Barney bribes James Van Der Beek with Tim Horton’s.

I have two things to say about this week’s episode of How I Met Your Mother: 1. Robin and 2. Sparkles. Yep, that’s right; Robin Sparkles makes a triumphant comeback in the stellar “P.S. I Love You,” this time bringing with her a stunning array of Canadian celebs.

Robin reveals to the gang that back when she was a Canadian Pop Star, after having a huge crush that may have turned into stalking, she was slapped with a 50-meter restraining order. (Barney: “Fifty meters? That’s like 4 years!”) Barney breaks into Robin’s place to read her diaries and find out who the mystery man was. When all he can find is an obsessive diary entry ending with the line, “P.S., I love you,” he hops the next plane to Vancouver to bribe Robin’s past boyfriends for details with Tim Horton’s Donuts.

A long string of boyfriend interviews later leads Barney to the glorious Robin Sparkles 4 tape, which he brings back to New York to watch with his friends and learn about the secret boyfriend. Commence wonderfulness.

So begins a special episode of MuchMusic’s Underneath the Tunes, featuring an impressive rap sheet of Canadian stars, including Geddy Lee and Jason Priestley. They narrate the day Robin Sparkles “lost it” at the Gray Bowl (The Canadian Superbowl, apparently), or, as Alex Trebek puts it and Geddy Lee supports, “the day grunge was born” (in 1996, but hey, the 80’s didn’t hit Canada until the 90s anyway). Sparkles drops her 80s gear, instead donning long black hair and a flannel and a new name, Robin Daggers, to debut her very creepy and dark tune, “P.S. I Love You.” It’s a day that will go down in Canadian history, as every Canadian can remember not only the Tim Horton’s they were in but the type of donut they were eating.

The program debunks almost all theories about to whom Sparkles/Dagger could have been singing about, except for one: Alan Thicke (who easily defends himself from Barney’s jealous attack while eating a donut.) Out of ideas, Barney returns to Robin, who, convinced that she has proved her point about how easy it can be to get obsessive, reveals that her crush was P.S.: Paul Shaffer.

Meanwhile, Ted has fallen for a girl whom he spies seated across from him on the Subway, also reading One Hundred Years of Solitude. But before he can even come up with a good pick-up line, she has left. Ted feels determined to go find her, but Marshall and Lily, firm believers in destiny as the ultimate creator of relationships, put the kibosh on the whole thing, confiscating the legal pad (and its duplicate) on which Ted has made a list of TMJ specialists who could possibly have treated the girl’s crooked smile, which Ted believes is a result of teeth grinding. Ted explains his Dobler/Dahmer theory – or the idea that any romantic gesture is only as creepy as it is received. (“There’s a fine line between love and insanity,” Ted states rather poetically, given that he is contrasting an 80s movie character and a serial killer.)

Soon after, Ted runs into the girl, Jeanette, during a fire alarm evacuation of the school, and he believes it is a sign they are meant to be. But Ted soon discovers that it’s not as much fate as he thought… Jeanette pulled the fire alarm. Actually, she started a fire. Well, actually, she has been following Ted around for over a year. Somehow this doesn’t creep Ted out enough and rather than leaving her on the spot they make out. So… yeah.

Lily has a personal conflict of her own, revealing that despite Marshall’s thought that fate brought Lily to Marshall’s door in search of stereo help on the first day of college, it was actually Lily’s own doing as an effort to run into Marshall after having already scoped him out at orientation.

It was interesting in this episode to see how the concept of destiny played out – Marshall’s and Lily’s relationship has always been based upon this one simple story that has now been totally flipped upside-down, and Ted’s storyline is entirely about how fate led him to the mother. To see how people have tampered with fate or even created their own is a good twist in Ted’s worldview.

Tidbits:

– One of Robin’s ex-guys reminiscing on their passionate flings: “…she’d let me go under parka, over turtleneck… ah, summer lovin’”

– Both of Robin Sparkles’ albums went Maple.

– Seriously, the cameos were great. My favorite? Dave Coulier, mostly because of his Alanis Morisette reference (“It wasn’t me, why does everyone always think it was me!?”) and the moment when Bob Saget as Future Ted’s voice says how he always liked Coulier’s “Cut it out!” bit.

– Canadians are always so polite. Robin Dagger’s grunge sign in the music video: “Consider questioning authority please.”

– Not only is Abby Elliott, the actress who played Jeanette, the son of Chris Elliott, who plays Lily’s father Mickey, but my friends were quick to recognize her from Saturday Night Live, and specifically this gem.

diversionsdbk@gmail.com