Haaaave you met the mother?
CBS
Warning: This article contains spoilers for the final season ofHow I Met Your Mother.
In some ways, we shouldve seen it coming.
Credit:CBS
Suit up asEntertainment Weeklyexplains whyHow I Met Your Mothers ending landed like a losing slap-bet for some viewers.
After nine seasons of build-up, who ends up being the mother?
(Her band, the SuperFreakonomics, formed when she was in business school.)
Ron P. Jaffe/CBS/courtesy Everett Collection
But meeting Tracy at a train station in the pouring rain changed everything.
The day I shot [my first scene], it was really on lockdown,Milioti told EW.
All the extras in that train station are producers and writers of the show.
Ron P. Jaffe/CBS/courtesy Everett Collection
It was so beautiful, because I got to meet everyone and they were incredibly welcoming.
The good vibes didnt surprise Thomas.
The whole crew was like Here she is, the woman weve been waiting for for 10 years!
CBS
And shes like, Im just an actor.'
Had Tracy interacted with the core characters before this long-awaited moment?
The final season jumped around time to show all the ways the gang had bumped into Tracy.
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Tracy was an accidental part of everyones lives even before she became the Mother, in other words.
Awww, a happily ever after!
Not quite… Tracy dies.
Wait,what?
And then she dies.
Did that make people upset?
Theres a reason Last Forever landed onEWs list of worst TV finales ever.
Yet Tracy turned out to be a perfect match for Teds earnestness, dad jokes, and wide-eyed romanticism.
They know exactly what they want to do.
Hows future Ted holding up after the loss of his wife and the mother of his children?
(His a-little-later-in-life pursuit of her also included the blue French horn, of course.)
How did the ending affect the shows legacy?
EWs Katie Atkinsonwas one of the critics who applaudedHow I Met You Mothersexit.
The story Ted tells the kids, and the series itself, is about the gang Robin included.
I would gladly sit down and watch a full spinoff about just Ted and Tracy.
But in this series?
In the deviously titledHow I Met Your Mother?It has always been Robin.
So theHIMYMuniverse ended there?
Then in 2022, a different spinoff hit Hulu.
