After nine seasons, the final episode of How I Met Your Mother airs in the United States on Monday, March 31. Curiata.com is reliving the series this week by looking back at our favorites of the 208 episodes.

Part of the strength of How I Met Your Mother lies with the character development. Each character has a niche to fill and he or she does so quite perfectly. One of my favorite characters is definitely Barney Stinson. Let’s face it: ladies want to be with him, guys want to have his bro-tacular skills. It also doesn’t hurt that Neil Patrick Harris is extremely easy on the eyes.

Barney is rarely rattled by anything and can always make up stories for why he needs to leave his one-night stand. My personal favorite is the letter Barney leaves behind explaining that he is a ghost who can only materialize once every decade on the anniversary of his death.

As a character, Barney has evolved from a douchebag to a lovable character to Robin’s husband. How did he do this? In my opinion, it all started with the “Swarley” episode in the second season. The episode opens as a nod to Friends. The boys are sitting on a couch, drinking coffee, when they decide that hanging out in a coffee shop is much lamer than hanging out in a bar. Ted notices that Marshall’s cup has a little heart drawn by his name and concludes, with his Mosby Boys detective skills, that that barista must have a crush on Marshall.

Marshall defends the doodle and says that maybe she draws hearts on all of her cups. Ted and Barney glance at their cups and find no hearts, but do notice that Barney’s name has been misspelled as Swarley. Barney starts a rant where he says that Swarley isn’t even a name, and he realizes by the end of said rant that Marshall and Ted are now going to call him Swarley.

Throughout the episode we see Marshall going on a date with a woman who isn’t Lily and we learn the premise of “crazy eyes” and “jerk nails.” At the end of the episode, we even see the return of Marshmallow and Lilypad, the barfiest couple in all of Manhattan. But for me, the crux of the episode is watching Barney freak out every time someone calls him Swarley. (Or really, any variation thereof: paging Swarles Barkley!)

Watching Barney become so unhinged that he can’t finish sentences gives the audience a special glimpse into his insecurities. As the series progresses, we learn more about Barney’s history and why he is the way he is, ranging from the lies about his parentage from his mother to his devastating relationship with college girlfriend Shannon. “Swarley” is the first step in this long line of the evolution of Barney. By the end of the episode, Barney seems to reluctantly accept his fate during a Cheers montage at MacLaren’s Pub.

I know that there are a lot of people out there that detest the Barney Stinson character because he is a womanizer, has one night stands, and lies to get women in bed. In real life, everyone deals with his or her own insecurities any way they can. Furthermore, I think we fall in love with these characters, we invite them into our homes every week, and that we forget they are just that: fictional characters used to carry on the story lines. I have to wonder if Barney’s critics are possibly seeing some small portion of themselves — which they dislike — in his character, and that scares the hell out of them.

One of the things that makes a series finale so sad is that we will no longer get to watch these characters grow and evolve. However, I think we are all excited to see how things will turn out for our favorite five, even if one small portion of the finale will break our hearts.

Best line: “I signed him up for People en Español, but I addressed it to ‘Swarlos.'” — Robin

Best Cutaway: Barney’s one-night stand with a “crazy eyes” girl (Inara!) and her teddy bear

Mother Lore: Still none!