HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER’s Craig Thomas Talks John Lithgow’s Return

A few weeks back, HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER finally introduced its audience to the father of one Mr. Barney Stinson in an episode that was both hilarious and heartbreakingly poignant.

With Barney realizing that his long lost pops, played brilliantly by John Lithgow, is just a regular guy who lives with his family in the suburbs, there was a great deal of sadness surrounding the question of why he couldn’t be that same stable dude for Barney. You know, if he hasn’t been busy being awesome all this time, what’s his excuse for the 30-year disappearing act?

This Monday, with their father-son situation still unresolved, Barney attempts to pull his dad back into the partying scene.

“The next episode is all about where those two guys stand with each other now that they’re in contact,” explains HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER co-creator Craig Thomas. “With the first Barney’s dad episode, ‘Legendaddy,’ we loved the idea that it wouldn’t all be so easy. You know, these two really haven’t seen each other in 30 years, so resolving [their issues] would be a little too simplistic. So it really ended on a bittersweet note — maybe these guys will form a relationship, but we don’t know.”

Thomas says this next episode picks up from there and shows a second attempt at connecting, the first one having not quite taken: “It’s an episode in which Barney tries to lure his father back into the world of partying and drinking and being awesome ’til all hours of the night and it winds up having unintended consequences. A very reluctant John Lithgow is dragged kicking and screaming into this. His drive, as it was in his first episode, is still just to connect with his son. He has so much guilt that he wasn’t there for Barney throughout his life that he ends up going along for the ride of this wild night with Barney and the gang and it all blows up in their faces and goes horribly awry in some pretty fun ways. It leads to, among other things, a very funny, awkward, embarrassing scene in which John Lithgow gets down on the dance floor with some sick, sweet 70s moves that he hasn’t dusted off in a couple decades.”

Thomas seems pretty psyched about the way the episode turned out, both dramatically and comedically: “He’s so amazing, he can break your heart in these emotional scenes, but the physical comedy of John Lithgow just drunkenly dancing is pretty fantastic. And they end up having a night, at the end of which, there is more connection between the two of them — just not in the way Barney would’ve expected.”

Of course Ted, Robin, Marshall and Lily play an important part in the whole evening. Thomas explains that Barney will tell the gang that he wants to impress his father and the way to do that is to show him what amazing, awesome friends he has. They’re all really flattered until Barney then starts passing out flash cards with new personalities and identities for them, which will be more impressive than who they actually are. But being the amazing friends they truly are, they go along with it and have some fun with their punched up personalities because they know how important it is to Barney.

So, yeah, there will be dancing, drinking and quite a bit of pretending on tonight’s HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER. And the impact of what goes down could have far-reaching consequences for Barney as he looks toward his future.

Also, this probably won’t be the last of Lithgow on HIMYM. “The door is definitely still open for us to see him again,” Thomas says. “There are some lose ends that aren’t tied up between him and Barney. We plan to see more of Mr. Lithgow in season 7.”

Sweet!

HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER airs Monday, April 18 at 8 p.m. on CBS. Will you watch?

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