Kids, this is the story of how I met your mother. It may or may not take nine years to tell, though…
This show is pretty well-loved. It’s received a bundle of academy awards, and uses a unique story-telling device of juggling multiple flashbacks within flashbacks. In fact, some episodes take this a step further and organize the same scene through the perspective of different characters.
But the big question is: is it ever going to end? The show was clever right from the start, making the audience think that Robin was the mother and then crushing their hopes. At first, we got the occasional hint of this elusive woman. She’s at the same bar one night, Ted dates her roommate, she’s in the class Ted is teaching… but this cleverness runs into the issue of how long the story is getting. Even the show makes fun of this! Older Ted tells his kids in one episode about this unbearable girl who just talks and talks and how annoying that is…
So they try to pass this off as Ted over-explaining things. This is better than nothing, but still a bit of a stretch. Do his kids really need to know the story of how Barney slept with his 200th woman or how Marshall and Lily wanted to elope in Atlantic City? Those aren’t necessary details, unless you believe Ted when he says they were important parts of “making him into the person he needed to be.” In that case, shouldn’t we call this show “How I Got to Be Bob Saget Talking to my Kids?”
Regardless of this little kink in the works, the show is doing very well, scheduled for its ninth and final season. As such, the show has been dropping more hints as to when Ted will meet their mother, and puts a pretty exact date on when he’ll have a daughter, three years after the season seven episode Trilogy Time.
But is there some big twist planned for the end of the show? There are plenty of crazy theories going around out there. For example, the claim that the year 2030, in which Ted is telling this story, is post-apocalyptic, and he is telling them about how the world used to be. Another is that Ted and the mysterious mother were having a one night stand, and on his way sneaking out in the morning, he runs into her kids. So, to stall for time, he tells this long convoluted story about how he met their mother.
Another theory is that Ted and Robin will somehow end up together. Their romance has been in important part of the show, and there are plenty of fans still rooting for them. Of course, there are a handful of marriages in the way. But there are still hints of something there. In the season seven episode No Pressure, it is revealed that Marshall and Lily have a bet on whether or not Ted and Robin will end up together. Every time one of them thinks they’ve won, the other says “not yet.” At the end of the episode, Lily asks Marshall to pay up because it looks like Ted and Robin won’t be getting back together. He just smiles, and says not yet. It seems odd for Marshall to have such faith in the two, and to end the episode on that note. Maybe it’s a long shot, but things happen for a reason on television shows. So maybe, just maybe, a couple of divorces down the road, the show ends right where it begins: with a romance between Ted and Robin.
That is, assuming this show ever does end. For all we know, it could be renewed and run right to 2030.
