‘How I Met Your Mother’ season 8, episode 14 review: How was Ashley Benson?

Well, Barney just got karmic retribution of the worst way imaginable. Remember how Barney has bragged for years about having some relations with Ted’s mom? Well, now Ted  has just done the same thing to his sister.

What made this episode of “How I Met Your Mother” season 8 so successful was seeing how the secret was kept for the first half of the episode, that way we would still have an opportunity to be shocked when the revelation came out. It was actually Barney who begged Ted to stay with this young girl (played by “Pretty Little Lairs” star Ashley Benson) just so he could live vicariously through him now that he is engaged to Robin, which of course made the whole ordeal even creepier.

While this episode may have ultimately just been a throwaway half-hour that did not really get us any closer to learning who is the mother, it did reassure us that the theories about Barney’s half-sister being the mom are untrue. Plue, it helped to create a story that Robin has met Barney’s dad, that way they do not necessarily need John Lithgow to come back for another guest-starring role if he is unavailable (which he may have been before the show was close to a season 9 renewal).

Thanks to Ted’s relationship, Barney ended up curing himself of his insatiable need to fantasize about every woman under the sun. This went along with Robin’s story, as she realized that while she no longer has the benefits of being a single woman, it is still worth it to have a man like Barney in her life.

What did you think about this episode, and do you think that Benson did a great job in this role? Be sure to share what you think below, and you can watch a clip from this “How I Met Your Mother” season 8 episode over at the link here.

Photo: CBS