How I Met Your Mother's 200th Episode Will Focus On The Mother

How I Met Your Mother’s Season 9 eventful wedding weekend has so far managed to keep audiences interested and tie up a lot of loose ends. However, the long-awaited mother has been kept fairly under wraps, popping up in the plot only on occasion, and mostly through a few time-jumping sequences. Regardless, all of that is about to change, thanks to the comedy’s very special 200th episode.

The show’s 200th episode is still a while away, partially due to winter hiatus. It’s currently earmarked as the January 27th episode of the comedy, an episode that will be preceded by the big “Slapsgiving 3” episode. It may be some time away, but fans of the mother should not be disappointed by the outcome. Executive producer Carter Bays recently spoke with TV Line about the upcoming 200th airing, noting that the show is going out on a limb for the episode, focusing on the mother rather than the tight-knit cast.

“Our 100th episode was very much a celebration of the cast – not the cast doesn’t deserve celebrating even more after 200 episodes – but this is a different kind of story. It’s about the tale. It felt like a different kind of 200th episode, but it felt like the right one to do in terms of the greater story of the show.”

Cristin Milioti’s character has appeared in CBS’ popular comedy for quite some time. She was teased in an umbrella shot and became a focal point after the network announced Milioti had nabbed the gig. We’ve seen the character's meet-cute with Lily, and more recently we’ve seen the flash forward to Ted’s proposal at the top of a lighthouse, a proposal that was far simpler than many fans may have expected, but still fit.

Still, unlike Lily, Marshall, Barney, Robin and Ted, audiences haven’t been able to spend a significant amount of time with the mother character. We haven’t really been able to bond with her like with have with the show's other characters over the past 8+ seasons. This is partly due to the time hopping the show has been using to introduce us to the character, and hopefully spending a full episode with the mother will change all that. TV Line is noting that the 200th will feature very little of the show’s regular cast, but it will help to flesh out the mother’s story a lot, as the episode will be told from her perspective.

We still have a while to wait before the 200th episode airs. In the meantime, you can catch new episodes of How I Met Your Mother on Monday nights at 8 p.m. ET. Or, you can catch up on some of Season 9’s earlier episodes over at CBS’ site.

Jessica Rawden
Managing Editor

Jessica Rawden is Managing Editor at CinemaBlend. She’s been kicking out news stories since 2007 and joined the full-time staff in 2014. She oversees news content, hiring and training for the site, and her areas of expertise include theme parks, rom-coms, Hallmark (particularly Christmas movie season), reality TV, celebrity interviews and primetime. She loves a good animated movie. Jessica has a Masters in Library Science degree from Indiana University, and used to be found behind a reference desk most definitely not shushing people. She now uses those skills in researching and tracking down information in very different ways.