Holy. Crap.

Happy 2011 everyone! Hope you rang in the New Year’s in your style and that it’s off to a good start.

“A” Plot: Lily and Marshall are trying to get pregnant. You remember that, right? So, the two of them go to see a specialist when they get nowhere after six days. The doctor tells them to give it time. Which they do. As days turn to weeks and then months, they bother the doctor. Fed up, he sends them to a fertility specialist…Who happens to look like Barney!

The final doppelganger has been found: Senor Marshall, Stripper Lily, Lesbian Robin, Mexican wrestler Ted and now, fertility specialist Barney.

Lily isn’t convinced it’s a doppelganger and races to MacLaren’s to ask Barney how he did it. Barney is thoroughly confused and Marshall vouches for Barney—they were together all day. So the last doppelganger has truly been found. And Lily is pissed because she realized everyone lied to her in the season finale. She thinks that’s why she and Marshall are having such difficulties—they jinxed her uterus!

Marshall and Lily go to visit the Barney Doppelganger and even Marshall is convinced it’s really Barney. Until he pulls the doctor’s beard and realizes it is real. But Lily still isn’t convinced. So, Barney comes down to the office to prove it isn’t him scamming women again. But when he leaves, Lily still isn’t sure, so they bring him back. Barney stands in a corner wearing blinders to prevent him from seeing anything. When the exam is over, everyone agrees just to leave Barney in there.

Later, Marshall comes home and Lily tells him they had two phone messages. One is from his father in Minnesota, asking if he has any sixes. Marshall explains that they are playing “Go Fish” over the phone and then asks who the second message was from. Lily excitedly tells her it is from Dr. Doppelganger and that she is extremely fertile. They hug and Marshall goes to call his dad. We cut to his dad in Minnesota but the phone doesn’t ring, clearly showing us a number on his dad’s beer can. We cut back to the apartment where Marshall worries that maybe the problem is him.

So, he ignores his father’s calls to the surprise of everyone. He then explains that he only calls his father to tell him good news: His engagement to Lily, when he passed the bar, when he bought a Vikings lamp, when he found someone to fix said Vikings lamp, etc. He said it just feels real when he tells his dad. I understand. Bad news doesn’t seem as real until you tell someone.

So he goes to Dr. Doppelganger, who asks Marshall to provide a sample in a cup. Marshall goes to the room but is haunted by the specters of the other men who had done the deed in there. So he asks if he can bring it home and Dr. Doppelganger gives him an hour to do so. But when Marshall gets back to his apartment, there’s a surprise waiting for him—his parents! They were concerned when they hadn’t heard from Marshall and came all the way from Minnesota to check on him. Marshall pulls his wife into the kitchen to ask her to keep his parents occupied while he does the deed in the bathroom. But they keep interrupting him to the point he storms off, frustrated. As his parents demand to know where he’s going, Future!Ted tells us that Lily yells out the one thing that Marshall will always be grateful for: “He’s going to masturbate!”

And so Marshall finally tells his parents his concerns. They are supportive of him and tell them that it doesn’t matter if he can’t give them a grandchild. His father suggests adoption or using a sperm donor. Marshall thinks of his options: Barney or Ted. He says adoption is always a good option. His parents tell him to go pretend to be in high school again, go back into the bathroom and pretend his blow drying his hair. “You knew?” Marshall asks horrified, which is when his mother points out they didn’t have a hair dryer.

I’ll leave the rest of this for the end of the recap.

“B” Plot: Robin began working at World Wide News, remember? Well, on her first day she runs into a former co-anchor from her time on cable. Who then announces that he and Robin had sex. She tells Ted that she didn’t want to be known as the woman who slept with the anchor on her first day. Ted notes that that implies that she eventually wanted to be known as that. He gives her a buck up little camper speech and sends her back to her second day.

When she returns, she says it was the same as her first day—only worse. Her former co-worker was convinced they slept together and when Robin tried to convince him otherwise, she reminded him of an embarrassing news story she did. He finds it—Robin falling from a carriage into some horse manure. And so everyone teased her. Ted tells her to go with it, like one would lean into the skid when hitting ice.

But Robin didn’t lean into skid. She tells her coworkers that yes, she had one embarrassing story. She says anyone with a long career like her while have a few embarrassing stories. And so her coworkers initiate a search. Ted asks what they found. Robin: “Everything.” And then we get a montage of every embarrassing the show has every done with Robin. Including Robin Sparkles. So now they were all calling her “Sparkles.” Ted says he was wrong to suggest she lean into the skid. It was time to get revenge. Robin tells him not to.

But Ted does so anyway. He tells Robin he went to go intimidate her former co-anchor with his crazy karate skills (emphasis on crazy). But when he got to the apartment, the co-worker was there in his balding glory. And a whole smorgasbord of sexual kinks. Robin loves the bald shot and Ted asks her about the happenings in the background. She said her co-worker was open about that, but the hair would be news.

The next day, Ted asks if it was her last day at WWN. She says no and that she took his advice. She showed the picture? No, she leaned into the skid. As everyone called her Sparkles, she pulled up her old jean jacket and wore it at the meeting. Future!Ted tells us that Robin’s torture wasn’t too long as shortly after, some guy spilled his coffee all down his shirt. Everyone—including Robin—has a good laugh and moves on.

There’s a plot where Barney tries to get Marshall and/or Ted to go play laser tag with him in Poughkeepsie. It’s not worthy to be called a “C” plot.

Marshall goes to see Dr. Doppelganger, who says his count is low. Marshall is devastated and Dr. Doppelganger suggests he take up a sport, like laser tag. That’s when Marshall realizes that it’s Barney, pulling off the beard as Dr. Doppelganger comes in. He chases Barney out and then tells Marshall that he has the test results…And now was when I really noticed the numbers and caught on to what the episode was doing.

As Marshall celebrates, we count down to one as he calls his dad. At first, I thought they were counting down to Lily telling Marshall they were pregnant. But then his dad didn’t answer and I got a growing pit in my stomach. Then Lily got out of the cab, crying and I knew. She tells Marshall his dad had a heart attack and he didn’t make it. Marshall hugs her and says he’s not ready for this.

Sob!

That was not the ending I was expecting but a good reminder that when HIMYM wants to pull the heartstrings, it can. It’ll be interesting to see how they proceed with this, how Marshall handles it.