Full spoilers as always, to follow.
Some of the best of HIMYM has revolved around the hints and brief glimpses we’ve gotten of the Mother over the last nine years — little breadcrumbs that many of us longtime fans have dutifully followed and picked up in a hope to determine who the Mother would end up being. Of course, we now know that all of our detective work was for naught since Cristin Milioti wasn’t hired or brought on the scene until the end of last season, but tonight’s episode, its 200th, helped fill in all those gaps and was top notch fan service for all of us who have been around since the beginning.
The Mother’s backstory wasn’t all sunshine and roses, though. On the night of her 21st birthday (which took place at MacLaren’s, of course), she gets a phone call informing her that the love of her life, Max, had lost his. The tragedy of this haunts her for years to come and keeps her out of the dating world until she runs into Louis who manages to win her over despite her viewpoint that she had already won and lost the lottery in love. While she is somewhat happy in her relationship with him, she begins to realize that the spark of true love still isn’t there, which leads to a make-or-break moment for the two of them (and Ted) when he finally proposes to her at his beach house near the North Hampton Inn. In a heartbreaking conversation with Max, she asks for his blessing to marry Louis, and a gust of wind confirms to her that he would approve. Still, she turns Louis down and ends up taking the only open room at the North Hampton Inn which was left open by Robin’s mother not showing up and is serendipitously right next to Ted’s.
I’m purposely not revealing the details of the scenes where the Mother almost interacted with the main characters (some things are better appreciated on their own), but I can already can see how some might find a few of them pretty contrived. Sure it’s easy for the writers to go back now and use their omnipotence over the show to have a bunch of close calls and “Oh look what we did” moments, but it’s obvious that’s not what they were trying to do. The love and care they have shown these characters over the years really shone through here and gave the fans a lot of fun “a-ha” moments that tied up all the little loose ends and finished the puzzle of how Ted ALMOST met the Mother. Sure, people can be jaded about it, but why let that ruin the touching and fun episode that we got tonight.
HIMYM has had a mixed-to-rough final season, and it was really good that everyone involved was on their A-game for this milestone episode. Not only did they do their 200th justice, they also put the final pieces into place to wrap up the story.
9 out of 10
Oh, and I would be remiss not to mention the remake of the opening sequence remade to be very Mother centric. Check it out below.