Happy 200th Episode to How I Met Your Mother

It all started when I bought season one of LOST on DVD and finished it in two days, the early days of binge watching before Netflix became a thing. I had two days before the season two premiere of LOST and decided to go to CBS and watch the series premiere of How I Met Your Mother ( September 19,2005) and it’s been history ever since. If it wasn't for these two television shows I wouldn't be the addict I am now.  I have watched every single episode since that day and never more than 24 hours after the show has been aired. I’m impressed that this show has lasted as long as it has I recall when the show was always on the fence of being canceled during the middle seasons. I find it impressive that this is the only series that I have watched from its series premiere all the way to when the finale will actually air.

I found it as a relief to Friends even though I didn't start watching that show until the final season. The show developed well from becoming a show that makes you laugh with its 80’s references to even making you cry when Marshall found out when his father died.  I enjoyed this show for many reasons many friends would assume that it’s Barney, it is hard not to pick him because of the amazing lines that were written for him.  Everyone has that couple that has been together for many years and are the parent figure of a group that pretty much sums up Lily and Marshall. Robin is that girl next door who has her father issues and that is why she never wants to have kids and even commit until the later seasons. Some friends that I know were not pleased with Barney and Robin getting together because they are too similar but I believe that works because they understand each other and at some point the people who were most afraid of relationships will end up embracing it that will be me one day. Finally we have Ted the protagonist of this series I love the up and downs he had with relationships because it’s realistic someone is not going to not date and assume to get married, he went through every phase happiness depression and will finally find his one true happiness at the end of the series. The beauty of this series is that it’s a great resemblance to life every character goes through ups and downs, uncertainty with their life and career choices and issues with their parents. Anyone can relate to this show and that is why I have kept around so long.

I have compared this final season similar to that awkward Scrubs final season. I was even surprised they renewed it when they gave the show such a great send off. I knew this season would be similar to season 8 with a lot of fill-ins to the final episode. There have been some nice episodes this season with the premiere episode of ‘The Locket’ when we meet the mother, ‘The Rehearsal Dinner’ and last week’s ‘Unpause’. It may be easy to say because it’s the most ingrained episode in my memory but the 200^th episode named ‘How Your Mother Met Me’ will be one of the top episodes of the series, it was so special and bitter sweet to the whole series as a whole. I laughed and yes there were some tears but that makes for a memorable episode and experience. I didn't want to make any judgments about the mother until I actually got to meet her. I am glad I made that decision because throughout the season she has been the main positive of the show next to Lily and Linus joke and Barney getting down to the last few hours of being “single”.

After this there will be spoilers of the episode.

The episode begins where the series began at MacLaren’s Pub Ted met Robin and Marshall and Lily get engaged. The show starts with its usual humor and goes straight to the sensitive pace that will remain throughout this episode when the Mother’s boyfriend is late to celebrate her birthday. She receives a phone call and finds out he got in to some accident and left her a ukulele. We flash forward to St Patrick’s Day and find out how the umbrella ended up at that bar and where we get a series flashback with the return of ‘The Naked Man’ named Mitch. I’m glad she ended up being the one of the three but it was too funny that as soon as she leaves her apartment her roommate sleeps with Mitch, it works so well that I might have to try this.

We then flash-forward again to Ted’s first day as a college professor, it was cute when she laughed at Ted’s many punned induced jokes. We find out how the mother and Cindy become roommates and what takes place after Ted sees her ankles. This is where Cindy kisses a woman for the first time and realizes that she will have made the transition from men to women. She then dates this guy named Louis who believes MacLaren’s is named Puzzles and she questions it just like Ted and Barney did earlier in the series was pure genius. The moment when Louis proposes to the Mother and she asks Max for his blessing was heartwarming leading up to her still carrying the ukulele and ending the episode with her singing put the cherry on top of this fantastic episode.

I sure do hope that there are more mother sightings before the final episode. I hope Cristin Milioti gets nominated for an Emmy as a guest actress besides being one of the bright side of a very off season she did a tremendous bringing this mysterious character to life. A lot of people were not pleased that she was mom when we got a first sighting last season in the train station. I was glad they picked an unknown actress instead of an actress that everyone knows. That way we were able to have a clean slate of this person instead of comparing her the mother to roles that the actress has done beforehand. The mother has lived up to everything that Ted has described her to be. I  enjoyed seeing Milioti in Wolf of Wall Street and she continues to expand her other projects. You have won me over and I hope the rest of the season can continue to blossom as this episode did.