‘How I Met Your Mother’ season 9 spoilers: A tiny bit of scoop from Barney’s inner circle

“How I Met Your Mother” is going to be more than just the final season, and the season of Barney and Robin’s wedding; it’s also going to be the season of very-familiar guest stars dropping by for more. Some of the roster for the year already includes John Lithgow (Barney’s dad), Ellen D. Williams (Patrice), Wayne Brady (James), and very likely also Ray Wise and Frances Conroy as the father and mother for Robin and Barney, respectively.

But what other longtime favorite will be around? Even though it’s not exactly clear just how much Barney is going to be needing a driver while in the Farhampton area for his big day, Ranjit is still going to be around. The actor behind the role in Marshall Manesh was recently spotted (per SpoilerTV), and he will be appearing in at least one episode in the first half of the season. We don’t want to give away too much of the surprise, so that is all that we’ll say for now.

Manesh has appeared in over a dozen episodes of the show so far, including the most-recent finale “Something New” that aired on CBS in the spring. He’s always a pretty positive and upbeat guy, and while we still believe that it would be rather hilarious to watch him blow a gasket during the final part of this season, we also sincerely doubt that we are going to see that happen. This is not, after all, the Ranjit comedy hour; it’s “how Barney and Robin got married, that way Ted can finally meet the mother and we can see his happy ending.” (That’s at least the way that we look at it.)

The new season of “How I Met Your Mother” is set to premiere on CBS on Monday, September 23 at 8:00 p.m. Eastern time, and everyone from Neil Patrick Harris to the crew seems to be reasonably excited about it. As always, we are going to have some more news on the show when it becomes available.

Photo: CBS