You snooze, you lose, Robin.

How I Met Your Mother producers have found a new girlfriend for Barney, and this time they’re not playing around (no offense, Nora).

Much-missed Ugly Betty scene-stealer Becki Newton is joining the CBS hitcom as a potential love interest for Neil Patrick Harris’ brokenhearted cad, TVLine has learned exclusively.

And this isn’t some quickie fling. I’m told Newton will recur throughout the show’s current seventh season, with her first episode slated to air in January. The arrival of her character — named Quinn — comes on the heels of Barney’s breakup with Nora (Nazanin Boniadi) and subsequent rejection from Robin (Cobie Smulders).

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Since wrapping Ugly Betty nearly two years ago, Newton has headlined the short-lived NBC anthology series Love Bites, and was a regular in the ill-fated CBS comedy pilot Home Grown. As she told TVLine over the summer, it was while shooting the latter that she “discovered my love of sitcoms… I had never done a mutli-cam show before, and I absolutely loved it. The next step will be to play a sassy role on a multi-cam show!”

Wish granted!

Thoughts? Are Harris and Newton a match made in TV heaven? Or are you too devoted to Barney and Robin to even ponder such a question? And here’s something else to chew on: Might HIMYM execs be plotting a season-ending bait-and-switch, climaxing with the Mother of all reveals? Just putting that out there. Discuss in the comments.

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