If that’s the case, I think we already know her name, from back in the first season. Ted tries to fake-out the kids when they were getting bored. The last thing in the story before he says “and that’s how I met your mother” is a lady introducing herself as Tracey, yet the kids do not have any trouble believing him. He even seems to change her name in order to make it fit. It seems like that’s her name unless this is contradicted later. (Note, I haven’t seen every episode.)
In fact, that scene is why I assumed that we’d actually see and hear them meet. We did in that fakeout as well as the one with Robin in the first episode.
I think it’s referring to Lily slowly building to a crescendo in her “you must get excited about the wedding!”. But I could be wrong.
I dunno - it’d be a solid way to go out. There’s not much room for perfection in a series’ finale, and many have failed going out with a light touch. There has to be a sense of completion and finality - this would certainly accomplish that. And it also precludes any attempts to drag out more side-stories with poorly-conceived spin-offs. Like the Mother said, you have to stop relying on your stories of the past and start looking forward (or something like that).
My hope remains that the final episodes will start drawing in parallel stories from multiple time periods at rapidly increasing rates. We’ll get to see Ted and the Mother live their lives together, but at an accelerated rate (a montage narrated by Billy Zabka?). We’ll cut between Barney & Robin’s wedding and Ted & Mother’s wedding and Daughter’s birth and Son’s birth and Ted & Mother’s first date, etc. etc. etc.
The writers have shown themselves very capable of writing emotionally-meaningful episodes in the past - I think they’ll do a great job of getting it across the finish line on their own terms.
I wasn’t convinced by the theory until you pointed that out.
I just went back and rewatched the episode you mentioned. Ted is not happy, bubbling, “When Harry Met Sally” excited by the idea of
[spoiler]the extra 45 days. He’s wistful and looks like he’s about to cry when he says “…but I’m here now…I guess…because… < he pauses for breath, starts to say something, chokes/stops, continues >…because I want those extra 45 days”.
There’s no way he’s happy in that scene.[/spoiler]
Ug, that has got to be one of the worst subplots the show has done.
Yea, I wouldn’t really have a problem with it. It’d be interesting, in any case. But its pretty weird for a sitcom to have such a sharp shift of tone for the last few episodes like that. Lots of shows have the occasional maudlin episode (like killing Marshall’s dad), but killing the mother would really make the whole show kind of a tragedy retrospectively. So I’m kinda sceptical they’d go that far.
On the other hand, its kinda dumb to waste one of the final episode on a pointless fake-out.
So my guess: The mother is possibly ill, and Ted and her are waiting on test results. The test come back negative, so she’s ok, but the scare causes her to reveal to Ted some aspect of their first meeting that she’d kept secret. The final episode is a flash-back within a flashback: Ted telling his kids both how he came to find out the true story of the first meeting, as told to him by the Mother.
(also, gonna ask a mod to change the title so we can make this a general season 9 thread, and no one will be surprised by the spoilers for already aired episodes).
Ted’s mother didn’t miss Ted’s wedding by being dead (maybe she didn’t go for some reason, like an unexpected Petrelli family reunion ), but she’s not dead in the future because when she marries Clint, Ted says something like “Kids, you know how happy the two of them are together.”
Or at least she SHOULD be, but the continuity is both stronger and weaker in these last few episodes.
Its pretty clear Ted is upset about something that was happening in 2024, presumably to a mother of an unwed daughter. So even if Ted’s mom had died or otherwise missed his wedding, it would’ve been a long time ago. Ted has a sister, so I guess it could be her wedding that will be missed, but since the sister is almost never mentioned, it would be kinda bizarre to hang a major plot element of the finale on her.
Lily we know lives to old age, and she has a son (though I guess there could be a younger daughter later). Robin never has kids. That pretty much just leaves the Mother.
Or I guess it could be an unmarried daughter (Lily or Teds) that’s sick. But a “kid with cancer” plot would be even darker then knocking off the Mom, so I doubt it.
Didn’t “Mad about you” end on a dark note? It was a comedy and it ends with the two main characters getting older and splitting up (or maybe that is when I quit watching).
Sort of. It jumped forward to their child Mabel as an adult (Janeane Garafolo) and Paul and Jamie separated, ending when they reconciled. About as lame as the ending of Seinfeld. And Cheers.
I could see it ending like that, if only because it would explain why the kids asked the question and put up with such a long answer.
I don’t know what happens in what year, but I was wondering if the mother CAN’T be dead shortly after the last episode because she goes to Ted, Marshall, and Lily’s college reunion and doesn’t she go to the hospital in the whole Barney fake out from the meatball sub one? That could all have happened “before” this restaurant scene or she could have kicked it after, but I’m so confused given the timeline we’ve seen.
There is that… the kids are (somewhat) putting up with such a long answer for a reason. And I don’t think its because they are really interested in knowing all this stuff about Ted’s friends before he actually met their mother. Why sit through such a long story? I mean I think we all, a while ago, though the framing device had been surpassed and was now a hindrance that the story was about Ted’s adventures and most of the time had nothing to do with the meeting of the mother, but maybe there was something to the framing device after all.
This is the bit that doesn’t make sense to me. It fits in with the interpretation because the mother never makes an appearance as narrative voice, so she’s presumably missing, but she also never appears in the story, which is kinda hard to stomach. So these kids have lost their mother, and their father sits them down and tells them the story of how he met her over 9 hours(seasons) and the mother only makes a tiny appearance in the last half hour or so?
Ted mentions a couple times when his and the Mothers stories intersect (when he teacher her class, the yellow umbrella stuff) “kids, you already know…”.
So the kids have already heard all the Mothers parts of the story. Ted’s telling them his parts. Which are pretty flattering to the (late?) Mother, even if she isn’t in them, since they’re all about how the Universe drove him to find the perfect woman.
So sis and I just watched the ep from the web (using her Roku). After that second bit of dialog, she turned to me and said
[spoiler]She’s gonna die. She says that she gets it, too. There has to be some sense of finality to explain why the stories actually stop. With all the jumping around, stopping at meeting the mother doesn’t make sense.
She did say that it might mean something that happened to her mother, but getting that upset 10 years on seems a bit weird.[/spoiler]
After that episode, she had me watch the pilot (which apparently left out a lot of the jokes in the script, although she said some of them came back in flashbacks) and then the first slap video, so we could end on a happy note. I’m actually thinking I may stop watching if it’s going to get all somber, as I don’t want the melancholy mood to ruin my enjoyment. But, then again, maybe it’s best to get them over with.
), but she’s not dead in the future because when she marries Clint, Ted says something like “Kids, you know how happy the two of them are together.”