"How I Met Your Mother" Season 7 Trailer And 13 Things I Learned About HIMYM From Carter Bays and Craig Thomas

By Rob Payne | Trailers | September 12, 2011 |

By Rob Payne | Trailers | September 12, 2011 |

If you’re like me, you tend to watch more than one television show on a regular basis, because unfortunately “Community” isn’t on all the time. For those of you, also like me, who enjoy the comedic highs and lows of CBS’s “How I Met Your Mother,” you probably have both excitement and a wee bit trepidation about the show’s one-hour (two-episode) return next Monday. Here’s a look at 1/6 of that two-parter in the form of a teaser, which, like “Community,” also contains dancing.

Being a fan of Barney+Robin, I would classify myself as a little more excited after that. And this picture from CBS’s gallery for Punchy’s wedding in the premiere doesn’t hurt, either.

Now that you’re properly enthused about “HIMYM’s” September 19th return, fill your mindhole with these 13 sorta spoilery true facts I learned from Vulture’s recent interview with series creators Carter Bays and Craig Thomas. (My ultra-professional analysis can be found — or ignored — below them.)

• The hour-long season premiere will flash forward to Barney’s wedding teased in the season six finale, and his bride-to-be will be revealed before this season ends.
• Punchy’s wedding (which Ted will describe as the Worst Wedding Ever) occurs a week after Marshall and Lily find out they’re pregnant — effectively removing the event from the possibility of being the location where Ted meets the Mother.
• This season’s Halloween episode will see the return of the Slutty Pumpkin, Ted’s mystery crush dating all the way back to season one (‘bout damn time).
• As the series enters its “endgame” dangling threads will be tied up, but the culmination of Slapsgiving seems will likely be a holdover for season eight.
• Season eight will, more than likely, be the series’ last.
• Google will be an uncredited guest star in the second episode of premiere night.
• Barney will continue his maturation as he actively seeks a real relationship with Robin’s British friend Nora, whom he half-assedly pursued in season six.
• Robin’s feelings for Barney will come to the surface, of course, but apparently so will Ted’s feelings for Robin.
• While that might entail some sort of “love square” (unfortunately, probably not in the literal sense), it will be couched in response to the question of, Why did Ted start telling this story to his kids with his meeting their “aunt?”
• Martin Short will not be playing Dave Foley’s character from the season six finale, as Marshall officially bombed that interview, but Marshall will look up to his new boss because he is a legen… wait for it… dary environmental lawyer.
• A legendary envinronmental lawyer with a “dark secret.”
• Season seven will be filled with arcs and be less episodic than previous ones, like seasons one and two (the show’s best).
• The series finale, probably in 2013, will definitely contain a scene shot (when season two was wrapping) with Ted’s kids that relates directly to the identity of their mother.

No confirmation on whether audiences will have to wait until that very last shot of that very last scene of that very last episode of HIMYM to find out who is the Mother of Teddy Boy’s kids, or if she will be revealed before then but be given new meaning based on that last episode.

I’ve long held the theory that whoever the kids’ biological Mother is, “aunt” Robin would actually be the woman Ted raised them with. However, with some of the events from the previous seasons, I’m now almost positive that Robin and Barney end up together, and they get the familiar (and official) titles of Aunt and Uncle due to Ted marrying and having his two kids with Barney’s long lost sister, whom we’ll likely meet at his wedding at the end of this upcoming season. And that last shot? I have no proof — this is just a gut feeling, and I have a decent gut — but it will be the Mother’s grave, or some such image to imply that Ted has been a single dad… the whole time.

While that may seem like a downer to end on, this last line of questioning in the Vulture interview with Bays and Thomas implies that it wouldn’t necessarily have to be a “happy ending” to finish on an uplifting note:

Does everyone have to be happy and together at the end of the series? Carter Bays: No! That’s one of the big messages of this show. We began this series with Ted, twenty years later, his life perfect. But our message is: You really don’t ever hit this point. That moment rarely comes, even twenty years from now. Craig Thomas: You’re always baking. You’re never done. You never feel ready for any of it, but you have to take the leap anyway.

And before any Swarleys out there tell me I’m watching the show wrong, to them I say: Nuh-uh. I like thinking about the mystery because that really just means it’s an excuse to examine the narrative constructs the show presents to tell its story, and what each element means as part of the whole. I watched “Lost” the same way, and it’s why for me, practically any well-executed ending would have worked (not that I would have done the same). It’s fun and games, people. Fun and games.

But I would be interested to hear what theories and outcomes you might have or want in regards to the overall story of “How I Met Your Mother” and the particulars involved in what’s been “revealed” already. Carry on in the comments, my wayward Internet sons (and daughters).

Rob Payne also writes the indie comic The Unstoppable Force, co-hosts the internet radio show We’re Not Fanboys, and theorizes on HIMYM and other miscellany on the Twitter machine @RobOfWar.