How I Met Your Mother: 'Cleaning House'; How I met my father?

Another episode, another success for 'How I Met Your Mother'. That's two for two now, and even though I preferred last week's episode, I thought this was both a great example of how HIMYM can thoroughly entertain me even when it's not being particularly funny, and how great Neil Patrick Harris is when he's asked to step Barney up a notch.

In season two, we had the episode 'Showdown', which dealt with Barney wanting to meet Bob Barker. It was silly, but as played by Harris it sort of worked because Barney always gives off the impression that deep down, he knows that he doesn't really believe a lot of the things he says. In 'The Stinsons', an episode I really didn't care for, we meet Barney's mum and see how their relationship is completely built on lies - but they like it that way. Here, we got the culmination of both of those stories, with Barney coming to terms with the lies his mother told him, while also trying to mask his pain that Sam Gibbs didn't turn out to be his dad.

Speaking of which, it was great to have Wayne Brady back as James, one of my favourite recurring guest stars on the show. The dynamic NPH and Brady have got with each other is excellent - I completely buy them as an unlikely pair of brothers. And Brady got some good notes to play as James had to juggle being happy to have met his dad with being sympathetic towards poor, broken Barney.

I'm very invested in the idea that Barney will get a story-arc to look for his dad. The Barney 'act' never gets old, largely because Neil Patrick Harris is so good, but the fact that the writers are giving him something extra to work with anyway is a great idea. It also makes me think, like last week, that Craig Thomas and Carter Bays are really going to live up to their word from this year's press tour.

Elsewhere, it wasn't quite as strong an episode for Robin and Ted. The text joke was okay but I've seen similar things far too many times, and it came off as a little predictable. It's a shame the Lily/Marshall debate about lying to your kids about Santa wasn't given the B-Plot allocation, because it was frankly more interesting. At least we got to see Lily and Marshall unapologetically eating sloppy Joe's in the van, with burger all around their mouths. Awesome/Disgusting.

But this was really a Barney spotlight, and it completely worked. In doing so it also justified the all-over-the-place 'The Stinsons', because it developed the relationship with Barney and his mother, which I didn't really feel back in Season 4. And it closed nicely with Barney appreciating that having a mum as great as his more than makes up for not having a dad - a sentiment I very much share.

Great stuff.

As a side note - my presence on here wasn't as often as I'd intended last week. I've got full-time education and a part time job, so I'm still figuring out the kinks of when I've got time to watch all the shows I'm reviewing and then write about them. I'd like to do individual posts on everything each week, but I'm guessing that won't always be an option, so it may be that some weeks I do collective posts, or I skip shows like this one, or skip a day altogether if I'm super busy. But I'll try and get a better grip of it this week.

With that out of the way, what did everyone else think?