On March 31, 2014 one of my favorite television shows comes to an end. The long-running series How I Met Your Mother’s final season comes to a close with a two-part finale and I’m certainly frightened to see how things will end. For quite some time the fans of the show have come up with a daunting theory in which “The Mother” is dead and the main character, Ted Mosby is simply telling his two children about how he met their mother, so that they can come to understand the couple’s story shortly after the mother’s demise.
The sad theory began after the end of the eighth season’s episode “The Time Travelers” after Ted gave a heart-warming speech to the mother forty-five days before meeting her after he proclaims that he wished he had forty-five extra days with her or even forty-five seconds. This episode sparked a few theories, but many just feel that people were looking into the speech too much. However, I was one of those fans who noticed this and was tinged with pain as the show rarely ever has moments, or speeches that are meaningless.
The theory was brought back to life in the episode “How Your Mother Met Me” when fans finally got to hear a condensed version of the mother’s back story. The evidence for this episode was a little shaky as the theory was resurfaced because the main character Ted is narrating the mother’s story. One would assume that the mother would tell her children her own story.
Finally, the theory was basically confirmed after the end of the ninth season episode “Vesuvius” where the mother and Ted are seen in the year 2024. Near the end of the episode Ted is sharing the story of how their friend whose wedding is taking place throughout the entire ninth season, Robin is surprised by her mother who shows up for her wedding. The mother then states “Well of course her mother showed up. What mother is going to miss her daughter’s wedding?” This leads to the mother tearing up and Ted starting to cry while she comforts him. This seems to prove the theory as the couple has a daughter and the mother will likely be unable to show up to the wedding due to her imminent death. At this time it seems that the mother is terminally ill. While I’m hoping that this theory is just a red herring, odds are that it’s not and my favorite sitcom is likely to end in a much darker way than many fans expected.