- Barney and James fight over which one of their fathers will get back together with their mom, Ted becomes a victim of "Zabkatage," and Daphne becomes inexplicably upset with Marshall.
- Barney gives Ted, his best man, a gift for Robin to hold on to. That gift, a signed photograph of Wayne Gretzky, is ruined while in Ted's possession. Ted is certain he was sabotaged, but by who and for what reason he isn't sure. Ted the detective goes on a quest to find the perpetrator, which isn't an easy task as Lily keeps reminding him that he has never been very good at deduction. Meanwhile, both Barney and James' biological fathers, Jerry and Sam, are in attendance for the wedding - Sam who will now be performing the wedding ceremony - which will be the first time in a while that Loretta will have seen these two of her ex-lovers. Both Barney and James have had fantasies of their respective father and Loretta getting back together so that they can be a traditional nuclear family, which adds a strain between the brothers. But Loretta, Jerry, and Sam may have some say in Barney and James' fantasies coming true. And after Marshall and Daphne seem to be getting along, Daphne all of a sudden turns on him. Marshall tries to figure out what went wrong and what he can do to make whatever he did up to Daphne.—Huggo
- On Saturday at 3pm, 27 hours before the wedding, Barney and Robin try to find someone to officiate their wedding in the wake of the previous minister's sudden death. James saves the day when he arrives with his father, Sam (Ben Vereen), who is a minister and has agreed to perform the ceremony. Barney's father, Jerome (John Lithgow), arrives with his wife. Barney, after seeing that Jerome and Loretta still get along well after all these years, gets excited at the possibility of the two getting back together. To that end he has Ranjit drive his stepmother away and arranges for Jerome and Loretta to be trapped in an elevator together upon which he provides them with a champagne dinner and drenches them with water in an effort to get them to disrobe. They realize what Barney is doing and refuse to go any further. James quickly rescues the two before revealing to Barney that he wants Loretta to reunite with Sam. Barney pictures Jerome and Loretta making a perfect family with him and Robin. Soon the two learn that Loretta and Sam actually have resumed their relationship since the gang found Sam in Long Island. While Barney is initially upset (and drops yet another bottle of the 30 year old scotch that he wanted to share with James), Robin convinces him that James needs his parents back together more after all he's lost recently. Barney agrees, and gives Sam and Loretta his blessing.
As best man, Ted is entrusted with an autographed Wayne Gretzky photograph Barney plans to give to Robin as a wedding gift. Robin is a big fan of Wayne & even pictures him sometimes while having sex with Barney. When Ted's calligraphy ink spills on the photo, he has three main suspects which include Billy Zabka, a shifty eyed bellhop and Robin's cousin Claude with the neck trouble. Zabka may have done it to try to reclaim the best man position from Ted. Ted, however, learns that Zabka was getting a massage at the time. When the other two suspects are discounted (the bellhop never went near Ted's room, Claude's hands were colored with ink but they were from a squid that washed up on the beach), Lily convinces Ted that he is being paranoid and that his own carelessness caused the accident. When cleaning the ink off the photograph, however, Lily finds it is actually a photograph of Zabka, while Ted discovers that it was actually Jerome getting the massage in Zabka's name. Lily tackles Billy (her 2nd tackle of the wedding weekend) and they confront him; he confesses that the "bad guy" roles he played in the 1980s led to widespread revilement, and being temporarily promoted as best man was a rare affirmation of his character, and he intended to be the 'good guy' by finding a replacement for the photo. He realizes, however, that he allowed himself to truly become a bad guy and he apologizes. Ted decides to tell Barney Billy's version of events, though Barney does not reassign the best man duties.
Daphne and Marshall seem to finally get along well together, but Daphne's mood sours after her daughter, hearing that Daphne might miss her Model UN speech, tells her not to come; this reveals that the story Daphne told Marshall in Minneapolis was not really a lie as she had claimed. Daphne explains that her daughter, who lives with Daphne's ex-husband, doesn't understand that Daphne spends time away to support the family. Marshall insists on bringing Daphne to the speech recital, which they reach in time, correctly believing that Daphne's daughter will forgive her as long as she shows up. Daphne is proud when her daughter gives an aggressive speech that praises oil and denounces environmentalism; Marshall, feeling uneasy, says farewell to Daphne and excuses himself and Marvin to continue their journey to Farhampton.
In the end tag, Jerome successfully finds Ranjit's limousine and demands his wife back (he reported her missing to the police).
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