'HIMYM' finale will have 'right amount of everything'

The original five cast members of 'How I Met Your Mother' -- Neil Patrick Harris, Cobie Smulders, Josh Radnor, Jason Segel, and Alyson Hannigan -- huddle on the couch in the apartment, which has been home to almost everyone at some point in the series. (Harris' Barney is the only exception.) / Dan MacMedan, USA TODAY

LOS ANGELES â?? The Mother of all parental origination stories is â?? less than two weeks left to wait for it â?? coming to an end. After nine seasons and 208 episodes, CBS' How I Met Your Mother (Monday, 8 p.m. ET/PT) will close March 31 with a one-hour finale that wraps up the story of Ted (Josh Radnor), his four close friends and his search for the elusive but finally revealed mother (Cristin Milioti). "It's got the right amount of everything. It's happy, it's sad, it's funny, it's informative. It answers so many questions, even questions you never even had," says Alyson Hannigan, who plays Lily. Mother, framed by a 2030 Ted (voice of Bob Saget) telling his adolescent children tales of young adulthood in New York, was well received by critics but not an instant hit when it premiered in 2005. The show has become a strong player for CBS (9.8 million viewers this season, up 1%), especially among young adults, where it ranks second among CBS shows. The final week of shooting mixed expected sadness with a feeling of pride and joy, says executive producer Carter Bays. He and co-creator Craig Thomas knew how the show would end years ago, recording a future Ted finale scene in 2006 before the actors playing the kids grew up. "It was literally locked in a safe." Although fan talk sometimes revolved around the mother's identity, which was finally revealed as last season ended, that was never the show's focus, Radnor says on one of the final shooting days. "When we introduced her, it was saying (the show) has never really been about that. This is a framework device to tell a story about a group of people growing up together," he says, sitting at the MacLaren's bar table where the gang has so often gathered. Viewers want to know how the story ends for Ted; his "Bro Code" buddy Barney (Neil Patrick Harris); Barney's fiancée, Robin (Cobie Smulders); spouses Lily and Marshall (Jason Segel); and the mother. Many reacted strongly to a recent episode, interpreting a 2024 conversation between Ted and the mother to mean she may be dead by the time Ted tells their children how they met. "We knew it would rock some worlds," says Bays. "These last few episodes, a lot of stuff happens," including the revelation that Lily and Marshall are going to have a second child. There are no plans for a reunion or for the Mother characters to pop up on How I Met Your Dad, a pilot for a potential spinoff series that tells a first-encounter story from a woman's viewpoint and exists "in a different universe," Bays says. "What I like about the ending of this series is it really ends. We close the book and say everything we need to say. It's not really a fadeout. It's more of an exclamation point."

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