If you haven’t read it already, Jason Segel did a great interview in GQ recently and had some fun thoughts on How I Met Your Mother. I highly encourage you to read the entire GQ interview with Segel. He had some very funny thoughts on HIMYM:
That’s one of the things I’ve always liked about How I Met Your Mother—it uses those details, about where the characters work and what they do, to inform character and drive stories.
One of the things I like about it, as trivial as it sounds, is that they hang out in a bar. Yes. Yes.The Friends were always in a coffee shop.
Yeah. Come on. I was so happy, just for the simple fact that they acknowledged that people go to bars at night. They don’t go to a coffee shop.You want to know my theory? We’re going to find out at some point that the mother’s dead. And adult Ted has been telling them all these stories about the mother they never knew. It’ll retroactively cast the entire show in this dark-comic light.
[without missing a beat] I suggested that also.Really?
Yeah.How was that received?
Scoffing. They don’t care about what I say. [laughs] I had two other suggestions, too. One is that they’re dead. The two kids and their father—they’re dead, and they’re in purgatory, and he’s telling the story for eternity.
The most un-fun thought though concerned how long he would stay with the show:
How many more years do you have on How I Met Your Mother?
Three more years.Do you think it’s going to go longer than that?
[carefully] It’s an amazing place to be. But when you become an actor, part of it, the secret part of it, is that you don’t want to work a regular nine-to-five job. And the secret part of a TV show is that it’s a nine-to-five job. And eight years is longer than any relationship I’ve ever been in, it’s longer than any school I went to. I think after eight years, I’ll feel like I honorably did my commitment. It’s funny—it’s the greatest problem in the world to have. Jeez—I’m the luckiest guy in the world. But when your idol is Peter Sellers, playing one character for eight years isn’t what you’re trying to do. I don’t really feel like I have that much more to offer with this character. Maybe if we got divorced or something—but that’s not gonna happen. It’s gonna be some iteration of, like, my TV wife opens the fridge, and she’s like, “What happened to the birthday cake?” And I walk in with a little frosting here [points to corner of mouth] like, “What birthday cake?”
So does that mean HIMYM has 3 more years or what? I suppose it could always end sooner, but I can’t see them going past a Season 8 with Marshall as part of the cast and we’ve already seen too much of his future to remove him in some manner. Sound off in the comment and vote in our poll as well, What you you think?
How Long Will HIMYM Last?
- I don't care, just keep it going! (52%, 443 Votes)
- 3 years + (10%, 84 Votes)
- Season 8 (23%, 191 Votes)
- 1-2 more seasons (15%, 129 Votes)
Total Voters: 816
Loading ...*photo from GQ
I think that he knows the show will end by season 8. Didn’t all the cast sign three year extensions on their original 5 year contracts? I suspect that the writers will finally start leading us toward the mother now and working toward tying all the lose ends up in the next few years.
I suspect next season we will finally see Ted meet the mother, date her through season 7 and the season AND series finale of season 8 will be him marring her.
I feel like a lot of fans expect the final scene to be the “And that kids, is how I met your mother” scene. I feel like a lot of fans, myself included, would be fine with your timeline Rebeacca. I don’t feel like that’s where we are headed, but if I’m wrong I’ll really be ok with it.
I personally loved Segel’s theories… I really thought that the purgatory one was an awesome angle, thought it would piss off a TON of fans.
I’ve wondered for a long time why the kids seem not to know who their mother is. At the end of the pilot episode, they looked surprised that Robin wasn’t their mother, and they acted similarly unsure when each subsequent woman was introduced to the story. Shouldn’t the children know their mother’s name, and thus know right away whether a particular woman will turn out to be their mother? I figured the writers hadn’t thought that through. But if their mother is dead, that would explain why the kids don’t know much about her.
@Amilie
You’re all wrong. Robin’s name wasn’t mentioned untill he said “and that, kids, is how I met your aunt Robin”, which means that untill he said so, they thought he is talking about the mother, and they were surprised that he fell in love in their aunt Robin!
I think it’ll end thus:
Ted: And that kids, is how I met your mother.
(The cast all come into the kids lounge area, including the mother, who is probably wendy the waitress or something like that)
Girl: What I don’t get is…Barney only got four slaps.
Barney: No! God noooooooooooo
Marshall slaps Barney, credits roll.
@Sally
I love it! What a fitting ending!
I think the death theory would be the most touching end to this story. After they show the marriage, they should have screen shots with the Ted and his wife, along with the other cast members to kinda make it look like a scrapbook to the audience while explaining to his kids. I don’t think there’d be a dry eye watching
well for robin, she was never actually mentioned by name in the first episode until the end, which was why there was confusion.
do we now know that the random blonde is the mother?