How I Met Your Mother Recap – Closing the Daddy Gap

Tonight, you will have a substitute blogger to recap this episode of HIMYM since Jeni is out of town on a business trip.  I am Jeni’s roommate, Katie, and we always watch HIMYM together on Monday nights because we both love this show so much.  She is very sorry to miss this episode, as it is a big one, but she claims she has left this blog post in good hands…I will do my best to fill in as Jeni’s sub and keep you entertained and informed!

This episode of HIMYM called “Legendaddy” was the very much anticipated reunion of Barney and his father, and I believe it lived up to expectations.  Like the last episode, this one had both light-hearted humor and serious moments, which is what makes this show so great.  It started with the gang returning to Ted’s future house, which Barney refers to as Ted’s “seduction lounge” (or at least that’s what he thinks it should be).  When they head out to the back porch and confess to Barney that the reason they are there is because it is an intervention, he thinks it is for Ted, but really it is for Barney.  We learn later why the intervention takes place at Ted’s house.  Flashback to the gang at Barney’s apartment, trying to fix the broken TV during March Madness…the horror!  Ted asks Barney for a screwdriver and we discover that Barney never learned how to use tools because he didn’t have his dad around to teach him.  When he calls the super to get a screwdriver, Barney’s dad shows up at his door and he has to face what he has been anticipating for the last 30 years.

Meanwhile, at the revelation that Barney has this gap in knowledge about tools, the gang points out each other’s various “gaps” they have had throughout their lives.  Ted’s gap is that he couldn’t pronounce chameleon correctly (making the “ch” sound at the beginning instead of a “k” sound) which follows him all the way to his collegiate classroom where his students embarrassingly have to correct him.  Robin tells Ted that “it took a lot of ch-aracter to admit that.”  Robin’s gap is that she didn’t think the North Pole actually existed as a real place, but rather that it was only an imaginary home for Santa and the elves.  This lack of knowledge leads to a break-up with a former boyfriend, whom she “still thinks about in the shower.”  Lily’s gap is that she has terrible aim when tossing objects, and this hilariously comes up several times in the episode…one of the best being when Marshall asks Lily for the keys and she throws them totally past Marshall and into a bush, to which Marshall responds, “I’m literally 11 inches from you.”  Marshall’s gap ends up being a long list of things that only come up after Marshall has to convince the rest of them to stop treating him like a protected kid because of his dad’s recent passing.  The gang then unleashes several “gaps” on him, including that he can’t wink, can’t swallow pills (it’s OK Marshall, I have trouble with that one too!), and he “thinks John Kennedy and Jack Kennedy are the same person”…oh Robin, yet another gap for you.

Back to Barney and his dad…so the two of them go to the gang’s favorite hangout to chat and catch up after all this time.  At first, we see the two of them really bonding and acting very similarly, ordering the exact same drink at the same time, a “Glen McKenna…neat,” and Barney’s dad hitting on a much younger woman at the bar and getting her number in 5 seconds flat.  This came after Barney asked the one serious question he always wanted to ask his dad… “Do you get laid a lot?”  Leave it to Barney.  However, we come to learn that all of this is not really how things went down…it is just the story Barney told because it is how he always imagined meeting his dad would be.  Instead, Barney finds out his dad is a “lame suburban guy” who is just a driving instructor from White Plains.  His dad wants to apologize for all of the lost time, but Barney just wants him to be “cool.”  When the gang discovers all of this, we find out that the intervention is taking place at Ted’s future house because it is only 10 minutes down the road from Barney’s dad’s house, and they want him to go talk to his dad.  When Barney refuses, Marshall convinces him to go in a very touching moment about how he will never get to talk to his dad again, but Barney can, and will, talk to his.

The episode wraps up when Barney goes to his dad’s house to meet his family, which includes a younger “brother” named J.J.  When Barney meets him, he gets caught up in sibling rivalry and repetitively attacks little J.J. with put-downs until he discovers what J.J. actually stands for…Jerome Jr.  This immediately changes Barney’s demeanor and he walks out of the room.  We then see him attempting to pull down the basketball hoop from the side of the house above the garage, which leads to a heated argument between Barney and his dad about how Jerome was able to be a “lame suburban dad” to J.J., but why couldn’t he be that for Barney?  During this argument, Jerome finally teaches Barney how to use a screwdriver, explaining “righty tighty, lefty loosey,” and Barney is then able to successfully get the basketball hoop down.  At the end, Barney brings the hoop to Ted’s future house and asks Ted if he still wants a basketball hoop out back, telling us, “A kid needs a hoop.”  Oh, the multiple meanings…a very legen…wait for it…daddy! statement.

Aside from the ones I’ve already included, here are a few more of my favorite one-liners from this episode:

• “The only one I know how to use is attached to me, and I’m not gonna stick it in the TV…again.” (Barney, about tools)
• “By the way, hell of a tie, is that Italian silk?” (Barney’s dad) … “I love you daddy I’m so glad we’re best friends now!” (Barney)
• “This is gonna be the second most fun I’ve ever had on an Asian leg!” (Barney)
• “Righteous hair tat, brotha!” (Robin, in response to Marshall’s teeny tiny “beard”)

What did you think of this episode?  Do you agree that it lived up to the hype?  Where do you think the Barney & his dad storyline will go next – will we see Barney with his dad again?