When I was a tweener, I fancied myself a bit of a contrarian. It seemed like all the good ones were taken — so I decided to devote myself to the also-rans, the ones nobody wanted. I hung up pictures of Parker Stevenson instead of Shaun Cassidy. When my best friend and I fantasized about marrying our favorite SNL cast members, I took Bill Murray while she got Dan Ackroyd. (Believe me, at the time she was getting the better deal, but I gloat over the fact that I turned out to be right in the long run.)
When HIMYM started, Robin seemed like a serious weak link. But as the show has progressed and Ted has moved on to other true loves and one-night stands, Robin has become an absolute linchpin of the show. Or so I thought, and would tell anyone who listened. But was it just my contrarian past reasserting itself? Was I positioning myself as a Cobie Smulders fan because Barney and Marshall and Lily were clearly the class of the show?
My friends, I have been vindicated. Not just because tonight's episode showcased Cobie's best assets (no, not those — her comedic talents), but because it showed that the HIMYM team agrees with me. They love Cobie and Robin, too. They know that she's the secret star of the show. And tonight, they gave her her due.
Let's start with that dress. Look at it! The show is as obsessed with Robin's fantabulous wardrobe as I am, and they even made a joke out of it in the cold open. Nobody can carry on a normal conversation when Cobie's rocking that cleavage — and more to the point, nobody would wear such a thing to the bar downstairs. Then when everybody talks about her breasts, Robin makes little excited bounces of delight. There's something about that reaction that shatters my defenses. It's so sweet, so confident, yet so unguarded.
And as the foil to Robin's awesomeness, let me introduce James Van Der Beek as Simon, her teenage Canadian crush, the bass-playing frontman of The Foreskins. He's a loser of the first order, but Robin falls for him just as hard the second time as the first, thanks to something Marshall insists on calling "revertigo," the phenomenon of reverting to one's high school self in the presence of certain individuals who act as triggers. (To his and the show's credit, Ted refuses to go along with this particular neologism.) And when she does, Cobie loses her cool and gets all giggly and stupid. And that's the kind of adorable that only works when played against supreme competence — exactly what the show has been setting up for Robin all season.
Long story short: Loser Van Der Beek dumps her again (but at least doesn't ask her to load out the drum kit), and Robin feels like a fool. And that's when Barney shows her the same compassion that any of us would, had we been there. Who among us didn't want to dry her tears and tell her how wonderful she is? Because Barney did exactly what needed to be done, we start to believe in his basic goodness, too. And so I say to the pairing of Barney and Robin — godspeed. Work it out, you crazy kids.