Monday night's "The Lighthouse" was a real beacon of hope for fans... because for the first time since the pilot, we saw The Mother and Ted together. And what's more, this shared moment was a super special one.
Move over Zooey Deschanel, there's a new adorkable girl in town and her name is... well, we actually don't know her name just yet, but for the sake of avoiding confusion, we'll just call her the "Mother".
Here's to hoping the final eight episodes will continue to make [the Mother] invaluable to the show's story. After all, she's the reason How I Met Your Mother is great again.
I loved the way the two future friends met. Ted's wife definitely would be someone who would ask if a fellow passenger was okay after seeing her distraught. I also liked how she tried to lighten the mood by joking about the cookies.
Nothing was over-the-top funny, but it was a perfect combination of laughter and sweet moments that really do make up for all of the lackluster episodes in the past few seasons.
The ultimate takeaway from the final season is that series creators Carter Bays and Craig Thomas were at once too good and not good enough to tell the story they ultimately wanted to tell.
I'm hoping for some good character moments, some fun glimpses into the past and future, and a sense of the sweetness and humanity that the show had mostly lost in its later years. On that level, "The Locket" and "Coming Back" was an encouraging start.