How Your Mother Met Me

Taking us back through all the seasons that were How I Met Your Mother and stitching them together again in under thirty minutes—I have to say CBS, did a pretty good job.

The Mother probably wins out as among my favorite characters in the whole series, surely. Besides her questionable faith in the wrong MacLaren’s, one can easily discern where she matches and deviates from Ted in her own HIMYM subgroup. Did anyone peg the redhead as her “Marshall” or her “Barney?” She left me undecided.

As for the story, I did not expect it to read as sad from start to finish. Funny parts make not a comedy, and this episode was wholly tragic. All thanks to the Mother’s wonderful acting (and singing). How else can one spin the phrase, “Yes, this is she,” in that context?

I did, finally, like seeing how all the pieces of Ted’s misadventures come together with hers. Made for a pretty picture.

And, yes, I even enjoyed the sad of it. HIMYM made its name for its engaging plots and turntable emotions—not for being consistently funny, all the time. While my east coast confidantes might have FAILED TO MENTION how sad it would be, I must say I’m glad the episode surprised me.

And to think this all began from one failed “Have you met Ted?”

But who. Was in the car. With Lily?!

I hope. Sincerely, sincerely hope. The series does not end with Marshall and Lily’s divorce, or a failed Farhampton marriage, or something that wouldn’t resolve by the end of the season. It’s the LAST season. Put us through plot twists. Make our emotions dance like Pinocchio across a puppet stage, but don’t end nine years of work like that.

Of course, I’m speaking too many months too late on that front. All I can do now is hope for the best, tentatively prepare for the worst, and wait to see who picked Lily up and went. Here I was, hoping that would be the Mother, too.

There She Is: HIMYM Season Finale

There we have it. There she is.
And yet, only a network like CBS can give us so many answers and leave us with so many more questions. All at once.
I’m sitting here in my living room in shock.
I don’t know whether or not to be excited or wary.
I feel a lot of both.

This has been the fullest half hour in recent memory.

When Marshall visits his mother for a week in Minnesota with Marvin, he spends the days assuring Lily his mother won’t make good on her idle threats to change their plans to move to Rome.
He never expected he’d be the person behind the plot twist.

Towards the end of the trip, he receives an offer for a last-minute Judgeship opening in NYC. Bent on the hard decision, we leave off discovering Marshall accepted the title; and hasn’t told Lily. If Lily’s free to pursue the highlight of her career, so is Marshall—but a year away from Marvin?
“Your Honor?”

Ted finishes the repairs on the house—only to break the news to Lily that he’s moving to Chicago after the wedding and, once again, to confess that he’s moving because he can’t stay in New York while he feels the way he does for Robin.
Moving on isn’t the same as letting go. But that’s okay.
Although he puts his wise words at risk, damning the Universe last episode, when he learns the locket Robin so searched for (and found…drunk) had been with him the whole time. I’m iffy about the locket being a gift. Hope he gets to Farhamption station in enough time.

And now to break down the plot twists in consecutive order, because I can’t process them properly without screaming:

1. TED HAS THE LOCKET.

2. MARSHALL IS A JUDGE.

3. WE SAW THE MOTHER WITH BOOTS AND THE UMBRELLA AT FARHAMPTON STATION.

4. AAAAHHH.

This season is just about legen…wait for it…married.

"Do you believe in Destiny?"

Speaking of weddings, I could point out that spring is just around the corner, and wedding season will soon be as a-flurry as the flower pollen. Yet, given the year and the surviving-the-holocaust, every month shows drastic highs for the wedding industry.

Another landmark—more private, special, closer and dearer to my heart—would be the number of “yellow umbrella” requests.

How they’re related? Well, besides the “wedding” part of the connection, being the infamous How I Met Your Mother conclusion, I mean the landmark in a very literal sense. Wise customers don’t simply purchase the trademark parasols to keep their heads dry.
Reportedly, brides-to-be are buying umbrellas in bulk. Say that ten times fast.

Brides and their wedding planners have an eye on the yellow-umbrella for major wedding components: the theme, the reception, and, more creatively, the wedding pictures! It’s such a neat, statement, classic HIMYM nod…I’m wondering why I didn’t think of suggesting it in the first place.

The cute umbrella obviously serves convenient and functional purposes in one’s life; besides the color, the umbrella comes with more explicit quotes pointing to the program, if your friends need the mental shove. As with the “Mother,” it can keep off the rain off your shoulders, and your bass guitar, on some faraway train station.

But for the nuptial nuances, the umbrella makes an adorable theme highlight and cause for photo ops! Picture this: umbrellas propped in a yellow-adorned reception with the flowers, used near the bride and groom’s seating. Or gathered outside with your new beau, posing in your photo-album spreads with the yellow umbrella, symbolizing both union and fate. Or, as would be the case for your excited brides, calling for umbrellas in the ten’s, one umbrella per bridesmaid for bridal party pictures!

But seriously, how awesome would it be to host a HIMYM themed wedding? I’d call it nothing short of…legendary!

The Wedding

I still wonder if Barney and Robin are literally “uncle” and “aunt”? Time will tell come Ted’s own wedding!

The episode begins, however, with The Wedding. Barney and Robin’s wedding, that is, along with the clash of the wedding planners, Lily and Ted.
I should have assumed an architect would have a knack for color coordinating.

After the engagement, we learn Barney never asked Robin’s father for his daughter’s hand. Turns out, her father transformed from “frightening” to “fun” in his mid (ehem, very late late) life-crisis. It still didn’t make Barney’s asking for permission any easier; even his “fun” hair color didn’t grant him the respect he sought.

The episode’s debatable topic? The Facebook Request. To accept or not to accept a parental Facebook request? Do we want to see what’s behind that “door?”
Robin probably didn’t, how necessary it was. As it turned out, her father—a rather hypocritical one right now, life crisis aside—already married the Carol so responsible for his claim to “fun.”
And here I thought this episode would be fun and light-hearted.

I’ll be honest—a large part of the episode revolved around the same wedding planning woes. I was beginning to wonder.
Or, did, until Ted revealed he didn’t fully support Barney and Robin’s union. As revealed prior to the engagement, for a split second in the car, Ted realized he felt even worse about letting Robin go.

And then Lily let out her frustrations toward parenthood, shooting this episode from funny and quirky, if not blatantly stagnant, to horribly sad and…utterly realistic.
Because you can’t always get what you want, no more than you can always go back and reverse what you started.

Ultimately, Robin’s father did apologize to Robin for his error, in a manner. A first, evidently, in her lifetime.

And us yellow umbrella-seekers got another sneak-peek of where Ted finally glimpses: The Bass Player, The Wedding Band, and The Yellow Umbrella.
The Mother.

…Until next Monday.

“Because if Robin and Barney had taken my stupid advice and hired a DJ…I never would have met your mother.”

-- Ted Mosby

My Wife and Kids

Before the end of the year festivities begin and we herald 2013, I thought it’d be prevalent, not to look back into the past with another recap or countdown, but to examine the future our favorite programs may bring!
 Of course, I only have one burning question in mind: who could possibly be “the mother” in How I Met Your Mother?

Though I didn’t just mean the guessable future—I also meant the future we’ve already seen! Glimpses into the life of Dad Mosby and kids, what we know, what we don’t, and what the flash-forwards in the series really tell us about the family to come.

For instance: children! We knew right off the bat Ted Mosby and “the mother” had two hitherto-unnamed children together, when they asked, of course, how their father met their mother. The question heard ‘round the world.
Fans recognize, be it by taping or by intention, the children don’t change clothes when they are filmed, nor do they move from the couch while Future Ted tells his story. Maybe he wraps up the story faster than the episodes let on? Or else they inherited his (and our) patience.

While they haven’t revealed their given names, there is evidence Ted wanted to name his future-children Luke and Leia off of Star Wars. Here’s hoping (for only some of you) they don’t follow through with those choices!

As for the mother? While I’m sure you all poured over the flash-forwards and notable glimpses (like in the taxi cab) over and over, we’re completely certain of the following:

·      Ted Mosby is married with an infant daughter by 2015.

·      Ted and “the mother” attended the same St. Patrick’s Day party in Manhattan, but did not meet.

·      The mother is Cindy’s roommate.

·      Ted meets the mother on the day of a wedding—at Farhampton station, as we all well know, with the yellow umbrella. Could this be Barney and Robin’s wedding?

I can discuss “the mother” fan-theories in another article. For now, here’s to a happy and healthy 2013, as we wave goodbye to a jam-packed (and un-apocalyptic!) 2012.