This week, we barely spend a moment at MacLaren's before Barney somehow (and, really, we don't get to see how) talks everyone in to helping him go to his mom's to pack and move his stuff out, since she's preparing to move. James is there, too, of course, and we soon learn that the lie about Bob Barker being Barney's dad isn't the only lie Loretta told her boys. She also made up lies to make Barney feel better when he got cut from the basketball team, and when no one showed up to his birthday party. And he bought it all. James says he learned about her lies much earlier, and knows his dad isn't Bill Cosby, or any of the others she told him. As they're going through a box of letter, Barney and James find a never-mailed letter from their mom to Sam Gibbs with a picture of the boys inside. It says "your son" on the back, so James finally convinces Barney they should go find out who Sam Gibbs fathered. Barney pretends his dad's Bob Barker right up until the whole gang is standing on his porch. Then he admits it just made him better to think that. They open the door, and Sam Gibbs is black. There's a touching reunion between him and James, and just when Marshall and Lily are whispering about how hard this must be for Barney, Barney runs up and hugs Sam, all, "Papa!" Lots of funny jokes ensue about Barney think he's black, of course. In the end, his mom tells him the truth, and offers to tell him who his dad is, but Barney doesn't want to know, because he already had the best dad ever: his mom.
Since the A plot takes up the bulk of the episode, Lily and Marshall are relegated to standing in the background talking about parents' biggest lie: Santa Claus. And Robin and Ted discuss her possibly setting him up with someone all episode that never pans out -- because Robin's an overseller.
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MacLaren's. Barney is telling a sex story about the Central Park Zoo until he loses his energy, because he says he can't help the guys escape their humdrum lives. Robin asks why he can't, and he's like, "I can't tell you." Robin's like, "Okay. Did you guys see Deadliest Catch last night?" What weird timing, since Deadliest Catch as we know it is over -- and not just because of Phil's death. I'm talking about Sig and the Hillstrands quitting the show. Anyway, we all know Barney really does want to tell them what's up, and what's up is that his mom's selling the house he grew up in. And he needs them to come out to Staten Island on Saturday and help box everything up. And, oh, it's a two-day job. But they're all like, "Uh, no." Barney laughs and says it's adorable that they think he won't be able to talk them into doing this -- "I got the queen to give me a fist bump." Ted: "No one believes that story." Lily says it might work on the brain surgeons he picks up, but it's not going to work on them. Barney stretches, clears his throat, then cut to the gang packing in a house. Lily: "How did he do that?" I guess we'll never know.
Ted's packing when Barney walks in and says, "Ted, that thing you're packing is way too big to fit in that box." Sadly (for me) the show is way ahead of me on the "That's what she said," because Ted replies, "That's what your mom said." Barney seethes: "How dare you!" But Ted's all, "No, she really said that." Barney's mom, Loretta walks in and reminds Ted that she told him that wouldn't fit in there. Barney's brother, Wayne Brady, comes in and asks if someone ordered something tall, dark and awesome. Loretta hugs her boys and compliments them, so happy they're both here to help their mother. They look at cell phone photos of Wayne's son in the Dolce & Gabbana suit Barney sent him.
In the room, Robin tells Ted she talked him up to the hot makeup girl, Liz, at work. She told her how funny he is, how handsome, and an incredible lover. She describe him as knowing a woman's body better than she knows her own, and "endless waves of pleasure for hours and hours," and orgasms so intense you black out. Ted asks how he can ever live up to that review, and tells her she broke the first rule of setting people up: undersell. Which can be difficult to do with Ted, but still, Robin: Try. Ted proves my point by using The Karate Kid as his example -- and not even the new one. He acts out the whole, "Sweep the leg" ending and everything. Robin's like, "Maybe I did oversell you a bit."
Barney, Wayne, Lily and Marshall have moved into Barney's bedroom for packing. Lily finds an adorable little basketball jersey and asks who was a cute basketball player before he became "the biggest pervert in the world"? Barney says he loved pee-wee basketball until they kicked him off for being so good that it made the other kids feel bad. Like every story Barney's ever told, Marshall says that seems plausible. But Wayne confirms it's true -- until Barney leaves the room and Wayne admits Barney was cut and their mom made up that lie to spare his feelings. Barney comes back in and shows off his letter from the postmaster general, apologizing for losing all of the invitations to his birthday party in the mail, which is why no one showed up. Lily and Marshall laugh, and Barney takes off with the letter.
This gives Wayne a chance to say she put in more effort with some lies than others (for instance, choosing Bob Barker as Barney's dad because he asked during Price Is Right? Not so much effort). Robin and Ted are in the room now, too, and Robin asks if she told Wayne that his dad was Bob Barker, too? He says no, no. He heard Flip Wilson, Bill Cosby, James Earl Jones, Meadowlark Lemon... He says he can't get a straight answer, and Barney's no help, since he believes all the lies. But Wayne was too smart for that! He grabs a white glove from the drawer and tells Lily to be careful; Michael Jackson sent him that. Then the realization that this, too, was a lie washes over him, so he leaves.
Ted marvels at all of Loretta's lies, but Lily says all parents do it. Marshall's mom would say he was sick if he was hyper, so she could give him cough medicine and he'd go to sleep. Marshall thinks that stunted his growth, since he hit 6-4 in fifth grade and then stopped growing. Lily says the biggest parental lie of all, though, is Santa, of course. Marshall says that's a good lie, like telling Ted he'll meet the right girl and settle down. Ted admits he does find that reassuring. Lily heads down the stairs telling Marshall she's not lying to their kids, even about Santa. But Marshall wants to lie to their kids about Santa. There's a whole debate and discussion of how Marshall gave Santa lutefisk and milk instead of cookies and milk, because Santa needs protein, not a sugar crash. Sounds sensible enough. Plus, you know, it is hard to gauge the ridiculousness of what to leave as a snack for a mythical character.
Wayne and Barney discuss all the Valentines Barney used to get. Wayne thinks it's funny they all have the same handwriting as each other, the postmaster general, and their mom. Then they find an unsent letter their mom wrote to someone named Sam Gibbs and open it up. It's a picture of them both as little kids and, on the back, it says, "Your son." When Loretta comes in with sloppy joes for lunch, Wayne's like, "Mom, who's Sam Gibbs?" She squeaks for a moment, then says, "That doesn't sound familiar." Then she quickly makes up a lie that the back of the photo says "Yourson," for "Yourson, North Dakota," where they were in the picture. She says they rescued the mayor's dog there and she promised to send him a picture to make a statue, but guesses she never did. Wayne asks her why their swing set is in the picture if it was taken in North Dakota, and she says she doesn't know, then freaks out and leaves the room. Wayne: "Can you believe her?" Barney: "I know. Forgetting to send the photo. Those statues probably look nothing like us." Wayne, Lily, and Marshall look at Barney in amazement.
Back in a bedroom, Robin says she fixed her overselling of Ted to Liz by sending her another email: "Dear Liz, I hope it didn't sound like I was trying to oversell Ted. The truth is, he is a genuinely nice, down-to-earth guy, and I think you two would hit it off." Ted thanks her for that, but Robin's not done yet. "Is he gonna rock your world in bed? No. But he's clean, open to criticism and not into anything too weird. He's not bad at all. Not bad at all." Ted starts to say she went too far, but she's still not done. "I'll be honest: The first few times aren't gonna be that great. He's going to say, 'Are you finished?' more times than a waiter in a busy restaurant." He stops her, and I wonder how she's been helping pack if she wrote that long of an email on her phone.
Back in the living room, Wayne tries to convince Barney there's no Yourson, North Dakota, and Sam Gibbs might be one of their fathers. Barney says Sam's not his dad; Bob Barker is. Wayne tells Barney that he has to stop living fantasies their mom told them, because Bob Barker is absolutely not his father -- and Sam Gibbs might be. Wayne's going to see him, and asks if Barney's coming, too. Cut to them crammed to each other in the moving truck, with Barney muttering that he can't believe they're going to go disturb the former mayor of Yourson. Wayne says Barney's scared to face the truth. The camera cuts to the other side of the truck, where Lily and Marshall are crammed in, eating sloppy joes.
In the back of the truck, Ted tells Robin what to say to make things right with Liz, but Robin makes up a fake go-to-extremes e-mail instead, that's all, "Ted is extremely handsome, but really violent. He's really rich, but lacks bladder control." They go over a bump and she accidentally hits send, but she's sure "everyone" will get that it's a joke. He's like, "Everyone?" In the front, Barney, Lily and Marshall laugh about "really rich." Because that's what's most ridiculous.
They all arrive at Sam Gibbs' house and walk to the front yard. Barney's all, "No big deal; my dad doesn't live here." But just as Wayne's about to knock, Barney stops him and admits he knows Bob Barker's not his dad. "I'm not crazy. I just needed that." The music gets all sad as he says that having a celebrity dad made him feel special, but Wayne's right that it's time to grow up. Wayne and Barney hug as everyone else watches. Wayne rings the door bell and a black man answers. [In fact, it's Ben Vereen. - Zach] Wayne tells him his mother is Loretta Stinson, and Sam's face shows us he did know her -- in the biblical sense. Wayne gives Sam the photo, and Sam's like, "You're my son." They hug and Barney watches. Lily and Marshall talk about how tough this must be for Barney, but then Barney yells, "Papa!" and joins the Sam-Wayne hug.
Wayne clearly cannot believe his brother is this stupid. But Barney has them all posing as if for picture, saying it's "like three of the same guy." And now Barney gets why he was always so awesome at basketball. "Guys, I'm black!" He runs to get his camera, and Wayne explains that Barney's clearly not taking it so well that he didn't meet his real dad today. Sam says he only knew Loretta for a couple months, and when he found out about Wayne three years later, Loretta made it clear she didn't want him in Wayne's life, but he always wanted to meet him. Ted's like, "Wait. Sam only knew Loretta for a couple of months. Barney and Wayne are two years apart. Sam couldn't possibly be Barney's father." Robin sends Liz a pretend text: "He's also quite the detective."
Marshall suggests that they let Barney believe Sam's his father for today, since he's already been through a lot. "Can't we just let the guy be black for a day?" Barney comes back with his camera and asks Ted to capture the moment. Barney's like, "Man, I thought I was a light-skinned Caucasian. But in truth, I'm a really light-skinned African American." Then he talks about how hard it is, as a black man, to hail a cab in New York. They all go inside, where Sam and Wayne play piano and sing Stand By Me. Barney gets up and tries to sing along with them, but he's clearly off from their rhythm, so Lily keeps dragging him away.
Outside, Robin and Ted discuss the weird day when Robin's phone beeps. She tells Ted it's Liz, who still wants to meet him. Ted wonders why a "10" would still want to meet him; did Robin oversell her, too? Robin doesn't answer, and says she didn't specify which scale Liz is a "10" on, and that she, in fact, does look like a movie star: Robert De Niro. "But, like, super buff, like in Cape Fear." Wayne and Sam are on the front porch now, with Barney running around the yard, all, "Dad, look how fast I can run." Wayne shows his dad a picture of his son, Eli, on his cell phone.
Saget!Ted jarringly shows up to narrate that they eventually made their way back to Barney's mom's house, where they had a heart to heart. When she comes in to Barney's room to talk to him, he asks her why white people like Carrot Top. I can only speak for myself here, but they really don't. Loretta sits Barney down and says she was always trying to be enough, to be both parents for the boys. But she says Barney deserves the truth: Sam is not his father. Barney: "Are you sure?" Loretta: "Yes. He's black, dear." But she pulls out a piece of paper and says she can tell him who his father is. Saget!Ted says Barney saw his childhood clearly at that moment. Cut to Barney's coach cutting him from the team, and his mom making up the lie. Then to Barney's mom giving him the letter from the postmaster general when he's all alone at his birthday party. Then to the boys watching Santa leave presents. They can only see him from behind, but we can see the face, and it's Loretta's.
Back in the room, Barney tears up the piece of paper and tells his mom he already has a father, "and his name is Loretta." They hug, and Saget!Ted says, "Kids, your uncle Barney grew up without a dad, and it always made him feel incomplete. But as he hugged Loretta, surrounded by the boxed-up remnants of his happy childhood, he realized he had one hell of a mom." But here is what Saget!Ted's captions said: "Kids, Barney would learn the truth about his dad sooner than he ever could have known. But as he hugged Loretta on this, the last day he'd ever set foot in his boyhood home, he realized he had one hell of a mom." I can't understand why they changed the ending at such the last minute, the captioners didn't get the update; maybe they decided not to pursue Barney's real father, after all?
Final scene: Sam and Wayne sing Stand By Me some more, and this time Barney interrupts with a voice machine a la T. Pain. Sam and Wayne get up and leave, but Barney keeps talking with that voice, all, "Dad! Can we go camping?" There were some funny moments, but was that episode ever a big drop in quality from the first? I mean, they didn't have a storyline at all for four of their five main characters. This doesn't bode well.
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DeAnn, a writer and editor in Portland, Oregon, thinks Barney should have taken the slip of paper. You can contact her at twopmodmars@gmail.com.