How I Met Your Mother "Legendaddy" Review

NOTE: Posts will be more sporadic or non-existent for a little while. If I write about an episode, it won't be immediately after it airs.

Maybe 21 minutes is too short a time-frame for an episode like "Legendaddy." Many "serious" episodes of sitcoms fall flat because the writers simply don't have the time to make the story as heartfelt and meaningful as they want. Even if the preceding episodes set the character up for whatever moment that character's experiencing in the episode, the actual experience might fail because 21 minutes is an awfully short time for a story.

"Legendaddy" wanted to be a defining episode for Barney Stinson. The search for his father has been his arc for season six. Unfortunately, the character of Barney rarely works well with such emotional stories because he's more cartoonish than believable, relatable 30-something year old. His character works whenever he's removed from these types of moments. Now, the writers needed to give Barney growth as a character because he's increasingly uninteresting as the episodes and seasons pass. Whenever Barney's confronted with personal issues in his life, he behaves like a child. "Legendaddy" clearly linked Barney's behavior with his life without a father but now's the time for Barney to begin the transformation process, and it will happen in the future because HIMYM is an American sitcom produced by CBS studios. I just want the journey to the reconciliation to be interesting and without the tired cliches that we see in these kinds of plots. Currently, the fractured relationship between Barney and Jerry is about as interesting as drywall.

The conflict throughout the episode involved how Jerry was absent for the majority of his son's life. Understandably, Barney's had trouble dealing with that truth. Without his father, he didn't learn simple things like using a tool to fix an object or take down an object. Barney struggled when he learned that his father re-married and had two children of his own, including an 11 year old boy (and also, curiously enough, a college aged daughter--more on that later). His resentment of his father spoke volumes when he lashed out on his son in a 11 year old way. Barney's arrested development emerges in the worst possible moments. All throughout the episode, Jerry tried to fix his broken relationship with his son with no success. The writers tried to explain why Jerry remained absent in Barney's life without the audience turning on the character. We learned that Barney's mother banned Jerry from seeing his son because he drank too much, did too many drugs. The explanation doesn't shed light on why Jerry never contacted his son once he cleaned up his life, considering the two live 10 minutes from one another. The show missed an opportunity by choosing to have Barney grieve over the loss of a childhood that his father had no hopes being a part of because he was unfit to care for his child, and his mother would never allow the two to spend time together. The gold in the storyline is the years when Jerry chose not to make the 10 minute trip to re-connect with his son.

Father and son have a nice moment near the end of the episode when Jerry teaches Barney how to use a screwdriver but the relationship's far from healed. It will be though. Again, this is a CBS sitcom and the writers need to save the happy stuff for May sweeps; however, many of the beats felt forced. Lithgow sometimes seemed out of touch with his character like he wasn't sure how to play certain scenes. As good as NPH can be, he seemed like he overacted some scenes.

THE YOUTUBE CLIP OF THE WEEK