Season nine of ‘How I Met Your Mother’ not ‘legendary,’ still has potential

When the show “‘How I Met Your Mother” announced that this season would be its last, we were a little sad. Every Monday night for the past nine years, there would always be one more episode about Ted, Barney and the whole gang, and 30 more minutes of laughter. 

Yet, we were still excited and anticipated the last hurrah of our favorite show. 

The show is about a man named Ted and his quest to find “The One,” or “his soulmate” as well as the lives of his four best friends and how they played a role in him finally meeting “The One.” 

Season 9, the last season, includes glimpses of Ted’s future wife, known only as “The Mother.” The entire season only shows a 72-hour period of Ted’s life, up to the moment where he, as well as we, finally meet The Mother. 

The season has had many flaws so far, and it has not lived up to our admittedly high expectations. Instead of the 30 minutes of laughter we were used to, the show takes on some more serious themes such as letting go of people and the hardships between a married couple, resulting in less humor and more emotional scenes. So far many of the jokes are corny and contain less substance, but nevertheless gain a small laugh out of us.

 Although these moments are not necessarily bad, we enjoy the show primarily for its hilarious theories, recurrent inside jokes and all-around light atmosphere. Needless to say, this season is mostly “fluff” with no progressive plot line.

When The Mother first appeared in the Season 8 finale, we were excited to finally see her in a context outside of Ted’s descriptions. However, the final season has not shown any interactions of Ted with The Mother, which makes us frustrated. She has somehow met every other main character in the show but Ted.

 The entire show is about Ted meeting his wife (hence the name of the show), but we never see them talk. It would be a real letdown to see them meeting in the last episode. 

We have seen little snippets of Ted and The Mother being happily married. We even saw how Ted proposed (not going to lie, Ted’s sappiness paid off)! But so far, the ever constant struggle of Ted’s undying love for his ex-girlfriend Robin has been the main theme in most of this season's episodes. Right when we think the show is switching gears, it goes in reverse.

 We’ve revisited the locket story at least two times, seen Ted sinfully flirt with Robin more than three times and have witnessed people feeling bad for him because he hasn’t been able to let her go for eight years. (Dude, she’s getting married in 13 hours to one of your best friends.) 

Ted finally watched Robin metaphorically “float away” in the last episode, so hopefully we will get to venture into Ted’s and The Mother’s story, the one we have been waiting to watch for nine years. (Tell us her name already!) 

We hope to see Ted and The Mother meeting in the next episode or two so that the last five episodes will explain their life and the gang’s life after this momentous event.

In the 16th episode, we already learned what led up to The Mother meeting Ted. And honestly speaking, it was a relief to finally watch an episode with substance to it. The Mother has lived up to our expectations every time she’s appeared in an episode, and the episode devoted to her made us like her even more.

Ted’s nine long years of overanalyzing every date and moment of his life really paid off because The Mother is a keeper. Her humor and insightful advice has definitely added extra layers to the show, and we expect to see some more of it.

With only three episodes left in the season, hopefully Ted will utter the words “that’s how I met your mother” and maybe let his kids take a bathroom break.