How I Met Your Mother

How I Met Your Mother got a raw deal after the strike.  Every show on television had to hustle back into production when the writers' strike ended, but How I Met Your Mother found itself in a unique position.  CBS declined to give How I Met Your Mother a renewal until last week's upfronts, and the Mother writers were thusly forced into a nasty little corner: they had to write the remaining episodes of this season and continue the mythology of the series with the ugly possibility hanging over their heads that the season finale would be a series finale.  Therefore, the story being told had to be flexible enough to either act as the series' coda or set up How I Met Your Mother for seasons to come.  If you watched tonight's season finale with this in mind, then I think the ending/cliffhanger makes a lot more sense. 

Ted, when asked by Stella to attend her sister's wedding that is six months away, freaks out.  He gets cold feet and immediately breaks up with her.  Ted, then catching a cab to somewhere, gets into a car accident.  Marshall, Robin and Lilly meet him at the hospital, and are pleased to find that Ted is OK.  But, he's a changed man.  He's in love with Stella.  Barney, meanwhile, hears about Ted and runs all the way to the hospital.  He's hit by a bus right as he arrives. 

Stella arrives at the hospital and Ted tells her he loves her and everything seems rosy.  But, Lilly and Marshall talk to Stella about how crazy it is that they broke up in the morning and are back together just a few hours later.  Stella, somehow, thought that earlier it was only a fight – she didn't think they had broken up.  Well, this upsets Stella and she officially breaks up for good with Ted and leaves the hospital.  Ted is released, but everyone immediately goes to Barney's room, where he has a huge body cast on.  Ted and Barney make up tearfully.  Barney, we find out, loves Robin, but he doesn't verbalize it. 

Ted, determined, goes to see Stella at an arcade.  He tells her that he's changed – he's ready to give her what she needs.  In the final moment of the finale, Ted proposes to Stella.  We do not hear her answer. 

I suspect she will say no.  Going back to the first paragraph, had CBS not renewed How I Met Your Mother, we would have seen Stella say yes, and that would have been that.  Stella would have been the mother.  However, now that the series is coming back next season, it stands to reason that Stella is not the mother.  There's that yellow umbrella, there's the fact that Robin moves in to Ted's apartment sometime in the next season and, well, Sarah Chalke has a job on Scrubs.  If Ted and Stella do get engaged (I can't imagine they will) it wouldn't make sense for Chalke to only make intermittent appearances.  As was the case with Marshall at the start of season two, the beginning of season four will likely deal with Ted's rejected state. 

Tonight's episode wasn't terribly funny, but that can be forgiven.  I'm convinced that Carter Bays and Craig Thomas had time really working against them at the end of this season and had to rush out those last few scripts.  Also, they had a lot of story to tell.  Add that to the uncertainty of the show's renewal, and it's hard to blame them for the dearth of laughs these last few weeks. 

The most intriguing part of the finale for me was Barney's realization that he loves Robin.  First of all, who doesn't?  Robin is awesome.  If Robin and Barney do end up as a couple next season, I'm all for it.  They might turn into my favorite couple on TV. 

Mostly, I just want to go on record here with this prediction: in the fourth season premiere, Stella will say no.


-Oscar Dahl, BuddyTV Senior Writer
(Image Courtesy of CBS)