Ah, Community into Parks and Rec, my favorite. Solid.

Re the latest HIMYM: so, aside from having actual rather than theoretical children, Ted and The Mother are Carl and Ellie? It's probably a sign of having rewatched Shadowlands and UP way too many times, but I... might actually be okay with that. Heartbroken, but okay.

And if it led to the final scene of the entire series being Ted and the kids and a golden retriever sitting on the curb outside a Fenton's, eating ice cream and saying, "Red one. Blue one. Gray one. SQUIRREL!" it would be utterly worth it. I might never stop crying, but since I'm kind of a crybaby anyway that wouldn't be a huge difference.

My bet is the final scene will be Marshall, Lily, Ted, and Robin sitting on the porch in their old age.

What's that a reference to, JZ?

lisah (sorry for the delay!), there's been a fan theory floating around for a few years that the Mother is actually dead and that's why Future!Ted is telling the story of How He Met Her. I never gave it a speck of credence until this last episode, but now... not so sure. When she says, "What kind of mother would miss her daughter's wedding?" and Ted gets choked up and she grabs his hand and croons that it's okay, okay, and then later talks about life only moving in one direction and about just leaving the serious things unspoken and enjoying each other's company when things get too intense, it begins to seem possible.

And... I don't know. Every happy love story, every happily ever after, must inevitably in the very long run end in one partner's death and the other's living on. It's something Joy talks to Jack about, repeatedly, in Shadowlands, and that Carl finds out much later Ellie thought and worried about for him in Up. I can't quite see a network sitcom angling for syndication immortality going there, but after the most recent episode I can't quite see it as totally implausible.

And I can't, quite, see it as such a betrayal as some fans seem to; a solid decade of married joy producing two living, healthy kids (who are emotionally capable, even as eye-rolly teenagers, of sitting and listening to a parent's endless stories), and one partner surviving to tell the stories and keep living forward doesn't feel to me like a total audience-hating betrayal.

Why are you white-fonting all that, JZ?

Just in case anyone hasn't yet caught up on the last episode (which was only a couple of days ago, not a full week), because it's speculation based on very specific things in the episode. Otherwise, I wouldn't have bothered, but it feels... uncouth to non-spoilerfont it at less than a week after. Probably just old-fashioned force of habit.

JZ, that theory has been mine ever since the episode where Ted told the kids that if he could go back in time he would have met the mother several months earlier. And, I don't really see it as a betrayal to the fans if the Mother is dead, for just the reason you mention. The fact that the Mother had a fiancee that she obviously loved very much, who died, and could eventually move on and fall in love with Ted, seems to be setting up the idea that Ted his telling the kids how much he loved the Mother before he tells them that he is marrying Robin. Barney already mentioned earlier in the season that he would be on his third wife at some point in the future (I don't remember the exact year he gave), but I don't think it was a throw away line.

Thanks, JZ, I got that that theory was in play especially after this last ep. I just am not familiar with Shadowlands.

eta In googling to find out about it, I learned there is a laser tag chain called Shadowlands in the MD/VA area. ha!

Raising Hope has been cancelled.