After nine seasons, the final episode of How I Met Your Mother airs in the United States on Monday, March 31. Curiata.com is reliving the series this week by looking back at our favorites of the 208 episodes.

Resolution. We heard all about it in English class for years. As the How I Met Your Mother finale approaches, the show’s writers have made sure to get us to the point where we’re all (or mostly) squared away with those back-of-the-mind riddles, ongoing mysteries, and inside jokes that have kept us wondering, yearning, and shouting in frustration because we were, again and again, not given the answers or the action we had wanted.

Television series that are allowed to end on their own terms often aim to come full circle. Each usually has an episode (sometimes a few) that gives us, as viewers, that “AH HA!,” “YES!,” or “FINALLY!” moment. For example, and spoilers here: In The Office, that episode was “A.A.R.M.” We finally see the teapot letter from Jim to Pam after he slipped it away back in season 2, we get a wonderful (and tear-jerking) montage of Jim and Pam when he gives her the DVD, and Jim delivers one of those speeches that will live on for years to Dwight, who finally gets to be with Angela.

In HIMYM, the full circle episode was season 9, episode 15, “Unpause.” We’re finally given the answers to some of the burning questions raised throughout the series, all from the mouth of that king of liars himself, Barney Stinson. He drinks through all his levels of drunkenness, as we’ve seen throughout the series, bypassing “Jabba drunk” (loved the hat tip to Star Wars once again) and going to “truth serum” drunk.

Once Ted and Robin (and I) realized they could now find out the answers to the questions that had plagued them for years, it was go time. And I was giddy, on the edge of my seat for the whole ride. What happened with Ted’s mom? Barney struck out trying to go for second base. Will there be a ring bear at the wedding? Robin rephrasing the question the last time she asked it to finally get an answer was clever on the writers’ part. I also enjoyed how she was continually interrupted when trying to question him about it: Way to build the anticipation guys! (Like you haven’t done it enough this season…) We also found out that Robin’s loaded (sorry, her family is loaded), which was a nice little twist thrown in there. And Barney’s subsequent one-liners as Robin and Ted have their exchange were perfect.

And finally, what I’ve wanted to know since season 1: What does Barney do for a living? And I have to say, that reveal was more glorious than I could’ve imagined. He had been telling us all along: P.L.E.A.S.E. means “Provide Legal Exculpation And Sign Everything.” And he gets an obscene amount of money for setting himself up as a fall guy — to Ted and Robin’s horror. But we should all know by now that you can never assume anything with Barney. And when he reveals his ingenious plan for vengeance, Barney firmly cements his self-appointed title of “AWESOME.”

And I’ll bestow him with another one: ultimate bad-ass. We’ve known Barney to take on elaborate plans and patiently wait for everything to fall into place as if time were of no consequence, but this deception took the longest and had the biggest reward. When we see the flash-forward to two months after the wedding, Barney finally reveals to Greg that he’s been working with the Feds all along, and that, basically, Greg is S.O.L. There was no yelling or screaming, just the calm, cool, collected man who knows he’s won and that’s he’s a genius. Having your own personal theme song playing in the background doesn’t hurt either (another fantastic shout-out moment from season 4).

Now that we’re caught up with the running gags and the secondary mysteries have been solved (except for that damn pineapple), it’s time for Ted to finally meet The Mother. And if the series as a whole is any indication, the writers are going to deliver, and it’s going to be LEGEN- wait for it …

Best line:
Ted: Dude, you’re getting married tomorrow. How are you doing?
Barney: Good. I mean, I’m a little nervous, but I love Robin more than I’ve ever loved anyone, and I’m gonna do everything I can to make her happy. For a long time, deep down, I’ve felt sort of … broken? But I don’t feel that way anymore. Robin, along with the idea that vengeance will soon be mine, has made me 100 percent awesome.

Cutaway: Barney’s Vengeance

Mother Lore: At the Farhampton Inn in 2017, she goes into labor with Luke.

After nine seasons, the final episode of How I Met Your Mother airs in the United States on Monday, March 31. Curiata.com is reliving the series this week by looking back at our favorites of the 208 episodes.

I was late to the How I Met Your Mother game and, in a rare instance for me, I binge-watched the first four seasons over the summer of 2009. The whiplash of those first 88 episodes was perfectly encapsulated in the frenetic tale told in the second season episode “Lucky Penny.”

Ted Mosby, architect, has a job interview in Chicago but but he and Robin are late for their flight. As they try to wrangle their way on a plane, the couple recounts the series of events that led to their late arrival: Ted had a court date because Barney ran a marathon because Marshall broke his toe because Robin startled him because Lily was shopping for a wedding dress because Ted and Robin ate hot dogs because Ted found a lucky penny. Whew.

As I look back on the series, many high point stand out for me, but I was surprised how many were captured in this single episode. Barney’s subway collapse and Robin and Lily’s car-alarm chorus are two of the great moments in HIMYM history. “Lucky Penny” was situated in the middle of the greatest run of the series, the second season that came to form the heart of the show.

If you or someone you know has never seen HIMYM, “Lucky Penny” is a perfect introductory episode. It is a self-contained story that subtly communicates all the background information a new viewer might need to understand the characters and plot. Further, “Lucky Penny” has nearly all the elements that make HIMYM great: character development, intersecting plot lines, non-linear storytelling, and a perspective of how the events of the episode fit into the overarching story arc that led Ted to The Mother. Indeed, we learn at the end of the episode that had Ted made his flight and gotten the job he wanted, he would have had to move to Chicago three months later, taking him away from the future love of his life.

If there is one characteristic of HIMYM missing from this episode, it is a powerful emotional moment. The series knows how to do these especially well, from the blue French horn to the several break-ups throughout the series to the difficult realities of new life and abrupt death. In retrospect, we learn just how emotionally poignant the episode was, though. Ted never forgets how important this series of events was to the course of his life, commemorating that lucky coin by naming his first-born child Penny.

There are two types of sitcoms: those that stuff as many jokes as they can into 30 minutes of television and fade into oblivion, and those that use comedy to construct human stories we connect to. “Lucky Penny” captures the zeitgeist of high-quality, mid-2000s sitcom television.

Best Line: “Here’s how you run a marathon. Step one: you start running … There is no step two.”

Best Cutaway: Marshall’s marathon training

Mother Lore: Ted and The Mother name their daughter Penny. Also, as told by Future Ted in this episode, “But that’s not what happened. They didn’t reschedule. They hired someone else. And as it turned out, three months later, that guy ended up having to relocate to Chicago. Kids, funny thing about destiny, I thought I was destined to get that job. But I was wrong. My destiny was to stay in New York. Because if I hadn’t, I never would have met your mother.”

After nine seasons, the final episode of How I Met Your Mother airs in the United States on Monday, March 31. Curiata.com is reliving the series this week by looking back at our favorites of the 208 episodes.

Part of the strength of How I Met Your Mother lies with the character development. Each character has a niche to fill and he or she does so quite perfectly. One of my favorite characters is definitely Barney Stinson. Let’s face it: ladies want to be with him, guys want to have his bro-tacular skills. It also doesn’t hurt that Neil Patrick Harris is extremely easy on the eyes.

Barney is rarely rattled by anything and can always make up stories for why he needs to leave his one-night stand. My personal favorite is the letter Barney leaves behind explaining that he is a ghost who can only materialize once every decade on the anniversary of his death.

As a character, Barney has evolved from a douchebag to a lovable character to Robin’s husband. How did he do this? In my opinion, it all started with the “Swarley” episode in the second season. The episode opens as a nod to Friends. The boys are sitting on a couch, drinking coffee, when they decide that hanging out in a coffee shop is much lamer than hanging out in a bar. Ted notices that Marshall’s cup has a little heart drawn by his name and concludes, with his Mosby Boys detective skills, that that barista must have a crush on Marshall.

Marshall defends the doodle and says that maybe she draws hearts on all of her cups. Ted and Barney glance at their cups and find no hearts, but do notice that Barney’s name has been misspelled as Swarley. Barney starts a rant where he says that Swarley isn’t even a name, and he realizes by the end of said rant that Marshall and Ted are now going to call him Swarley.

Throughout the episode we see Marshall going on a date with a woman who isn’t Lily and we learn the premise of “crazy eyes” and “jerk nails.” At the end of the episode, we even see the return of Marshmallow and Lilypad, the barfiest couple in all of Manhattan. But for me, the crux of the episode is watching Barney freak out every time someone calls him Swarley. (Or really, any variation thereof: paging Swarles Barkley!)

Watching Barney become so unhinged that he can’t finish sentences gives the audience a special glimpse into his insecurities. As the series progresses, we learn more about Barney’s history and why he is the way he is, ranging from the lies about his parentage from his mother to his devastating relationship with college girlfriend Shannon. “Swarley” is the first step in this long line of the evolution of Barney. By the end of the episode, Barney seems to reluctantly accept his fate during a Cheers montage at MacLaren’s Pub.

I know that there are a lot of people out there that detest the Barney Stinson character because he is a womanizer, has one night stands, and lies to get women in bed. In real life, everyone deals with his or her own insecurities any way they can. Furthermore, I think we fall in love with these characters, we invite them into our homes every week, and that we forget they are just that: fictional characters used to carry on the story lines. I have to wonder if Barney’s critics are possibly seeing some small portion of themselves — which they dislike — in his character, and that scares the hell out of them.

One of the things that makes a series finale so sad is that we will no longer get to watch these characters grow and evolve. However, I think we are all excited to see how things will turn out for our favorite five, even if one small portion of the finale will break our hearts.

Best line: “I signed him up for People en Español, but I addressed it to ‘Swarlos.'” — Robin

Best Cutaway: Barney’s one-night stand with a “crazy eyes” girl (Inara!) and her teddy bear

Mother Lore: Still none!

After nine seasons, the final episode of How I Met Your Mother airs in the United States on Monday, March 31. Curiata.com is reliving the series this week by looking back at our favorites of the 208 episodes.

One of the great things about How I Met Your Mother is how it can have a very Seinfeld-esque episode that’s seemingly about nothing at all but still manages to weave in little plot threads that tie it to the overall series. The fourth season’s “The Best Burger in New York” is one of those episodes.

“The Best Burger in New York” opens with Barney announcing that his company has just bought out Goliath National Bank and offering Marshall a job in its legal department. Through a brief series of flashbacks, we see that Marshall has not been very successful with his current job hunt, though his dream of becoming an environmental lawyer prevents him from accepting Barney’s offer.

Later, at MacLaren’s, Marshall tells the story of how he discovered the Best Burger in New York after moving to the city eight years ago. This sets up a mission for the friends to once again find this burger joint, which Marshall hasn’t been able to locate since.

The episode becomes a version of a Hero’s Quest, as Marshall is determined to succeed in finding this burger. Marshall’s journey around Manhattan to find the burger is inextricably linked to his unsuccessful job hunt. As Lily recounts the expansion of Marshall’s “underpants radius,” it becomes clear Marshall has been losing self-esteem the longer he goes without a job, and this burger is Marshall’s Holy Grail. Lily understands he needs to find the burger because he needs a win.

However, just as they finally locate the correct corner where the burger joint had been, the gang discovers it is now a Goliath National Bank ATM. The symbolism here is too much for Marshall: his youthful optimism, represented by the perfect burger he had as a 22-year-old aspiring environmental lawyer, has been buried by the corporate world. He reveals to Lily that he has taken a job with GNB.

Marshall is afraid that working in a corporate atmosphere will strangle his passion for environmental law and change who he is. However, the burger joint Marshall seeks hasn’t been shut down by the new ATM after all; it still exists and the burger is just as good as it ever was.

Of course, that twist, too, is symbolic. GNB is only a stepping stone for Marshall: he does ultimately land his dream job with an environmental firm. But this was a big moment of change for Marshall and, as usual, all his friends were there to support him. Even Barney is being supportive in his own way by trying to talk up all the better points of GNB to change Lily’s mind about the bank before she finds out Marshall has accepted the job.

One of the more random yet amusing aspects of this episode is the appearance of Regis Philbin, who has also been on the hunt for this specific burger joint ever since he ate there years ago. All throughout the episode, you see evidence of his search, as his signed photograph hangs in every restaurant Marshall has visited. This adds an additional layer of lighthearted humor to an episode with a much deeper theme.

Best line: “I think I just had my first burgasm.”

Best Cutaway: “Million Dollar Heads or Tails”

Mother Lore: None!

After nine seasons, the final episode of How I Met Your Mother airs in the United States on Monday, March 31. Curiata.com is reliving the series this week by looking back at our favorites of the 208 episodes.

I have always loved the use of nonlinear storytelling in How I Met Your Mother. As the Ted Mosby of 2030 recounts to his kids (who now look like this and this) the epic saga of meeting his mother, he jumps around in time, remembering, forgetting, and obfuscating certain details. The second season episode “Arrivederci, Fiero” is a great showcase for this storytelling device. Even though the episode tells us nothing about The Mother, it works because of its focus on a particular theme and its revelation of complicated characters.

Marshall’s Pontiac Fiero is less than one mile away from the 200,000-mile mark when it stalls out. As the gang waits for a mechanic to assess the damage, they recount memories of their experiences with the vehicle. Along the way, we discover how Ted and Marshall became best friends, how Lily and Robin bonded over a shared secret, and how Barney (almost) learned to drive.

Each of these characters is shown to be multifaceted. Ted is an insufferable snob but is also fiercely loyal. Marshall is a goofy slob who also cares deeply about the proper use of “affect” and “effect.” Lily is usually the voice of reason but is undone by a particularly nasty pothole, forcing Robin to show her decisive, take-charge side.

And Barney, who always seems so self-possessed, is a totally different person when he gets behind the wheel. That is, hands down, the best scene in the episode. From his overly dramatic introduction to the story (“Why? Why!? WHY!? … WHY!!!???”), to his white-knuckled attempt to outrun an old woman on a mobility scooter, to his breathless relief as he rolls to a stop in front of a bush, Neil Patrick Harris nails this performance. (His final check in the mirror is flawless.) It’s a joy to see Josh Radnor, as Ted, delighting in Barney’s freak out — this is a real showcase for the chemistry between the two actors.

At its best, How I Met Your Mother allows us to see these characters as complex people who can’t be reduced to a single quirk or descriptor. By telling a story that spans decades, it gives us glimpses of who they used to be and who they are becoming.

In this episode, we also see Marshall coming to terms with his changing image of himself, from environmental activist to corporate sellout. Self-image is one of the ongoing themes of the show: Ted’s image of himself as a soon-to-be happily married man; Lily’s image of herself as a successful artist; Robin’s image of herself as an untethered, globetrotting reporter; Barney’s image of himself as legen- wait for it! -dary Casanova.

Throughout the series, dreams have changed and aspirations have evolved. In “Arrivederci, Fiero,” Marshall has to let go of something he thought defined him and struggle with the idea of redefining himself. That seems to be a microcosm of what How I Met Your Mother is trying to talk about as a series.

Best Line: “Is it cool if I still light these?”

Best Cutaway: “Hitchhiking Waldo”

Mother Lore: None!