How I Met Your Mother: How Your Mother Met Me (9x16)

What a refreshing episode. Seeing something like this reminds me of how good this show used to be, and how drab it's become lately. Thank goodness we only have a few more episodes left. While How I Met Your Mother had a strong run, it's definitely time for it to throw in the towel. Let's take a look at the plot.

On The Mother's 21st birthday, her boyfriend Max dies. She discovers his final gift for her, a ukulele, after the funeral. From this moment forward, we are taken through The Mother's life, stopping at all the moments at which her life has intersected with the lives of Ted and his friends. First, we have the St. Patrick's Day party, where The Mother loses her umbrella and Ted finds it. At the club, The Mother runs into Mitch, the guy that Robin slept with in the episode "The Naked Man." In fact, Mitch tries to employ the same trick on The Mother.

The Mother wants to end poverty, and with this life goal in mind, she takes an econ class, whereupon Ted Mosby accidentally stumbles in and starts teaching architecture. It is here that The Mother meets Cindy, future girlfriend of Ted. We flash forward to when Cindy and Ted break up, and Cindy realizes that she's attracted to girls when she leans over and kisses The Mother unexpectedly.

Later, The Mother meets Darren, and she invites him to come sing with her band. We flash forward again and see that Darren has taken over the band; while The Mother angrily grumbles about this and tries to load heavy equipment into the van, she meets Louis. She initially tells Louis that she's not ready to date anyone, because of losing Max, but eventually she decides to give Louis a chance. The Mother's band is booked for Barney and Robin's wedding.

Now, we're up to the events we've already seen, where The Mother sees that Darren is looking for a new bass player. She talks with Lily, picks up Marshall and takes him to the Inn, and buys a drink for the best man upon learning that Darren is leaving the band. After seeing Darren get his comeuppance, she goes to Louis' house, where Louis proposes to her. The Mother excuses herself and goes outside to talk to Max. She looks up to the heavens and asks him if it's okay if she moves on. That settled, she says a final goodbye to Max and goes inside. She rejects Louis' proposal and makes her way to the Farhampton Inn, where she checks out a room right next to Ted's. As the episode ends, she takes out her ukulele and plays "La Vie en Rose." Ted, on the balcony right next to her, listens.

The episode ends on something of a cliffhanger, as Ted realizes that Barney is missing.

Okay! Let's start with complaints!

So, while a lot of the crossover stuff with The Mother was clever, a few times it went a bit far. For example, at one point she's in MacLaren's, and she leaves and walks right past Ted wearing a dress. See, this is the kind of coincidence that they would never be able to put together later in life, realistically, and it was just going one step too far.

At the end, when The Mother sings "La Vie en Rose," there's a montage of everyone else going to sleep, or in Lily's case driving away in a car. This montage felt out of place. It seemed like a forced way to bring in all of the other characters, when the focus might just as well have remained with The Mother. But, perhaps this is a nitpick.

Now, onto the good stuff!

1. The Mother. Yeah, I mean the whole episode is about her, and I'll get to specifics in a minute, but just in general, I really enjoy her character. She's not infallible, and she's got a lot of her own stuff going on. When she and Ted finally meet, it won't be a one-sided love story, because she's got a past, too. She has a history and a complex personality and all of that. I was really worried that we would never get that out of this show. I'm glad to be wrong.

2. Max and Louis. I just love the idea that The Mother has gone through some real hardship. That she didn't just exist in a vacuum until meeting Ted, but rather she went through her own stuff and had a hard time getting over it. I love that she lost someone when she was young, so we're convinced that it's been long enough for her to move on. I love that Louis isn't a villain, he just didn't connect with The Mother all the way. The fact that The Mother literally just broke up with someone right before meeting Ted doesn't really bother me, much. In fact, it gels pretty nicely with the fact that at this moment, one day before the wedding, Ted is still harboring some leftover feelings for Robin. Both of them will find a new start together.

3. The "Puzzles" joke. Just one of the references to a past episode that I really enjoyed. Thought it was worth mentioning.

4. The classroom scene. Of all the times when The Mother and Ted come close to meeting, my favorite by far is the classroom scene. From Ted's perspective, we just hear him vaguely say that The Mother was in the Econ class that he mistakenly started to teach. From The Mother's perspective, we see her seeing him. She laughs at his terrible joke, and nobody else does (this, above all else, makes me see how good they will be together), and when Ted first says that the class is for architecture, The Mother gets up and runs out of the room, panicked about being in the wrong class. That cracked me up.

5. "La Vie en Rose." After ending things with Louis, The Mother plays a final tribute to Max on the ukulele he gave to her. This moment to me seemed like a way of moving forward from old pain and looking forward to a happy future. The Mother's voice is beautiful, but kind of strange, or at the very least not typical. She's unique. If I were to analyze this a bit more, I'd say she veers dangerously close to "manic pixie dream girl" territory. If you want a definition of that, please let me know. But nevertheless, she seems like a real person in most respects. This song was a beautiful way of transitioning into a new more positive future, where Ted and The Mother can meet and realistically fall in love.

I could continue. As you can probably tell, I did really enjoy this episode overall. The Mother is turning in to one of the only good parts of the show. Next episode, I hope we get to see more of the fallout from Lily and Marshall's fight, and I hope for more of The Mother, as always.

8/10