‘How I Met Your Mother’ season 8, episode 15 review: Robin Sparkles’ creepy past

RobinEveryone has a dark side, and on Monday night’s hugely-anticipated episode of “How I Met Your Mother” season 8, we had an opportunity to finally learn just what makes Robin Sparkles tick after all over these years, prior to her ultimately becoming Robin Scherbatsky in New York City. This was an episode that had comedy, references to Canada up the wazoo, Abby Elliot’s as Ted’s new crazy girlfriend Jeanette, and a plethora of guest stars including Jason Priestley, Paul Shaffer, James Van Der Beek, and more.

But was the episode actually funny? All of that and then some. From the moment of Barney’s grand introduction that this was “Robin Sparkles 4, y’all,” you knew that this was going to be something fantastic. Basically, we learned that Canadians felt that grunge music was founded in 1996 while performing at the Grey Cup in Hamilton. This documentary about Robin’s secret obsession was beyond hilarious, as Tim Horton’s received more free advertising than they could ever hope for and we saw things go completely off the rails when it came to a story about Shaffer’s stomach.

Ultimately, the true identity of the man who sent Robin into a horrible version of Alanis Morissette was thought at first to be Alan Thicke, and it was ultimately later until it was revealed to actually be Paul Shaffer. It was a completely random and hilarious choice for her to be stalking, and thus, this became the most-noteworthy showcase of “The Late Show with David Letterman” bandleader in years.

As for the subject of Ted’s new girlfriend, let’s just say that the story of Jeanette is not over yet. Despite how completely insane she sounds (after all, she set a fire and triggered a smoke detector in order to meet him), the guy desperately clung to the idea that she was perfect for him. He even got his friends to go along with it … for now … even though narrator Ted pretty much told us that this was going to end very, very badly.

What did you think about this episode, and do you think that this was a fitting conclusion to the Robin Sparkles saga? Be sure to share some of your thoughts below, and you can read some more news on the future of “How I Met Your Mother” over at the link here.

Photo: CBS / Twitter

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