‘How I Met Your Mother’ season 9, episode 16 review: Cristin Milioti steals 200th episode

There has been no question in our mind that “How I Met Your Mother” has hyped up “How Your Mother Met Me” extensively. It is its 200th episode, and one that had a near-impossible challenge trying to tie together everything on The Mother’s story.

But what did we learn in this episode? The biggest thing was that she already had her great love in Max, who died many years ago and caused her to struggle with the concept of moving on with love. We had some sort of feeling for whatever reason that she had gone through some sort of tragedy in the past, which could help to explain why she was still single after so many years in New York.

There were so many lovely little connections to the past here, as we saw everything from the yellow umbrella to the St. Patrick’s Day Party to also the brief moment where Ted was teaching her class … before he realized he was in the wrong room. It was years later when she had another great love, and it was one that literally came to a close right before she ended up meeting Ted (which is still to come).

By the time that you heard the performance of “La Vie en Rose” at the end of the episode, odds are you were already tearing up. Despite not really getting to see just a ton of her, it is already clear that the writers have crafted a really wonderful character and a part of the mythology that we’ll remember for a long time. This was a funny, emotional, and just about perfect episode of the show, and it also gives us so much more hope that the eventual series finale is going to turn out just fine despite our fears. Also, Cristin Milioti was absolutely brilliant in this. Grade: A.

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Photo: CBS