How I Met Your Mother 'Mom and Dad' Review: A Boy in a Man's Body

After last week's return to form with "Platonish," How I Met Your Mother took a step back again this week with "Mom and Dad." The episode featured more of what has made Season 9 so lackluster thus far: characters acting like caricatures of themselves, more antics at the Farhampton Inn and Marshall on his road trip.

Barney's father Jerry (John Lithgow) arrived at the inn for the wedding, which immediately made Barney act like a seven-year-old as he hoped that his mom (Frances Conroy) and dad would get back together. He concocted all manner of disturbing scenarios, including elevator sex and the abduction of Jerry's current wife, to force them back together but, of course, none of it worked.

Why? Because James' father, the reverend, had already reconnected with Loretta and the two were hooking up. Barney became cool with it eventually and tried to apologize by giving Loretta and James' dad some candles, wine and music in the elevator, with James still inside. Super awkward.

Sure, it was mildly amusing to see Barney in a beanie and suspenders during a black-and-white musical number, but the bulk of this episode portrayed Barney as an overly cartoonish version of himself, which is something we don't need in Season 9. The guy is about to get married and he's acting like a kid instead of a man. Barney has grown up more than any other character during HIMYM, so it's a disservice to him to have him act this way this late in the game.

Elsewhere, Ted resurrected his private detective persona as he tried to figure out who ruined the autographed Wayne Gretzky poster that Barney had asked him to hold for Robin. After some investigation, Ted learned that William Zabka, who promised to get his revenge on Mosby, had set the whole thing up in an attempt to be the hero because, all his life, people booed him and saw him as a villain. Ted let Zabka take the credit and all was right with the world.

And finally, Marshall's terrible road trip plot seems to have come to an end, as he reunited Daphne with her daughter in New York just in time for her model U.N. speech. Hopefully this means Marshall will finally get to the inn and, you know, actually interact with his friends.

"Mom and Dad" was mildly entertaining, but it fell into the numerous pitfalls that have plagued Season 9 thus far. Hopefully next week's rhyming episode, which has the potential to be a refreshing and unique installment, picks things up again.

Notes and Quotes:

-       We finally got closure on the Pineapple Incident as Ted finally admitted that he could not crack the case. "My greatest failure..."

-       Poor Billy Zabka. His own mother boos him, and he keeps 2,000 headshots of himself at all times that no one ever wants.

-       The "Bang, Bang, Bangity Bang" song was playing on the iPod!

-       Ted brought his calligraphy ink with him to Farhampton because he's Ted.

-       "The stairs are wet. No, broken. Yeah, the stairs are broken."