How I Met Your Mother

How Your Mother Met Me

It has now been a good 7 hours since I watched this episode, and I am still all little schoolgirl giddy on the inside. Really though. This is the best episode of HIMYM I have seen in a LONG time. It was the perfect combination of funny, sweet, charming, and sad. After torturing us for 15 episodes, we finally got to see The Mother for more than just a blip! I must admit that I was skepty about this chick for awhile since I ship Ted and Robyn so much, but this episode solidified my love for her. She's fantastic. I would probably marry her (don't tell my boyfriend).

I think the main thing about this episode that a lot of viewers probably weren't expecting is that it was actually pretty sad. We learned in this episode that The Mother was in love before, and her lover died. That's pretty heavy stuff, especially for a sitcom. However, I think that this little tidbit of info is a blatant foreshadowing. If you like spoilers as much as I do, then you've probably read the theories on the internet that the mother is actually dead, and that is why Ted has decided to tell his kids the story of how they met. I have held true to this theory for quite some time now, and there is quite a bit of evidence to support that. For one, she doesn't pipe in or show up at any point while Ted is telling the story. Don't you think she would want to be there and share her point of view? Secondly, the entire series points towards Ted ending up with Robin. Their relationship has been the main focus of basically the entire series (minus this season). To randomly have him end up with someone else doesn't make a whole lot of sense (even though the show is called How I Met Your Mother, and it's pretty obvious that Robin isn't the mother). Thirdly, there is that episode from last season where Ted runs to The Mother's door and gives his heart-wrenching speech about how he will meet her in 45 days and he wants those extra 45 days with her and he'll love her forever. That doesn't exactly sound like a speech you give to someone who's still around. And lastly, one of the writers said in an interview that by the end of the series we will find out that there is a specific reason Ted decided to tell his children this story at this particular point in time. What other reason could there possibly be?

A couple other interesting theories I have come across has to do with Barney. It's a bit of a stretch, but kind of fun to think about nonetheless. Basically the theory is that Barney and Ted are actually each other in the story. In other words, Ted essentially took all of Barney's qualities and used them to describe himself and used his qualities to describe Barney, so as to look better in front of his children. This theory does operate on the fact that The Mother got pregnant and that's why her and Ted got married, which I'm not sure is the case. It is a bit of a time crunch, but I think they got married first. If they didn't though, Ted would be the guy who dated a new girl every episode and married a girl he knocked up, and Barney would be the one who ended up with the "dream girl" of the show whom he was in love with. Like I said, it's a bit of a stretch, but a fun idea to play with. You can read the entire article here: http://www.reddit.com/r/FanTheories/comments/1mmsa3/how_i_met_your_mother_the_mother_is_dead_and_ted/

Conspiracy theories aside, this was a great episode. I loved seeing all the flashbacks of their little run-ins over the years and of course Rachel Bilson :) Until next time, my fellow TV freaks!

-LC