‘How I Met Your Mother’ Season Finale: Do We Finally Meet Her? Sort Of

How I Met Your Mother has finally gotten to the point, eight seasons later.

In the Season 8 finale, the show finally revealed the identity of the “Girl With The Yellow Umbrella,” who Ted Mosby has been hinting at for so many years. Fans have come up with countless theories about who will play the “mother” and scrutinized episodes when Ted was in the same place as the mother, but, in the end, the mother was a surprise to everyone.

(Spoilers ahead.)

The woman who will be Ted Mosby’s wife and the mother to his children, is played by actress Cristin Miloti, a newcomer to the show. Television fans might be familiar with her from a 2011 appearance on 30 Rock, where she played a nemesis to Liz Lemon in the episode “TGS Hates Women.” Miloti also appeared in The Sopranos and had a Tony-nominated part on the stage production of Once.

So while the How I Met Your Mother audience got to catch a glimpse of Ted’s wife, the character played by Josh Radnor didn’t actually spend any screen time with her. Instead we saw the “mother” as the episode was winding down and a montage showed the main characters en route to the wedding of Barney and Robin.

Series creators Craig Thomas and Carter Bays had already announced that Ted would not actually meet the mother until Season 9. Because of this, they said the final season of How I Met Your Mother could have a different narrative than in previous seasons.

The revelation likely shifted until the ninth season after successful negotiations with Jason Segel to return for a ninth and final year. Cast members had already hinted at a new actress to play the mystery woman. In comments to Entertainment Weekly, Radnor voiced his preference for a fresh face.

“I don’t think it should be any sort of stunt casting … I think it would be more interesting to have this fresh, exciting face that Ted has never seen before and neither have people who watch the show,” Radnor said, adding that Thomas and Bays even kept him in the dark about who they would cast.

Here is the reveal of the mother, Ted’s future wife, from the Season 8 finale of How I Met Your Mother: