How I Met My Father

It finally happened. After various teases in several episodes, "How I Met Your Mother"'s Barney Stinson (played by Neil Patrick Harris) finally met his dad.

And he was played by John Lithgow.

Last night's episode of "How I Met Your Mother" was a rather poignant installment in which Barney comes face to face with a father he never knew and becomes disappointed when the cool and exciting man he hoped to meet turns out instead to be just a regular suburbanite. It seems Barney's father Jerry was a onetime rock and roll concert tour manager (i.e., a "roadie") who gave up that life to become a driving instructor in White Plains, New York and start a new family. (Jerry has a son by his present-day wife.) Barney resists having any more contact with him after finding out the truth about him (and after making up a story about how his dad is still cool) but his buddies, after learning the truth, convince him to have dinner with Jerry. Barney goes to Jerry's house to have dinner with him, but . . .

Well, why don't you find out for yourself if you haven't already seen it? Just go to this link, the show's official Web site. It's a pretty good episode, full of heartfelt pathos, where Barney comes to terms with the reality of who his father is and the pain of having grown up without him. Also, this episode demonstrates how Hollywood and the rest of America got it right by letting Neil Patrick Harris make the move from child star to adult actor.

Without giving too much away, the ending is open-ended enough to allow for Lithgow to return in what could be a recurring role. And, as CBS has renewed "How I Met Your Mother" for two more seasons, there'll be plenty of opportunities for him to return. (But please, Carter Bays and Craig Thomas, no more Britney Spears!) This was actually a very gratifying episode after the dissatisfying result of the previous one, in which Barney started to develop a fondness for an English girl named Nora, only to deliberately screw things up with her to avoid a commitment to her. That episode ended with Barney reconciling with Nora in what turned out to be a scene in his own imagination; in reality, he chickened out at the opportunity for a reconciliation. It seems unlikely that this particular storyline will be developed any further.

And, after all that drama about Ted's girlfriend Zoey (Jennifer Morrison) possibly being the woman he ends up marrying, it was revealed in one episode, in a scene taking place ten years in the future, that she isn't. Carter Bays and Craig Thomas risk stretching the theme of Ted's search for his soulmate so far that, despite the two-year renewal from CBS, many viewers might just find the whole shtick tiresome and stop watching.