‘How I Met Your Mother’ winter finale preview: Nobody knows Andrew Rannells

On the winter finale of “How I Met Your Mother” airing on Monday night, Andrew Rannells of “The Book of Mormon” and “The New Normal” is going to be stopping by for a guest spot, but the real question seems to be just who he is going to play? What makes this more interesting is that for whatever reason, not even the other characters seem to know what he is doing there.

Sporting a goatee that we haven’t seen on him in his other recent gigs, Rannells’ character shows up in the sneak peek below and starts to do what Robin and Lily each think is some sort of play to try to hit on the two of them. Robin seems somewhat uncomfortable, whereas this somehow goes back to Lily having some sort of secret desire to want to sleep with her friend. Rannells then thanks Robin for her and Barney’s invite to the big occasion, which she responds to by giving him the oh-so-cold name of “invited guest.” Well, we don’t know what else she is supposed to call him under the circumstances.

We know that Andrew will interact with some other characters during the episode, and this appearance should be a nice little reminder of his talent. While his time on “The New Normal” is done thanks to its cancellation, he is slated to appear on a few more episodes of “Girls” season 3 as Hannah’s ex-boyfriend and ex-roommate Elijah. Not only that, but he is slated to become a series regular in season 4 so long as the show is renewed (which it is widely expected to be). Given that he is consistently hilarious, we have no reason to doubt that the legen-wait-for-it-dary factor of this episode will be up to 11.

But just in case seeing this video isn’t enough for you to get pumped up about this story, just click here to watch another video … but with this one focusing first and foremost on The Mother.

Photo: CBS