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"There are times, I know, that we think of How I Met Your Mother as the uncle who&amp;#x27;s been wowing everybody with the same cut-finger illusion for years. And this season has been kinda brutal for that boredom factor&amp;amp;#8212;as we&amp;#x27;ve spun our wheels in Farhampton, I&amp;#x27;ve definitely grumped my way into believing that the show is no longer capable of surprising us. But last night, I felt the way I expect I&amp;#x27;d feel if said uncle ditched the finger trick, conjured a pair of white tigers out of thin air, and pulled off his face, revealing that all along he&amp;#x27;s been Criss Angel, Uncle Criss Angel. (It&amp;#x27;s beside the point that I would, after a few minutes of being impressed, politely ask him to GET OUT.) I felt, for the first time in a while, all starry-eyed and amazed by the way things went down. That&amp;#x27;s because last night&amp;#x27;s episode was lab-created by HIMYM&amp;#x27;s most successful formula: Pie-in-the-sky conceits + heartfelt moments - too much sap + wackiness to fill in the holes where the sap would be x misdirection = signature, heart-tugging perfection. That last bit&amp;amp;#8212;the misdirection&amp;amp;#8212;is what makes it all ring so delightful. I mean, I spent the first 20 minutes of the episode falling right into the trap, believing with each step that the heightened Barney trouble would fall away to reveal, yep, a laser tag rehearsal dinner, planned by Robin and punctuated by a round of high-fives celebrating Robin&amp;#x27;s limitless cool-girl factor. But what actually fell away, in the end, was the walls themselves&amp;amp;#8212;and I was totally charmed by the Canadian party Barney dreamt up for his fiancee (serious question: has an Alan Thicke cameo ever not made something better?). And while Ted&amp;#x27;s pratfall-on-ice had me in stitches, I was even happier to be feeling, well, just in it with Barney and Robin. This season, with its rhyming and flashbacks and flash-forwards, has sometimes been long on distraction and short on chemistry. (Sometimes, in fact, the two go hand in hand: I sort of felt like the clip of Robin telling Barney she couldn&amp;#x27;t have children was a bit of a cheat, a way to backfill in their bond.) And because this is a wedding-set season and you can&amp;#x27;t have drama without conflict, the bride and groom have spent a lot of this year being snippy with each other. So for me, every facet of last night&amp;#x27;s sweet conclusion&amp;amp;#8212;the element of surprise, the Love-Actually-esque magic, and the opportunity for Barney to be a romantic hero instead of a sugar-addled instigator for five seconds&amp;amp;#8212;was just in the nick of time. When you spend this long at a couple&amp;#x27;s wedding, it&amp;#x27;s nice to be reminded once in a while why you&amp;#x27;re there. This episode had STILL GOT IT written all over it, and I agree. What did you superfans think of last night&amp;#x27;s ep&amp;amp;#8212;specifically, where do you stand on Barney and Robin right now? "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.glamour.com/entertainment/blogs/obsessed/2013/12/himym-season-9-episode-12-reca>