How he finally met the mother (Season 9)

I guess it's probably not a good idea to parse their words too closely because I'm not convinced they're going to worry *that* much about continuity if they're aiming for a huge twist ending.

 

Is there anything this show could do that would lose you, Vers? Like give Ted Alztheimers? Zoe breaks up Barney and Robin?

 

Sure. The show wore in me quite a bit in the first half of Season 8, specifically. I happen to like the premise and execution of this season.

 

The more I think about it, the more I think something like the Robin death, while a gut-punch, would be acceptable and in keeping with some of the show's darker and more realistic moments. I've lost track of exact ages (if they ever existed), but she'd be in her mid to late 50s in 2030. Certainly that would not be an unusual occurrence. The Mother is quite a bit younger, though.

 

There was a moment last season where Lily made a reference to being in her mid 30s. That would follow with them all being in the 25-27 range when the show started.

 

Stella's the Mother! She broke up with Tony Grafanello after the release of The Wedding Bride 2.

 

In the Grantland story today, they go back to Alex Pappademas interviewing Jason Segel for GQ in 2010:

AP: You want to know my theory? We’re going to find out at some point that the mother’s dead. And adult Ted has been telling them all these stories about the mother they never knew. It’ll retroactively cast the entire show in this dark-comic light.

JS: [without missing a beat] I suggested that also.

AP: Really?

JS: Yeah.

AP: How was that received?

JS: Scoffing. They don’t care about what I say. [laughs] I had two other suggestions, too. One is that they’re dead. The two kids and their father — they’re dead, and they’re in purgatory, and he’s telling the story for eternity.

AP: It’s the worst punishment ever! They have to spend eternity listening to their dad’s boring stories.

JS: And then my other suggestion, which they never used, which I think would be so funny, is — it’s the future, right? I think in one of those scenes, they should open the window, and it should be, like, a postapocalyptic wasteland outside. It should be like I Am Legend. Horrible mutants.

 

Haha, I remember that being linked when it came out.
I bet they will shoot that for the extras on the BluRay

 

But aside from a few tidbits (seeing the mother's ankle while dating Rachel Bilson, being at the same St. Patrick's Day party where they didn't meet) these aren't stories about the mother. These are stories about Ted and his friends.

 

Well said, Wenders. If The Mother is dead, Ted should be telling his kids all of her stories, since he knows them all. But we all know how self-aggrandizing Ted is.

 

If the Mother is dead, I think the biggest failing of this show will be the writers' lack of vision. They started the show, not knowing how long their show had, and initially, Victoria was going to be the Mother if they didn't make it past that first season. Then they started being able to get more and more time. If they wanted to build this show as Ted telling the stories of his dead wife to his children, then they've had plenty of time to set that up. But now, they have four episodes left. It's not a really good amount of time to send this story in a completely different direction. So I'm really crossing my fingers that the Mother isn't dead and then, one day, we can look back and laugh at Monday's episode and how we were all fooled because the writers are trolls and wanted us to believe that we watched nine years of a show about a dead woman.