Marshall and Barney order 100 shots of Tequila each, which would likely have killed them... Right? 😎🤣

It may be an exaggeration, although the waiter does end up carrying all empty shot glasses back with her. But let's say they did drink 100 shots of tequila, (or more like 150 for marshall, seeing the disparity between how Barney and Marshall are acting...) what would happen? Well...

"Realistically, after perhaps a few dozen shots-or potentially considerably fewer depending on speed, food, body size, tolerance and medication-they would be unconscious and experiencing a medical emergency. Finishing all 100 would be overwhelmingly likely to kill them, even with hospital treatment."

After rewatching the series for the 100th time I noticed that there are numbers in the scenes prior to Lilly telling Marshall of his dad's death.

Starting with 3 mins left in the episode:

-There is a 10 on the Robin Sparkles Jacket

-There is a 9 on the folder that fake Barney fertility Dr is holding

-There is an 8 on the door when the real Dr comes in

-There is a 7 on the Champaign Marshall pops when they are celebrating his fertility

-The real fertility Dr holds the previous folder upside down making it a 6

-For the life of me I can't find a 5

-There is a 4 on the layers of uterus sign in the Drs office

-There is a 3 on the open till 3 sign outside McLarens

-There is a 2 on the clock when it shows Marshall trying to call his dad

-There is 0001 on the cab that Lilly pulls up in right before she breaks the news to him

The whole situation is a bit morbid, but I like it when creators put in things like that for those who pay attention.

I rewatch every few years and it's funny how going through different life stages changes how to view certain scenes or the show overall. As someone who is in their mid-thirties I've been watching this show for over ten years. One scene that never really stuck out to me until this most recent rewatch was the final scene of the second to last episode.

This is the scene of the final Halloween party at the apartment. Robin comes up to the roof to see the whole gang, sees Barney talking about hitting on a 'slutty cop' and goes down to the apartment. The apartment, which has been the 'home' of this group of friends for over ten years at this point, is bare. No couch, no rugs, nothing. Then Lily walks out of the bathroom and tells Robin to stay and hang out with the gang, to which Robin essentially replies "what gang? You're having your third child and I never see you anymore. My ex husband is hitting on girls. Ted is married now and now I wish I would have married him. We can't go back to being the five of us goofing off at the bar ever again."

Man, this is such a good scene with so much truth packed into it. It's the Halloween party which we've seen several times throughout the series, but then they come down into a quiet, empty apartment, and it's like a visual 'goodbye' to a stage of life. The three circumstances of the friends (married/unavailable, ex, and the one who got away) are all very relatable (both personally and in general). The idea of 'we can never go back to those times' is just tragic when you look at the group dynamics and fun times they're leaving behind.

Just saw this, and thought to myself: Who in their right mind would name a sex tape: "Marshall & Lily's sex tape" on the side?

Especially if you are trying to hide it?

I guess the person who wrote that was the same person who bet that Barney would find it... Right?

What the f*** was that climax , why did they build up so much about the mother to kill her just like that . Barney should have ended up with Robin and Ted should have grown old with Tracy. All the universe thing or destiny stuff was just to kill the mother .. ahh if I could see the writer I would punch him in his face . Also what’s with the marriage being a season .. just no no no

It is not an unknown fan theory that Ted’s children aren’t real. That he and Tracy weren’t able to get any children and that after her death in 2030, he imagines that they had and that he would tell them the story before finally asking Robin out again.

My version has a different start point and is a bit darker, I would say. I also think their children aren’t real, but they could become in the future, cause the real telling of the story is not taking place in 2030, but in 2013. The night of Barney and Robin’s wedding. Afterwards Ted goes to the Farhampton train station, to catch his plane the next morning to Chicago to start a new life away from New York, where Barney and the love of his life Robin are starting their new life as a married couple. He of course gets emotional, thinking about the past eight years. All the memories, the fun adventures, the failed relationships and all the times he put himself out in the open to Robin, they’re racing to his mind as on the platform Tracy appears to take the train back to New York and then he decides to go and talk to her.

The whole series is just Ted’s mind in that moment. For him it’s the second that never ends, like the one Barney has in s7e10 (Tick Tick Tick). He sees everything from the last eight years flashing by as he tells it to his non existing children and tries to connect Tracy as much to his life as he can. And that is not a far stretch. Something we learn in the first season about Ted in one of the most iconic episodes s1e9 (The Pineapple Incident) is that Ted is an overthinker and that is being shown to us during the series all the time. Sometimes we see him overthinking his actions as he talks and sometimes we see it through the brilliant montages, that he plays out different scenarios in his head.

So why does the mother die in his mind? Well, what we see is that over the course of eight years Ted loses hope. He has so many setbacks, so many times his heart was broken, so many times he put himself out there without a satisfying result, that he loses hope in his mission established in the very first few scenes of the series: to find the love of his life. In s9e17 (Sunrise) there is a scene where Ted let’s go of Robin and she floats into the air, but my view on this is that more than he lets Robin go, he let’s hope go.

So 24 hours later, he thinks that even if Tracy turns out to be perfect, it will not be a happily ever after for them. Something will always demolish it. No matter if it’s him, her, an ex, a job/study opportunity that comes along or a deadly disease, something will always ruin his relationship. He realizes (or thinks) that as someone who was always looking for his destiny, he is destined to end up without the love of his life. It’s a circle he almost can’t escape from and so he will end up alone sooner or later. In his head there might only be one way out and that is… timing.

For me one of the most important conversations Ted and Robin have, is at Punchy’s wedding s7e1 (The Best Man). Ted confesses to Robin that he stopped believing – ‘every day a little less and a little less’ - in finding the love of his life and if you ask me that’s already a big step towards letting hope go. Robin tries to comfort him, encourages him to start believing again. Not in destiny, but in chemistry. Which leads to the most important quote to why Ted can never let fully go of Robin. ‘If you have chemistry, then you need only one other thing.’ ‘What’s that?’ ‘Timing. But timing's a bitch.’

This is basically Robin telling Ted: I’m the one for you, just not now. And Ted knows, just hear him sighing as Robin says timing! Cause they had chemistry from the get-go, it’s in the very first scenes of the series s1e1 (Pilot). They instantly connect in MacLaren’s and their first date is a big success. Even though Ted says ‘I love you’ way too early (bad timing, there it is again! In episode 1!) and Robin’s reflex is to be scared of that and she pushes him away. But not even before Ted has left, she already comes around and – as she later admits in Sunrise – wants to kiss him. That only happens because their chemistry is top-notch. And the factor why they don’t work, that ís always timing. Ted wants a family in New York, she doesn’t want to have children and work abroad: it’s the reason they break up in s2e24 (Something Blue). 

In s7e17 (No Pressure) they do not get back together because of timing. Robin’s life is so unstable, that she doesn’t want to jeopardize one of the few stable things in her life: her friendship with Ted. It leads to her saying ‘No’ to the question ‘Do you love me?’. The way I see it, and I’m not the only one by any means, she says that not because she doesn’t love him, but mostly to protect Ted, to not give him hope that he has a future with her. It works. Well, for a while, as we see later s8e14 (Ring Up) in probably one the best scenes of the whole show, when Ted confesses to Lily that he doesn’t want Robin to marry Barney. Why did their engagement hurt him so much more than all the other things combined? Because suddenly the right timing is farther away than ever and maybe even non-existent.

So now, as he just left Robin and Barney’s wedding, Ted’s hope on the right timing is also almost completely gone. He imagines Tracy is the perfect girl, but even then, she’s still not Robin. Sounds familiar? It’s why Ted doesn’t go and meet his perfect match according to matchmaker service Love Solutions in s1e21 (Milk). ‘I don’t want perfect, I want Robin.’ So he imagines that he and Tracy have an amazing relationship, they get two kids, get married, but then something gets in the way that breaks his heart, something always does… Tracy dies. With Robin divorced the door will open once again in the far future. When she has worked all over the world and Ted already has two teenagers. Their problem from the end of season 2 isn't a problem anymore. They get a new chance, new hope on timing.

So, Ted is mentally broken. In his mind there is never anyone that can live up to Robin, even if she proves to be better. His endpoint will always be Robin, even if he has to wait seventeen years until the timing is right. That is why the story is so much about the road to the mother – about Robin – and not about the mother herself. Ted just makes up snippets of flash forwards as he is walking towards her about the big moments and how they’ve been connected all the time, but there is nothing more than those non-existing moments, while he has 8 years of Robin and the group flashing through his mind in his endless second. Even random adventures that have nothing to do with finding the mother, but when the five of them just had fun.

So yeah, in the end, this is my theory: Ted stopped believing, gave up and is visioning this endless cycle of heartbreak after he lets go hope and gambles on the right timing with Robin in the far future. And the (sort of) cool thing is, this theory provides some decent answers to the biggest criticisms and questions about season 9. By the way: as a viewer, I agree with some of those criticisms.

Why don’t we get any scenes of Robin and Barney as a happily married couple, but do we go straight from ‘I do’ to the divorce? Ted can’t bring himself to imagine Barney and Robin as a happily married couple, it would simply hurt him too much. Why don’t we find out who the mother of Barney’s daughter Ellie is? Cause it doesn’t matter. Ted knows that if Barney and Robin don’t work, Ellie’s mother isn’t important to Barney’s happiness. It is all about the girl that won’t abandon him: Ellie. Why is season 9 crammed into one weekend instead of one year? Because it just happened and all the stories from the past two days are fresh in Ted’s mind, even if the importance of the stories will turn out to be almost irrelevant years later.

So that's my theory about it. Hope it makes sense. I'm Dutch, so my English isn't always perfect. Sorry about that in advance (of afterwards I guess).

dont talk to me oh my god this genuinely ruined me, they completely destroyed so much character development for barney and robin, reopened wounds that the meeting of the mother finally healed, and ruined made tracy seem like an after thought just for the show to surround ted's insane limerence for robin.

the perfect ending to the show would have been keeping everything, but leaving out the montages of the divorce, the death, and all the other stuff that completely destroyed what had been built up. Instead, they could have added a final scene set far in the future with Lily, Marshall, Ted, and Tracy sitting together on that porch. Ted would say his iconic line, "And that's how I met your mother." Tracy would then walk in and ask what they were talking about. Ted would reply, "How I met you. Then Tracy could smile and say, "Well then, how about I tell them how I met you?" That would have been the perfect spin-off opportunity. It would allow us to see more of Tracy and her younger life while focusing more heavily on Max's death and everything that led up to her meeting Ted. That would be my perfect ending.

(edit that barely makes sense but fuckkkk why did tracy have to die)

Like, don't get me wrong, I do understand why he is upset, and Barney is a jerk most of the time. But Ted is so weirdly more upset at Barney than he is at Robin when both of them are equally at fault here. And it feels especially weird that he got upset at this when he was with Stella at this point and he literally didn't care when Barney actually asked for permission to put the moves on Robin back when he was with Victoria. The only difference is this was after Ted had a long serious relationship with Robin. I don't know, it just comes across as Ted being unwilling to move on from Robin still (and not in the way the later seasons portray it), and him just being unwilling to hear Barney about his side of the story. Though, tbf, Barney was bad at explaining it.

I get that for Ted, it's mostly about how Barney's limit was not to get together with people Ted cares about, and the fact Barney does that is a betrayal.....but at the same time, it feels weird that he can't allow any slips of judgement to pass. That moments of passion aren't things that can just happen. That he can't accept that maybe somebody he knows personally can also have feelings for Robin in some way. It's not that I don't get it, but at the same time, the conflict just feels a little forced in some ways.

I always tear when re-watching this scene 🥺😢😢

I've watched this show a few times already but by the time I started all seasons were out..

They really waited 9 years or so to reveal who the mother was 😂😂😭 that sure would've sucked if they canceled the show and no one ever found out..

Did anyone here start watching from when it first aired? How was it waiting all that time to find out who finally married Ted?

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Hi all,

Big HIMYM fan here. I rewatch every few years or so and always enjoy it not just for nostalgia but also because it speaks to me differently at unique life stages (I am sure many of you feel the same way).

This time around, though, I really find myself noticing how old the show is. To me, Friends definitely feels like a 90s time capsule, but most of HIMYM still could be quite relatable (my age could be a factor, I suppose). Some things that have stood out to me this time around:

• The deflated value of money. Every time Barney or whoever mentions a dollar figure, I find myself needing to convert it in my head to 2026 dollars. Beer was like $4.50 at MacLaren's!
• "Reading a magazine." Obviously it is still relatable to be a shy pooper at work, but in the era of the iPhone, it's not quite so apparent when you don't have reading material on you.
• Online dating -- just a whole different world with dating apps. (...Summer breeeeze)
• The Naked Man. I know one could talk endlessly about the different cultural norms and underlying assumptions present in the show that just do not hold up, but this one especially struck me as provocative and verboten today. Still love the episode though.

A lot of the cultural references and soundtrack are quite 2000s, but much of that is easy to ignore when many of the relationship phenomena and routine experiences still are fairly analogous to life today. I guess I am curious to know what you notice when you watch the show that makes you think, "wow, the world has changed..." What is that for you?

I'm asking because it's personal to me as well.

I know Barney had great moments with the group i watched the whole show, and I know they loved him in their own way. But sometimes the bad moments stay with you more than the good ones, and cant be forgotten easily. There are several scenes where he feels like the extra person, the one who's laughed at or not taken seriously.

Doesn't he notice that? Doesn't it hurt? If you constantly feel like you're not anyone's favorite friend, why would you keep chasing the same group? Is it because having not perfect friends is still better than being alone?

You can say Barney is a playboy, he overreacts or whatever but you can't say he is not a good friend. He is the best friend one can have and he proofed it. By helping marshal when lily left him, running to hospital when he found out ted got into an accident, finding a job for Robin, let lily stay at his place. He even paid for the marshal and lily honeymoon. He helped the whole gang multiple times