Fans of How I Met Your Mother will remember 2024 for a variety of reasons.
For starters, this weekend marks the tenth anniversary of the iconic sitcom’s finale.
It’s well known that the finale was contentious, with Barney Stinson and Robin Scherbatsky divorcing minutes into the episode, the Mother we’d just met after a nine-year wait dying of an unknown illness, and Ted returning to Robin with the blessing of his children.
We’re not here to argue over how the series finished.
But it needs to be noted because, in addition to the fact that it has been ten years since Josh Radnor, Cobie Smulders, Alyson Hannigan, Jason Segel, and Neil Patrick Harris sat around McLaren’s bar, there is a far darker moment in How I Met Your Mother legend coming this year.
It’s the year Ted’s wife and mother of their two children, the inspiration for the entire show’s model, dies.
Tracy’s fate was teased in some episodes leading to the finale, with one heartbreaking moment showing Ted close to tears when she makes a seemingly innocuous comment about ‘what mother would miss her daughter’s wedding?’
But in the episode itself, it all happens over the course of mere minutes, starting with Ted saying ‘and then she got sick’.
Tracy, played by Cristin Milioti, is seen in a hospital bed looking feeble as Ted reads to her, and suddenly she vanishes — and his kids basically tell him, ‘it’s been six years, get over it, go get Aunt Robin’.
But, as fleeting as it was, fans adored Tracy after getting to know her over the course of season nine, and they are overjoyed to learn that 2024 is the year she dies.
On X, user Emma Morley wrote ’10 years since the finale and this is also the same year that Tracy dies in the HIMYM timeline, IF YOUEVEN CARE!’
‘What a way to start my day,’ users Kayla despaired, and user Roger went poetic with his tweet: ‘I can’t believe Tracy dies during 2024. Love is tragically beautiful, so hard to find and so easily lost.’
User C declared ‘the last 6 mins of this episode does not exist for me,’ and Yosh insisted ‘she didn’t die in my head, she’s happy with Ted, and they see Swakles every week.’
Carter Bays, co-creator of the programme, previously talked after the release of his debut novel The Mutual Friend, and discussed the problematic parts of the conclusion.
He admitted he tries to say ‘as little about the ending as possible’ in order to ‘leave it to people’s imaginations’.
‘We did make two endings, there’s another one online that I think is really lovely, so we like to let people choose their own ending for that one.’
Despite his deep affection for the programme, Carter admits that it was ‘simple’ to accept its conclusion.
He explained: ‘I had ticked off all the boxes of various dreams I had. Getting to work with Kyle MacLachlan, Chris Elliot, Bob Odenkirk, there’s such a long list of wonderful cameos on the show.
‘I went through, one by one, all my great heroes and got to work with them and I’m so grateful for that experience.’
‘It could have gone on for another nine years, purely for how much fun it was,’ he added.
‘But by the end we had ticked all the boxes – there was nothing left to do but finally meet the mother.’
And then kill her. RIP Tracy.
Source My Celebrity Life.
