dad mobile” if I’ve ever seen one.”
Berger: “There were a lot more details that unfortunately didn’t live [on in the episode]. We could have written this scene to go on for 45 minutes, but there were details about Sunday night dinner and all these things, and all of the routines and rituals that he has now as a family man. But yes, like Isaac said, we’re nodding to the idea that his life has changed and brought him here.”
How I Met Your Mother and its spinoff series How I Met Your Father are both currently available on Hulu.