“How I Met Your Mother” began the year with a twist which a number of fans are greeting with the gusto of having lemon juice squirted in the eye.

The CBS comedy, now midway through its sixth season, took a turn to the dramatic side with the current story arc dealing with the sudden death of Marshall’s (Jason Segel) father and how he and the other characters cope with the aftermath.

However, the character’s death doesn’t mean that viewers have seen the last of Bill Fagerbakke, the television veteran who played Marvin Erickson Sr.

“HIMYM” co-creator Carter Bays has confirmed that the actor, who has appeared in seven episodes of the series dating back to the first season, will still appear in flashbacks.

Fagerbakke is perhaps best known for his role as Dauber Dybinski alongside Craig T. Nelson on the long-running ABC comedy “Coach.” However, he has also provided the voice of Patrick Star on Nickelodeon’s monster animated hit “Spongebob Squarepants” since that series began in 1999.

His character suffered a fatal heart attack on the Jan. 3 episode of “HIMYM,” and the following episode saw Marshall and his friends attend his father’s funeral, as Marshall contemplates the last words he heard from his late father.

Bays and co-creator Craig Thomas said they have wanted to explore loss for a while and decided to set up events during the first half of the season with a death as the mid-point and allow the rest of the story to unwind from there.

Never content to be the typical sitcom, “HIMYM” has tackled other serious themes before, such as Ted (Josh Radnor) getting left at the altar and Lily (Alyson Hannigan) and Marshall’s ongoing struggle to conceive a child.

But this is the darkest theme HIMYM has explored to date.

“The show has always explored the various mileposts of life in your 20s and 30s,” Bays said. “Very early on, we set the goal for ourselves that we weren’t going to sugarcoat it or back away from something if there’s a little darkness to it. Loss is a part of life.”

Having such a tragedy focus on Marshall (Jason Segel) seemed the natural choice.

“Jason is such a terrific actor,” said Bays. “It felt like something he could play very well. And we love Bill Fagerbakke. Their relationship has always been so nice, we felt like we could get the most powerful effect out of them.”

Life is a journey, and the creators of “HIMYM” want the series to reflect that.

Bays insists this event will not be a “one-off sad moment and then go back to normal. This is something Marshall and all the characters are going to deal with.”

For the rest of the season, Marshall will be struggling to cope with his father’s death as he faces the possibility of becoming a father himself. His father was his hero, teacher, best friend and was always there for him, at the least a phone call away. Now that security is gone.

Whether or not fans will respond favorably to this story arc depends on how successful Bays and Thomas are at striking a relatable chord with the audience while keeping the levels of drama and humor in balance.

“I started from a place of real sadness [but] I think we struck a good balance of finding humor,” Bays said. “The shows we loved [in the past] were shows that were funny 90% of the time. But their humor came from characters and your love of the characters as an audience member. So that 10% when they weren’t funny…meant that much more to you.”

“How I Met Your Mother” airs Mondays at 8 p.m. EST on CBS. It stars Radnor, Segel, Cobie Smulders, Hannigan and Neil Patrick Harris.