The Brainerd Dispatch - Today's Entertainment Magazine
Issue link: https://www.ifoldsflip.com/i/287226
COVER STORY Cristin Milioti stars in "How I Met Your Mother," which ends its nine-season run Monday on CBS. More love and marriage on 'How I Met Your Mother' 2 x 4" ad 2 – MARCH 30 - APRIL 5, 2014 – BRAINERD, MN/DISPATCH 1 x 4" ad By Kate O'Hare © Zap2it Boy meets girl; boy mar- ries girl; boy and girl have a boy and girl; boy tells his boy and girl how he met his girl. In a nutshell, that's the premise of the CBS comedy "How I Met Your Mother," which ends after nine sea- sons with a one-hour series finale on Monday, March 31.If all goes as fans hope, by the time the last credits roll, New York architect Ted Mosby (Josh Radnor) will at long last lock eyes — and who knows, maybe even lips — with "The Girl With the Yellow Umbrel- la" (Cristin Milioti), his future wife and the "Mother" of the title. Also, retired playboy Bar-ney Stinson (Neil Patrick Harris) will have exchanged vows with news anchor Robin Scherbatsky (Cobie Smulders), Ted's ex-girl- friend, and spouses and new parents Marshall and Lily (Jason Segel, Alyson Hanni- gan), Ted's longtime pals, will continue to be the adorable couple they've al-ways been. Carter Bays, who co- cre-ated and executive produces the show with his longtime pal and writing partner Craig Thomas (they met when Thomas became the drummer for Bays' band at Wesleyan University), is just back from a week in Hawaii. Spending time in paradise with his wife and two chil-dren was intended to help him from the stress and ex-haustion of getting "HIMYM" (as fans call it) over the fin-ish line. "I hadn't really done the Hawaii thing," he says, "and it was everything they said it would be." Of all the twists and turns of the final season (which has played out as one very long weekend before Barney and Robin's wedding) and the finale, the end has al- ways been in sight. "I feel like the less we say about the finale, the bet-ter," says Bays. "This is the end- ing we conceived when we conceived the show 10 years ago. It's what we've been steadfastly writing to-wards ever since." If Barney and Ted finally both make it down the aisle, they're going to be a few years behind the show's creators, who loosely based "HIMYM" on their own expe- rience as buddies sharing an apartment in New York. Both Thomas and Bays are husbands and fathers, but it was not always thus."At the beginning of the series," says Bays.