How I Met Your Mother season 9, episode 8, “The Lighthouse,” just finished airing! Check out our recap and discuss your thoughts in the comments.

This episode had a lot of random bits and pieces that, thrown together, resemble a show with a lot of heart. Though, that could easily be the tagline for the entire show. Let’s break down How I Met Your Mother season 9 episode 8, “The Lighthouse.”

It’s Saturday morning, 33 hours before the wedding. Barney, Robin and Loretta are enjoying brunch and are soon joined by Lily, who’s still livid at Marshall’s revelation of his new job. She’s reacting to the trigger words judge, court, gavel and trial by clutching her drink so tight it breaks. This happens so often Linus actually says, “We’re running out of glasses.”

This leads us to wonder if Lily is starting to spiral out of control. She’s drinking in the morning and giving Ted bad advice (more on this in a second). Lily has always been a good voice of reason for the characters on this show, but maybe Marshall being so far away is starting to wear on her – and the viewers.

Marshall and Daphne

But Marshall hasn’t exactly been floating on cloud nine without his wife either. Daphne and Marshall, after taking a pit stop in Ohio (the return of Evelyn and Clint!), realize that they have some issues to work out. Granted, they are complete strangers, but they are driving cross-country together. Some questions should be answered, lines drawn. When they realize this, they also realize they have a fourth (Marvin’s just been chilling in the backseat) passenger: Clint! They soon leave him on the side of the road to meditate.

Daphne does eventually dole out some solid advice to Marshall – he’s letting people walk over him and “do their own thing” for too long. Daphne says she’s taken control of situations and therefore has been able to make the rules. Marshall takes this advice and finally grows a backbone and begins to play “I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles)” – his and Ted’s special road trip song (and now a song that elicits happiness from nearly every Doctor Who fan after this video surfaced two years ago.)

We wonder if Marhsall’s new-found gumption will last through the rest of How I Met Your Mother‘s season when he gets back to Lily and the gang, or if it is only temporary while he’s in the presence of, like we said, a stranger.

Barney, Robin and Loretta

Why do Robin and Loretta fight over eggs? It seems trivial. Scrambled eggs are scrambled eggs! But then we realize this goes beyond eggs (of the eating kind). Loretta vocalizes her apprehension about Robin as a mother, and Robin drops all pretense of putting up a fight and simply walks away. It is then Barney tells her that Robin can’t have kids. Loretta seems so crestfallen at the thought of no grandchildren (we’re assuming blood-related – James has an adopted child of his own).

But then Barney confesses that Robin means more to him than a future family, or his career, and when he sincerely asks Loretta to be nice to her, she obliges. She actually goes beyond that and demands Robin start calling her Mom. Robin, never the mushy type, tears up and refuses to break the hug.

Several truth-bombs are dropped while Robin and Loretta fight over who makes the better scrambled eggs. Robin mentions her mother for the third time in Ted’s memory, and while she was supposed to be arriving shortly, Robin reveals to Lily she never even got on the plane to leave Canada, and will therefore miss her own daughter’s wedding. Robin has always been emotionally distant, but maybe that was just because her mother wasn’t very maternal and her father tried to raise her as a boy. Loretta accepting her as a daughter will hopefully affect her positively.

Ted and the Mother

Then there’s Ted. Oh, Teddy, you’ve only ever wanted The One. When round two with Cassie doesn’t work out – taking her up to a very romantic lighthouse the morning after their disastrous meeting results in her complaining while he’s trying to take in the scenery – he is ready to give up on that hope and resign to the fact he used up all his do-overs. He just wants to meet the girl of his dreams and have a date ‘reset’ with her – revisit all the locations that should have been perfect but just weren’t attended with the right person.

But then, we see the Mother for the second time in How I Met Your Mother history. We flash-forward two years to that same lighthouse, Ted and the Mother talking about the gorgeous views, and just when she says the day couldn’t get any better, Ted gets down on one knee and proposes.

MVP of the week: the Mother

Here’s to hoping she shows up again soon. We know they’re writing her to be the perfect woman for Ted, but so far she seems sweet and pretty awesome.

Things we know about the mother: When Ted vomits, she vomits. Aww – true love!

Have you heard about the ‘HIMYM’ spinoff in the works?

Read about How I Met Your Father here!