How It All Turned Out

Spoiler alert for those who recorded the Season 7 finale of "How I Met Your Mother" for later viewing . . ..

I went into the finale expecting to see nothing more than Lily and Marshall having their son (whom they named Marvin after Marshall's father, with "Wait For It" as a middle name per Barney's cool suggestion), but what I got - after numerous side jokes that had nothing to do with the plot - was something else.  Just when I thought we'd have to wait for next season for Ted would meet his future wife . . . he learned that this old girlfriend Victoria was about to be married, and she even met him for coffee in her wedding dress before the ceremony, but they ended up together at the conclusion of the episode.  But wait - for those who have been paying attention, Ted, looking back from 2030, said at one time that he met his wife at Barney's wedding.  Then it can't be Victoria, whom he met before the wedding, can it - unless that story about meeting his wife at Barney's wedding was a ruse to keep us guessing and going on a wild goose chase.

Barney got engaged to his stripper girlfriend - ex-stripper girlfriend now - in an unconventional way: giving her an engagement ring with a magic trick in an airport security cell after security officers found in his luggage the box with the magic trick inside.  And at the very end Ted is at Barney's wedding, going to look after the bride, who turns out to be . . . Robin!

And that's the end, until September.  As with previous "How I Met Your Mother" season finales, we've been left asking more questions than with answers to our earlier questions.  Is Victoria really Ted's future wife? How did Barney end up marrying Robin after all? What kind of a middle name is "Wait For It?" 

The key to understanding "How I Met Your Mother" is this running joke in last night's finale, where all of the characters, except Marshall, open  a door in McLaren's Pub and pass through the doorway in wide-eyed wonder at what's on the other side . . . except Marshall.  After wondering what could be behind the door, Marshall goes to open it and the other four yell "Boo!" at him from the janitorial closet it really is.  That's this sitcom in a nutshell.  You know you're about to be surprised, but you don't get what you expected, you sometimes even get misled into a dead end, and you're left having to figure everything out again.  We'll all find out how this finale ties in with the still-developing storyline, which will likely conclude with a series finale a year from now.

What's going to happen? We'll have to . . . wait for it.