How We're Getting To The End

"How I Met Your Mother" is only two episodes away from ending, and we already know a few things about the future Mrs. Mosby (except her first name).  We know she's a bass player in the band at Robin and Barney's wedding.  We know she had a boyfriend who died in a car accident.  We know she was reluctant to date Ted so soon after breaking up with another boyfriend, after we saw them go out three days after Robin and Barney's wedding, but she relents to fate.  We know she loves the song "La Vie En Rose."  But, just as important, we know what happened to Marshall and Lily; they did make it to Italy and added a daughter to the family; it turns out Lily was pregnant.  We know how Barney made his money at the bank - doing dirty deeds that he eventually fingered his boss for once he had enough money to quit.  ("Please!")  We know what happened to most of the incidental characters that passed through the show.  (I can't go through all of them, there were so many; you have to have seen the March 17 episode to know what became of whom.) 

One thing we don't know for sure, which has been the subject of speculation, is whether Mrs. Mosby is dead in the future.  The theory goes like this: Ted is telling his kids in 2030 how he met his wife because he wants them as well as himself to remember her fondly and what she meant to all of them, now that she's gone.  I don't know where that theory originated, but it sounds rather ghoulish.  And if that's the actual plot twist that's coming up, it's going to diminish the show's premise - that Ted was ready to give up on finding the love of his life in New York and move to Chicago, only to meet her at his friends' wedding and find true love at last.  It'll take all the joy out of Ted finally meeting his future wife, knowing that he's a widower sixteen years hence.

I hope that's not how series creators Carter Bays and Craig Thomas chose to bring "How I Met Your Mother" to a conclusion.  And if it is, I hope they've since changed their minds and rewritten the ending to come up with a different surprise.  Because if their original intent was to have Ted's wife die by 2030, then they'd better have an alternate surprise ending - someone is on to them. 

In the meantime, hats off to Tracey Ullman for playing Robin's mom.  Robin, like Cobie Smulders, the actress who plays her, is from Vancouver, Canada.  And, as Robin's mom, Tracey Ullman definitely puts the "British" in "British Columbia." :-D