“How I Met Your Mother” Recap: Wait For It

… dary! We waited all summer for those two syllables, and as expected, Barney delivered. This is so going in my blog! Now on to the rest of the episode.

Robin returns from her post-breakup vacation in Argentina with a new boyfriend named — Kyle? Gail? Girl? — Gael (played by the moleless-since-2003 Enrique Iglesias), who’s so perfect he makes Robin, Lily and even Marshall swoon. He’s a masseuse, a musician and major wake-up call to Ted, who realizes that Robin has moved on and that it’s time for him to do the same.

Now determined to “win” the breakup, Ted shaves his breakup beard and allows Barney to be his wingman on a quest to find not just a 10, but a 12 (or, if all else fails, 12 ones from Staten Island). And as if anyone could ever be so lucky, a scant minute or so into his rebound rampage, Ted hooks up with Mandy Moore — without Barney’s help, which does not sit well with the wingman.

Since Mandy Moore is my No. 1 celebrity crush, I assume Ted has defeated Robin in a landslide breakup victory, despite the fact that, admittedly, Mandy does not look her best playing a tattooed and somewhat trashy bar girl named Amy. The producers of the show feel differently, and the episode continues.

Without Barney’s guidance to keep him from doing something stupid, Ted gets completely drunk and, well, does something stupid. Amy takes him to a tattoo parlor run by her jealous ex-boyfriend — who Ted unwittingly insults just before getting inked — and the next morning Ted wakes up with a butterfly “tramp stamp” on his lower back.

In the light of day, Ted realizes that he’s not completely ready to move on and heads over to Robin’s to have the loud argument they didn’t have when they broke up. She admits that she struggled with the end of their relationship, too, and that’s why she ended up with Gael. Ted takes comfort in knowing that — and that, according to Robin, he’s “bigger” (though not necessarily taller) than Gael. Everything seems cool, but you have to think this storyline is going to extend beyond just this episode.

Highlights: Yet another reference to the slap bet between Marshall and Barney. (Yes, slapcountdown.com is a real website.) And did we mention Mandy Moore?

Best Barneyism: “We are going to get you Cirque du So-Laid!” (to Ted about the prospect of hooking up with circus performers from Montreal)