GUNS N' ROBOTS

I Solved How I Met Your Mother. I also drank too much coffee…

Okay. Time for me to nerd out for a minute because I’m not sure I’ve posted this anywhere and I need a time stamp on this. If there is anything I am, its a student of television. There are few shows I love more than How I Met Your Mother and I am positive I have cracked it. I was going to write this last year, but in this last season I have watched as every puzzle piece has fallen in place.If you don’t watch this show, you really should (its on Netflix) and feel free to call me nuts.

I’m going down the rabbit hole here guys, so I will spare you this post unless you really want to read it.

The quick answer to the question, “who is the mother”? seems like a trick question so many people default to Robin. This is too simple of an answer and on tonight’s episode Ted makes it pretty clear that whoever he says “i love you” to in front of the movie theater is not Robin. The show also made it very clear this season Robin can not have children and the teens listening to their father from day one look just like Ted (notice the show has been on for seven years and and they haven’t aged a day… all that was filmed years ago).

The writers of this show are amongst the best in the business and they know story. Notice that they started the story of “How I Met Your Mother” with the day Ted meets Robin. This means Robin is not only important to the story, but she is the key to the entire thing.

Next comes the beginning of season seven where it is shown that Ted is sitting outside a Wedding looking really disheartened drinking a beer with the label scratched off (its been established that Ted does this when stressed). Marshall comes out to comfort him (something Marshall has done every time involving Robin) and Ted is called in to see the groom, revealed to be Barney. Lily then comes in to say that the bride would like to speak to Ted. Why would the bride want to speak to Ted? At this point in the story there has been no female character established that Barney has dated with a connection to Ted. With this last episode, it also has been pretty much stated that Robin still has feelings for Barney and Barney still has feelings for Robin (notice his pause when Ted tells him that Robin is single again). The bride is Robin.

Now, my theory is that Ted, who has revealed after this last episode that he still has feelings for Robin (although she turns him down) goes in to see Robin and being the indecisive one does something, perhaps reveals she wants to run away with Ted - this would reflect instantly on the time Ted was left at the altar by Stella. Even though Ted still has SEVERE feelings for Robin, he not only can not do that to his friend Barney, but he can not be on the reverse side of what happened to him with Stella.

At the end of this last episode, they played Florence + the machine “Shake it Out”, which says ‘its always darkest before the dawn’ and Ted says that he is ready to move on. He truly isn’t though, Marshall makes that clear twice to the viewer. He needs true soul crushing heartbreak to fully and completely let go of Robin, for it to truly be ‘darkest before the dawn’ and for him to meet the love of his life. This makes the character of Robin the most important on the show, the center of the entire story, as she is the one that emotionally opens Ted up to meet the mother.

We not only know that Ted meets the mother at a wedding, but they have already done misdirection with us at a wedding. So, since you can’t fool someone twice, it has to be the Barney/Robin wedding that it happens. A guest at Barney’s wedding…

While much of the arc of this season has been flashing back to the past of the show, capped by the Wedding, much of last season was devoted to Barney and his father. An odd bit to place into the characterization of Barney unless it was really important to the overall story. When Barney goes to meet his father for the first time, Ted drives him and stays in the car. Barney as a character zips all over the NJ/NYC area by himself (laser tag tournaments in Newark for one), why have Ted drive him?

Barney’s dad has his son inside for dinner where it is revealed that since having Barney he has had another son and a daughter. A daughter that is going to college in New York City….

Why did they need to place Ted as a character in that car? Why have the father refer to a character that is not only not present in the scene, but has no easily identifiable reason for being? That’s really sloppy writing. This is because Barney’s half sister is the girl that Ted meets at Barney’s wedding. She is the mother. Sitting in the car, Ted would not only get another near miss with the mother, it stops him from seeing any pictures of her. He has to meet her fresh the first time.

It has been revealed that the mother was a college student at the school Ted taught at, Ted flat out says it. Viewers often ask the question why does he call Robin and Barney Aunt Robin and Barney? If memory serves, at one point Ted says “and that’s why we go to Aunt Robin and Uncle Barney’s for Thanksgiving.” Two key factors there. One, it makes sense to call Lily and Marshall Aunt and Uncle, they are Ted’s oldest friends, but Ted’s wife isn’t going to be comfortable with that kind of title falling on to Ted’s longest standing flame and his lady’s man friend. Also, Thanksgivings with kids are 9 times out of 10 spent with families, not friends. So logic states, that Aunt Robin and Uncle Barney are married and have that title through blood…

So Ted has just had his heart broken completely and utterly by Robin, and we are shown that this is happening as the guests are arriving….  Ted walks out of the room with Robin, he has finally made his peace with the two biggest heartbreaks of his past and guess who he bumps into? The love of his life… Barney’s half-sister showing up to the wedding.

There’s my peace. I am positive that Ted marries Barney’s half sister. Looking back on this show, hints about the mother are few and far between, yet this is a story not about her, but how Ted finds her and as a character grows to be able to let her into his life. Because of that, every little detail of this story must fall into place in one giant montage. They aren’t going to just randomly create a character for this show. That character must have always been just out of reach, but connected to Ted in some deep way that ties to all the characters and stories introduced through the show. If the writers of How I Met Your Mother pull this off, they will easily go down in history with the greatest sitcoms of all time, its too bad future generations will never be able to take it all in in real time like we all have.

Let me add something at the end here, the ducky tie is going to have one more major play in this season towards the end. I don’t know how, but it will.