On Monday, May 13, the show How I Met Your Mother finally had one of the biggest reveals of the year during its Season 8 finale. They revealed its titular character: The Mother.
For eight long years, this sitcom has followed the story of Ted Mosby (played by Josh Radnor), an architect living in New York with his best friends as he searches for the love of his life. The show is set in the year 2030 as Ted tells his children the story of how he met their mother.
His story is shown through flashbacks, starting in 2005 when he first met one of his best friends and love interests, Robin Scherbatsky (Cobie Smulders). Ted’s group consists of the lovable Marshall Eriksen (Jason Segel) and his wife Lily Aldrin (Alyson Hannigan). With them joins the scene-stealing ladies-man, Barney Stinson (Neil Patrick Harris).
For eight seasons, we’ve seen Ted searching for “the one,” his perfect woman. Future Ted, as he tells his children his story, has only revealed a few small details of his future wife over the past few years.
Although we still do not know her name, we know that she was a student at Columbia University during Ted’s first year teaching there, she plays bass guitar, she makes her breakfast foods sing show-tunes, she left her yellow umbrella at a St. Patty’s Day party where Ted took it, she got her umbrella back the day Ted left it at her apartment after going on a date with her roommate, and we know that Ted meets her for the first time at Barney and Robin’s wedding.
During the final scene at the end of the Season 8 finale, we see a woman buy “one ticket to Farhampton.” We know that this woman, carrying a guitar and a yellow umbrella, is the future mother on her way to Barney and Robin’s wedding.
The Mother is played by actress Cristin Milioti. A talented actress on both the screen and the stage, Milioti is best known for her Tony nominated performance in the Broadway musical Once.
In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, show creators Carter Bays and Craig Thomas said that even though they had the entire ninth and final season to introduce the mother, they wanted to give the show’s loyal fans a genuine surprise.
“…it just felt right to see the mother’s face and to give the audience that gift and that knowledge,” Thomas said. “There was something exciting about getting a little bit of her before Ted ever does.”
With the eighth season of How I Met Your Mother coming to a close with this huge revealing surprise, fans most likely cannot wait to see what happens in the final season.
“I think the way that the season ends, I’m hoping it will blow some people’s minds and surprise them and make them want to tune in and see what…we’re going to do with that,” Thomas said.
