You won’t have to search hard to find reasons why How I Met Your Mother (HIMYM) gained a huge following over the years it aired. From Josh Radnor to Cristin Milioti, Jason Segel to Alyson Hannigan, Cobie Smulders and Neil Patrick Harris, the main cast of the sitcom did a fantastic job that left everyone asking for more. So it aired for 9 seasons from September 2005 to March 2014, dishing out a total of 208 episodes. Among them, we believe the following are the best How I Met Your Mother Episodes.
Table of Contents
- Best How I Met Your Mother Episodes
- 12. Season 2, Episode 7 – Swarley
- 11. Season 4, Episode 4 – Intervention
- 10. Season 2, Episode 9 – Slap Bet
- 9. Season 3, Episode 5 – How I Met Everyone Else
- 8. Season 2, Episode 21 – Something Borrowed
- 7. Season 3, Episode 9 – Slapsgiving
- 6. Season 3, Episode 8 – Spoiler Alert
- 5. Season 3, Episode 13 – Ten Sessions
- 4. Season 5, Episode 8 – The Playbook
- 3. Season 5, Episode 12 – Girls Versus Suits
- 2. Season 6, Episode 14 – Last Words
- 1. Season 9, Episode 16 – How Your Mother Met Me
Best How I Met Your Mother Episodes
12. Season 2, Episode 7 – Swarley
This episode packs a full dose of silliness, but right when the laughter gets too much to handle it hands you an emotional sucker punch. It opens with Barney’s name getting misspelled by a coffee shop attendant as “Swarley” and the gang keep teasing him about it even though he detests it.
Marshall, still single, tries to ask out the girl who got Barney’s name wrong, but Barney and Ted discourage him because she has “crazy eyes”. It turns out Lily has the craziest eyes of them all, and she and Marshall, exhausted from being apart, decide it’s time to get back together.
11. Season 4, Episode 4 – Intervention
Ted is trying to come to terms with moving to a new city to be with his girlfriend Stella, Robin is set to move to Japan for a new job, and Lily and Marshall are packing up everything they want to take with them to their new house.
The friends are struggling to make sense of moving on to a future that is uncertain and unknowable and this is a feeling the audience could identify with, so the episode really stole our hearts.
On the side, Barney is pulling off the greatest move of his dating career: picking up a 22-year-old while wearing makeup that makes him look like an 80-year-old man. It is definitely one of the best How I Met Your Mother episodes.
10. Season 2, Episode 9 – Slap Bet
This is one of the classic episodes that HIMYM ever gave us because it combined two incredible narratives: the story of “Robin Sparkles” (Robin’s secret past as a Canadian teen pop-star), and Marshall and Barney’s slap bet over what details Robin is hiding about her hatred for malls.
Marshall bets that she got married at the mall, while Barney stakes that she acted in porn. It’s packed full of wittiness, verbal sparring, and of course, teeth-shattering slaps.
9. Season 3, Episode 5 – How I Met Everyone Else
This is one of the episodes that have aged really well. The world of online dating is just opening up and there’s still some stigma surrounding it, so Ted’s current girlfriend doesn’t want him sharing details about how they met.
This leads to the gang sharing stories about how they met each other. It’s one of those rare moments when we see characters as real people with real backstories, true or imagined, and the result is absolutely beautiful.
8. Season 2, Episode 21 – Something Borrowed
You can’t count the best How I Met Your Mother episodes and leave out the Something Borrowed episode of season 2. If there’s one thing we know, it’s that HIMYM really loved weddings, and this episode about Lily and Marshall’s is one of the best we got to see.
Everything goes wrong, but somehow the couple still had their dream wedding thanks to their friends’ efforts. It leaves us with one important nugget, weddings should be about what makes the couple, and them alone, happiest.
7. Season 3, Episode 9 – Slapsgiving
Marshall is preparing to hand out the third slap of his slap bet with Barney, while he and Lily host their first Thanksgiving. Ted and Robin are hurting over their breakup and come close to giving up on the idea of ever being friends again.
The slap countdown is on, and there’s a wonderful song written and performed by Marshall at the end of the episode to christen the event.
6. Season 3, Episode 8 – Spoiler Alert
Friendship means knowing all your friends’ flaws and accepting and loving them in spite of it. Spoiler Alert lets us in on just how tight-knit the friends are.
They mockingly expose each other’s quirks: Ted likes to correct everyone, Robin uses “literally” wrongly and way too much, Lily chews loudly, and Marshall likes to make a meaningless string of words into a song.
5. Season 3, Episode 13 – Ten Sessions
This is the episode in which Ted planned the greatest date ever that lasted two minutes. The girl he is enamored with is Stella, the doctor in charge of erasing his foolish butterfly.
It takes ten sessions, and Ted is determined to work his way into life and prove to her that there’s always a little room for romance. Also, Britney Spears starred as a guest actor.
4. Season 5, Episode 8 – The Playbook
After ending his relationship with Robin, Barney resurrects the famous playbook, full of ridiculous schemes he uses to get girls to sleep with him.
It’s disgusting and hilarious at the same time, especially at the end when he unwittingly recruits his friends into helping him pull off a larger play by pretending to do a play called “The Scuba Diver”.
3. Season 5, Episode 12 – Girls Versus Suits
Ever the playboy, Barney has the hots for MacLaren’s new bartender, but unfortunately for him, she hates men who wear suits and he is forced to choose between her and his favorite clothing.
Even though he performs a charming musical number – “Nothing suits me like a suit”, he finds a loophole and manages to score the girl while keeping his suits.
2. Season 6, Episode 14 – Last Words
This episode illustrates how tough it is saying goodbye to the people we love. The theme of Marshall’s father’s funeral is the last words he said to his family, and this upsets Marshall because their last conversation was insignificant.
It’s an emotionally poignant episode that forces the rest of the group to reflect on their own relationship with their fathers. Certainly, it is among the best How I Met Your Mother episodes.
See Also: Best King of the Hill Episodes – Top 12 You Should Watch
1. Season 9, Episode 16 – How Your Mother Met Me
We finally get to meet the long-awaited Mother. Her name is Tracy and she’s fun, charming, likable, and everything Ted ever dreamed of.
This episode tells her story, weaving through past scenes in which she nearly met Ted and her own journey towards love.
Turns out she already found “the one”, but he died and she’s been struggling to move on ever since. It feels great and deserving to get to know her after nine years of waiting.
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