How I Met Your Mother S09E16 – How Your Mother Met Me
On the 200th episode, it is revealed how The Mother met Ted and what she’s been up to for the past eight years.
This episode explains what the Mother was up to in the years before she met Ted and is recounted in a series of flashbacks that intertwine with what was going on in the gang's lives at the time. Since only one episode is dedicated to her life story, it is fitting to portray the circumstances surrounding her life with sufficient detail:
The scene is 2005 and the events of Pilot are transpiring as Barney has convinced Ted for a night out at MacLaren's. Just as Barney is about to play "Have You Met Ted?", the camera shifts to a woman, Kelly, who receives a phone call in the bar and departs right away admitting a clumsy mistake.
She takes a cab to another MacLaren's in NYC north of the one in the Upper West Side to arrive in time for The Mother's 21st birthday celebration, which Future Ted reveals was the night Marshall and Lily got engaged and Ted met Robin. Kelly asks where the Mother's boyfriend Max is, to which she replies he said he wasn't able to find a cab, but she really thinks he is still finding her a present. The Mother's comments about Max's gift giving suggest she is very happy with him. The Mother's phone begins to ring and she leaves her friends to take the call, presumably from Max, outside. She receives word from an unidentified caller, possibly a police officer or Max's family, informing her Max has passed away. The scene flashes forward to right after Max's funeral, where the grieving Mother returns to her apartment. The apartment is the same one the Mother lived in with Cindy during Ted's previous stories to his kids. She musters up the courage to open Max's birthday present to her. It is a ukulele, with a note saying it can replace the Mother's habit of singing a capella with her breakfast.
As the audience is taken to April 2008, Kelly, revealed to be the Mother's roommate, is persuading her to end her 2 year grieving period and at least head out with her to Low Point, a club, for a St. Patrick's Day party. The Mother refutes with the fact she has been busy with her paintings of robots playing sports, currently at the bowling stage. As the Mother fears it will rain, Kelly hands her the yellow umbrella to bring along. The Mother and Kelly are in the bathroom line at the club mentioned in No Tomorrow. As Kelly pleads the Mother to come and dance since "the one" might bump into someone else on the dance floor, Ted bumps into a woman in the club. The Mother runs into Mitch, who is revealed to have been her instructor at orchestra camp. He explains he teaches music at an underfunded public school in the Bronx. The Mother offers to give him her cello to help out the kids and they leave for her apartment to pick it up, leaving Kelly behind. Kelly bumps into an inebriated Barney, whose pickup attempt turns her off. The Mother leaves Mitch in the living room to go get the cello out of the closet and when she returns he pulls the Naked Man for the third time in his life. The Mother is clearly shocked and turned off but since she and Mitch were well acquainted, she allows him to stay (covered up) and they chat on the couch where he explains his move (and its success rate, now 2 out of three 3). The Mother feels lost with her life at this point and Mitch advises her to find what she wants to do with her life and follow that dream. The Mother wishes to end poverty, and is told by Mitch to let every decision and action in her life be influenced by that goal; this leads her to end up in an economics class in pursuit of an economics degree. After chatting Mitch offers the Mother a hug, but she takes a "rain-check", this prompts her to get her forgotten umbrella at Low Point as Kelly returns. She never found the umbrella since Ted took it home, and Mitch successfully pulls the Naked Man on Kelly.
In Fall 2009, the Mother meets Cindy in the economics lecture Ted mistakenly thinks is for Architecture 101. Cindy is new to NYC and The Mother befriends her and they become roommates since Kelly has moved out. As they get to know each other better, the Mother explains she isn't looking for love anytime soon since she believes it only comes once and for her it came and ended with Max. As Ted begins to teach the economics class, the Mother laughs at one of his lame jokes. She wrongly runs off when Ted says he is teaching architecture and as she realizes outside she was in the right class all along, Ted runs past her realizing he was in the wrong class and now is late for his first lecture.
In January 2010, Ted breaks up with Cindy in her apartment and leaves forgetting the yellow umbrella and unknowingly returning it to its original owner. The Mother is surprised when Cindy explains Ted had fallen for the Mother and all the things in the apartment that were associated with her. The Mother is revealed to be a calligraphist, a coin collector, and fan of renaissance faires (all things Ted loves throughout the series). Cindy kisses the Mother in the process, signalling the beginning of how she ultimately ended up with Casey.
The Mother is later seen explaining her story to Darren at a bar. He responded to her advertisement for a roommate but with the intention of expressing his love for Superfreakonomics, the Mother's band. The Mother invites him to sing on stage at their next show. Darren accepts the offer with devilish eyes, indicating his real desire to take over the band. When flash forwarding to April 2012, as a Save the Arcadian poster is seen in the background, an annoyed Mother is loading her band equipment as Darren brags about leading the band. She meets Louis as he helps her load her amplifier and guitar into the van and they hit it off. Later at MacLaren's, Louis explains how he thought MacLaren's was previously called Puzzles, and in response the Mother realizes Barney's intentions behind the naming of the bar. When Louis offers to go out for dinner sometime the Mother explains how she lost her one true love and has been hesitant to give in to anybody since; Louis leaves his number in case she changes her mind. In the background, the events of The Mermaid Theory and Now We're Even are concluding.
The Mother meets up with Kelly and explains how she took Louis up on his offer for dinner and finds him sweet. Kelly encourages her to go for Louis. Future Ted explains the Mother started dating Louis for a couple of years afterwards, but soon they began to grow apart, evidenced by Louis not fully enjoying the Mother's singing with breakfast foods. He explains 'fate' intervened and cites Ted running into Cindy and Casey looking for a wedding band. This led to the Mother departing for Farhampton, running into Lily, then arriving at Louis' beach-house where she was to stay during Barney and Robin's wedding weekend. She saw Darren's advertisement for a new bass player during this time and sought Lily for advice at the Farhampton Inn. Through this encounter, the Mother steals Darren's van and is driving back to the beach-house when she meets and picks up Marshall and Marvin. She later meets Darren and he resigns from the band, upon which she buys Ted 35 year old Glen McKenna from Linus. The Mother makes her way back to the beach-house where Louis proposes to her. She requests some time to think about her decision and heads outside where she exchanges a heartfelt conversation with the departed Max, asking for his advice and guidance on the situation. She feels she has been holding herself back and now wonders if the time has come to move on; a timely gust of wind is interpreted as a sign for her to go back to Louis and move past Max for good. She turns down Louis' proposal and the two break up. Distraught, she leaves the beach-house and after revealing her breakup to Curtis, gets the only room left in the Farhampton Inn. It had been vacated with Robin's mother's cancellation and is revealed to be the room right next to Ted's.
The Mother takes her ukulele out to the porch of her room overlooking the water and sings an English rendition of La Vie en rose to herself. Ted is revealed to have heard the entire performance having been on his adjacent porch the entire time and is visibly moved. Future Ted explains while he has since heard the Mother sing the song many times over, nothing will ever replace how he felt when he heard her for the first time that night. The episode concludes with Ted returning to his room and mentioning the experience to Barney at which point he realizes Barney is nowhere to be found.
The scene is 2005 and the events of Pilot are transpiring as Barney has convinced Ted for a night out at MacLaren's. Just as Barney is about to play "Have You Met Ted?", the camera shifts to a woman, Kelly, who receives a phone call in the bar and departs right away admitting a clumsy mistake.
She takes a cab to another MacLaren's in NYC north of the one in the Upper West Side to arrive in time for The Mother's 21st birthday celebration, which Future Ted reveals was the night Marshall and Lily got engaged and Ted met Robin. Kelly asks where the Mother's boyfriend Max is, to which she replies he said he wasn't able to find a cab, but she really thinks he is still finding her a present. The Mother's comments about Max's gift giving suggest she is very happy with him. The Mother's phone begins to ring and she leaves her friends to take the call, presumably from Max, outside. She receives word from an unidentified caller, possibly a police officer or Max's family, informing her Max has passed away. The scene flashes forward to right after Max's funeral, where the grieving Mother returns to her apartment. The apartment is the same one the Mother lived in with Cindy during Ted's previous stories to his kids. She musters up the courage to open Max's birthday present to her. It is a ukulele, with a note saying it can replace the Mother's habit of singing a capella with her breakfast.
As the audience is taken to April 2008, Kelly, revealed to be the Mother's roommate, is persuading her to end her 2 year grieving period and at least head out with her to Low Point, a club, for a St. Patrick's Day party. The Mother refutes with the fact she has been busy with her paintings of robots playing sports, currently at the bowling stage. As the Mother fears it will rain, Kelly hands her the yellow umbrella to bring along. The Mother and Kelly are in the bathroom line at the club mentioned in No Tomorrow. As Kelly pleads the Mother to come and dance since "the one" might bump into someone else on the dance floor, Ted bumps into a woman in the club. The Mother runs into Mitch, who is revealed to have been her instructor at orchestra camp. He explains he teaches music at an underfunded public school in the Bronx. The Mother offers to give him her cello to help out the kids and they leave for her apartment to pick it up, leaving Kelly behind. Kelly bumps into an inebriated Barney, whose pickup attempt turns her off. The Mother leaves Mitch in the living room to go get the cello out of the closet and when she returns he pulls the Naked Man for the third time in his life. The Mother is clearly shocked and turned off but since she and Mitch were well acquainted, she allows him to stay (covered up) and they chat on the couch where he explains his move (and its success rate, now 2 out of three 3). The Mother feels lost with her life at this point and Mitch advises her to find what she wants to do with her life and follow that dream. The Mother wishes to end poverty, and is told by Mitch to let every decision and action in her life be influenced by that goal; this leads her to end up in an economics class in pursuit of an economics degree. After chatting Mitch offers the Mother a hug, but she takes a "rain-check", this prompts her to get her forgotten umbrella at Low Point as Kelly returns. She never found the umbrella since Ted took it home, and Mitch successfully pulls the Naked Man on Kelly.
In Fall 2009, the Mother meets Cindy in the economics lecture Ted mistakenly thinks is for Architecture 101. Cindy is new to NYC and The Mother befriends her and they become roommates since Kelly has moved out. As they get to know each other better, the Mother explains she isn't looking for love anytime soon since she believes it only comes once and for her it came and ended with Max. As Ted begins to teach the economics class, the Mother laughs at one of his lame jokes. She wrongly runs off when Ted says he is teaching architecture and as she realizes outside she was in the right class all along, Ted runs past her realizing he was in the wrong class and now is late for his first lecture.
In January 2010, Ted breaks up with Cindy in her apartment and leaves forgetting the yellow umbrella and unknowingly returning it to its original owner. The Mother is surprised when Cindy explains Ted had fallen for the Mother and all the things in the apartment that were associated with her. The Mother is revealed to be a calligraphist, a coin collector, and fan of renaissance faires (all things Ted loves throughout the series). Cindy kisses the Mother in the process, signalling the beginning of how she ultimately ended up with Casey.
The Mother is later seen explaining her story to Darren at a bar. He responded to her advertisement for a roommate but with the intention of expressing his love for Superfreakonomics, the Mother's band. The Mother invites him to sing on stage at their next show. Darren accepts the offer with devilish eyes, indicating his real desire to take over the band. When flash forwarding to April 2012, as a Save the Arcadian poster is seen in the background, an annoyed Mother is loading her band equipment as Darren brags about leading the band. She meets Louis as he helps her load her amplifier and guitar into the van and they hit it off. Later at MacLaren's, Louis explains how he thought MacLaren's was previously called Puzzles, and in response the Mother realizes Barney's intentions behind the naming of the bar. When Louis offers to go out for dinner sometime the Mother explains how she lost her one true love and has been hesitant to give in to anybody since; Louis leaves his number in case she changes her mind. In the background, the events of The Mermaid Theory and Now We're Even are concluding.
The Mother meets up with Kelly and explains how she took Louis up on his offer for dinner and finds him sweet. Kelly encourages her to go for Louis. Future Ted explains the Mother started dating Louis for a couple of years afterwards, but soon they began to grow apart, evidenced by Louis not fully enjoying the Mother's singing with breakfast foods. He explains 'fate' intervened and cites Ted running into Cindy and Casey looking for a wedding band. This led to the Mother departing for Farhampton, running into Lily, then arriving at Louis' beach-house where she was to stay during Barney and Robin's wedding weekend. She saw Darren's advertisement for a new bass player during this time and sought Lily for advice at the Farhampton Inn. Through this encounter, the Mother steals Darren's van and is driving back to the beach-house when she meets and picks up Marshall and Marvin. She later meets Darren and he resigns from the band, upon which she buys Ted 35 year old Glen McKenna from Linus. The Mother makes her way back to the beach-house where Louis proposes to her. She requests some time to think about her decision and heads outside where she exchanges a heartfelt conversation with the departed Max, asking for his advice and guidance on the situation. She feels she has been holding herself back and now wonders if the time has come to move on; a timely gust of wind is interpreted as a sign for her to go back to Louis and move past Max for good. She turns down Louis' proposal and the two break up. Distraught, she leaves the beach-house and after revealing her breakup to Curtis, gets the only room left in the Farhampton Inn. It had been vacated with Robin's mother's cancellation and is revealed to be the room right next to Ted's.
The Mother takes her ukulele out to the porch of her room overlooking the water and sings an English rendition of La Vie en rose to herself. Ted is revealed to have heard the entire performance having been on his adjacent porch the entire time and is visibly moved. Future Ted explains while he has since heard the Mother sing the song many times over, nothing will ever replace how he felt when he heard her for the first time that night. The episode concludes with Ted returning to his room and mentioning the experience to Barney at which point he realizes Barney is nowhere to be found.
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