BWW Recap: How I Met Your Mother: Zabka-tage

This week on How I Met Your Mother, the episode focused on Barney and his brother James (Wayne Brady) and each wanting to get their father back with their mother. Barney, who sees a polite interaction between his parents is immediately convinced that they're in love, and he sets out to get them back together, despite his father already having a wife.

After trapping his parents on an elevator and sending his step-mom out to go parasailing, he realizes that his parents will not be getting back together. It is only at this point that we find out that James is also hoping that his father and their mother will get back together. After a wonderful musical number about what it would be like if each of their fathers married their mother, we find out that James' father is in fact seeing their mother, Loretta. Even though it hurts Barney, Robin points out that maybe James, who is going through a divorce, needed a family more than Barney did.

Meanwhile, we're brought back to Marshall and Daphne, and find out more about their backgrounds. After singing along to "500 Miles" by the Proclaimers, Daphne is all of the sudden very distant to Marshall. We eventually find out that she often misses her daughter's activities and that makes her the bad guy in her daughter's eyes. Daphne tells Marshall to just take her home, but instead he takes her to he daughter's school, and gets her there in time to see her daughter's speech - ironically about how oil is the future.

Finally, the last plot of the episode was about Ted, who was holding onto Barney's wedding present for Robin when he finds it covered in calligraphy ink. He immediately suspects the people around him, including 80's film start William Zabka. At first it seems like none of them are guilty, but it isn't until Lily uses ink remover that we find out it is, in fact, the work of Zabka, who wanted to look like a hero after being fired as Barney's best man.

This episode was a great episode because we got to see more of Barney's family, and learn about the dynamic of their family, no matter how dysfunctional. There were also some great references to older episodes, which is great to see as the show wraps up.