After a ho-hum Marshall-centric episode last week (and a generally up and down season overall), How I Met Your Mother made up for everything — and then some — with a new development that many fans have been waiting for since Season 1: the Barney and Robin hookup!!

Yes, folks, the writers went there, and it was awesome! Some of the stuff preceding the kiss wasn’t all that good, but the final 10 seconds of the ep was just about the best payoff I could have asked for.

Plot summary (with possible spoilers): Robin is excited because Simon, a guy from her past, is coming to New York to visit her. Robin had a big crush on Simon back when they were 16 years old. They starred together in a Robin Sparkles video called “Sandcastles in the Sand”, and they even dated for a week. But then Simon suddenly dumped her to get back together with one of his ex-girlfriends, leaving Robin with bad memories for the next 10 years.

Anyway, when Simon shows up, the gang is astonished to see that he’s not quite the catch that Robin remembered. Played by James Van der Beek, Simon has a pot belly, thinning hair, receding hairline, works in a water park, lives with his parents, and still harbors dreams of making it big with his garage band. Robin obviously has won the “how did your life turn out” competition, yet Simon still exercises a strange influence on her. She can’t see his flaws, and reverts back to the giggling 16-year-old who had a crush on him.

Marshall and Ted know this phenomenon well because it’s something that everyone goes through. Marshall dubs it “revertigo”, and says that it’s only natural that when you meet someone from your past, you’ll revert to the person you were when you knew them. This leads to a couple of hilarious scenes of Lily getting together with her high school friend Michelle, a well-spoken, intelligent PhD student at Columbia. When the two are together, however, they call each other “bitch”, say things like “for realz”, and walk with a certain… sway in their hips.

Later, Robin agrees to go on a date with Simon, after which she ends up liking him again thanks to revertigo. But Simon promptly dumps Robin yet again after one date, and she takes it pretty hard. In fact, she ends up in the bar all alone crying in her beer. That’s when Barney shows up and starts comforting Robin. Because he’s being so nice to her, Robin decides to invite him back to her place to watch the other Robin Sparkles video that he’s been dying to see. They watch it over and over — and then they start kissing! Due to the hotness of the kiss, there’s little doubt as to how far they went that night….

My Reaction: I thought the latest Robin Sparkles effort wasn’t as inspired as the first one. Nothing can top the original reveal of “Let’s Go to the Mall” in Slap Bet because it was so completely unexpected and brilliant back then. “Sandcastles in the Sand” was cringe-worthy for sure, but in a totally different way — it was just bad, but not necessarily funny.

But I don’t really care about that anyway, because I’m still excited about Barney and Robin finally hooking up! I have to admit that I’ve been rooting for them to get together because I think they have a tremendous amount of chemistry, and I’m just happy to see it happen. No, I haven’t given any long-term thoughts to where the writers can/should go from here (I prefer to simply enjoy the ride), and I know some fans are worried that this could be the beginning of the end, the jump the shark moment that we’ll look back to a few months from now.

Not me, though. I have faith in the writers and believe that they wouldn’t have taken such a major step without knowing precisely what they want to do with the storyline. At least, that’s what I’ll keep telling myself!