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In this special TV edition of the FilmWonk Podcast, Glenn and Daniel take a deep dive into one of their favorite sitcoms, How I Met Your Mother, created by Carter Bays and Craig Thomas, which recently concluded its ninth and final season on CBS. And we had plenty to say about that ending. Spoilers for the entire series run will begin after about the 10 minute mark (55:15).

May contain some NSFW language.

Show notes:

• Music for this episode comes from several original songs from the series run, including:

• “Let’s Go to the Mall” and “Sandcastles in the Sand” by Robin Sparkles (Cobie Smulders)
• “Murder Train” by The Foreskins (played onscreen by James van der Beek, but we were unable to verify whether he actually sang the song).
• Not included, but worth a listen: “Nothin’ Suits Me Like a Suit” by Barney Stinson (Neil Patrick Harris).

• Topics covered:
  • The structure of Season 9, and the distant origins of the main event.

  • SPOILERY CORRECTION: We slightly flubbed the order of events on this. At the beginning of Season 6, Ted was revealed to be attending a wedding where he would meet The Mother. At the end of Season 6, Barney is revealed to be the groom. At the end of Season 7, Robin is revealed to be the bride. In Season 8, Robin is revealed to be having second thoughts, and Ted decides to move to Chicago.

  • Robin’s career vs. happiness
  • The “Urkelizing” of Barney Stinson
  • Our alternate structure for Season 9, assuming we keep the same ending.
  • Running gags/jokes/mythology
  • How well will the show hold up over time?

• Correction: The final season was 24 episodes, not 22.
• Correction: We made a pithy (and inaccurate) reference to Ted…mingling…with the Mother’s old roommate, Cindy. They had one date, which ended badly – while they made amends in a later episode, nothing further happened between them.
• We referred to Cristin Milioti‘s lovely rendition of “La Vie En Rose” – we didn’t include it on the podcast, but it is available on YouTube as of this writing.
• The long-term bet between Lily and Marshall was as follows: Marshall bet that Ted would end up with Robin. In the final episode, he is shown to pay off Lily on the day of Ted’s wedding to the mother, indicating that he lost the bet. Presumably, a refund might ensue sometime in 2030.

Listen above, or download: How I Met Your Mother (right-click, save as, or click/tap to play on a non-flash browser)