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"There are now just two more episodes of How I Met Your Mother to go, and the show&amp;#039;s fans are still debating what may occur during the double-bill finale on March 31. For a sitcom, the show attracts the kind of fan theories that would normally be found in sci-fi fantasies like Lost or popular dramas like Breaking Bad. Over its nine seasons, the writers have presented us with various hints, flash-forwards and teasers as to what may lie in store for Josh Radnor&amp;#039;s Ted Mosby by the time 2030 rolls round.  Digital Spy will now look at some of the finale theories that have arisen online (or just in this writer&amp;#039;s head) during the show&amp;#039;s run. Warning: This article contains spoilers for fans watching at UK pace What we already know: - Ted meets the mother at the Farhampton train station on the day of Barney and Robin&amp;#039;s wedding. However, we don&amp;#039;t know if this is their first proper meeting. - The pair walk around New York on their first date three weeks after the wedding. - They return to the Farhampton Inn a year after the wedding, and he proposes there two years later. - Ted will marry The Mother, and their daughter Penny is born by 2015. Their son Luke is born in 2017. - The pair revisit the Inn in 2024, where The Mother worries about Ted living in his stories, while Ted appears emotional when the subject of Robin&amp;#039;s mother not being around for her wedding is brought up. - Ted starts telling the longest story of all time to his kids in 2030, while his voice has morphed into Bob Saget. Theory 1: The Mother is dead in 2030 THE theory among HIMYM fans for quite a long time. It would be quite a slap in the face for fans of a sitcom about how a character met his wife, only to find out right at the end that he ends up losing his wife not long afterwards. But HIMYM has tackled some pretty devastating life moments in the past, including Robin not being able to have children and the death of Marshall&amp;#039;s father. The show has not shied away from including some pretty tearjerking moments among its silliness, in a way that most sitcoms don&amp;#039;t normally attempt. Could the mother actually be dead by the time Ted starts telling his story? One could debate why he has decided to sit down his two young children to tell such an epic tale in the first place. Maybe it&amp;#039;s because she died when they were still too young to remember her well enough? Some fans have even debated that he has started telling the story on the day of her funeral itself, but if that was the case, they would need to change into some smarter clothes pronto.      Several clues have hinted towards this kind of sombre ending - the biggest of which being in &amp;#039;Vesuvius&amp;#039; a few weeks ago, when Ted and The Mother dined at the Farhampton Inn just six years before he starts telling the story. While it is never actually said, it is strongly hinted that The Mother may be suffering from some kind of terminal illness, as Ted becomes very emotional when she says: &amp;quot;What kind of mother doesn&amp;#039;t go to her daughter&amp;#039;s wedding?&amp;quot; It may be that someone else had died by then - Ted&amp;#039;s mother for example - or it may even be a nod to all the fan theories out there.  There was also a scene last season when Ted metaphorically ran to The Mother&amp;#039;s house 45 days before they met, as Future Ted said: &amp;quot;I want this extra 45 days with you, I want each one of them.&amp;quot; This seemed all rather sombre and emotional, as if he was saying that he wanted to spend as much time with her as possible before she was gone. The Mother has also never featured in any of the flashforwards  Theory 2: Ted is dead in 2030 This isn&amp;#039;t necessarily as crazy as you may think. The theory goes that Future Ted is actually dead by 2030 and explains why it is Bob Saget narrating the whole thing and not Josh Radnor.  During the whole series&amp;#039; run, Saget has never actually been credited as Future Ted, it has just been assumed the whole time. How about that Saget is actually playing a completely different character? Maybe he is someone related to The Mother that Ted became really close with?      Maybe it was one of Ted&amp;#039;s final wishes that his kids were told his epic story after he passed away. He could have written the whole thing down for Saget to read out. Plus, at one stage, Ted utters the line: &amp;quot;I am always going to love you. Until the end of my days... and beyond.&amp;quot; That&amp;#039;s a bit foreboding isn&amp;#039;t it? Saget never calls The Mother &amp;quot;my wife&amp;quot; to his children, but rather &amp;quot;Your Mother&amp;quot;. However, he does of course call them &amp;quot;kids&amp;quot;, and they call him &amp;quot;Dad&amp;quot;, which kind of rips this theory to shreds straight away. Ah, dang it. Theory 3: Ted will still end up with Robin Ted and Robin were always the main romance story of the series, and have had a &amp;#039;will they won&amp;#039;t they&amp;#039; situation throughout the entire run. Although Robin is marrying Barney and Ted clearly marries and has an awesome life with The Mother, there are still plenty of fans that want Ted and Robin back together, I&amp;#039;m sure. Earlier this season, Ted finally appeared to let Robin go (literally, into the sky, it was strange but all very emotional), but we know Ted - will he ever actually let that relationship go forever? Could it be that the reason he is talking about Robin so much during his stories is because he is slowly trying to explain how he ended up getting back together with their &amp;#039;Aunt Robin&amp;#039;?  This of course needs Theory #1 to also be true. Maybe The Mother dies, Barney and Robin separate, and by 2030 he has rekindled his romance with Robin, and that the finale will see their 2030 selves together finally.  Plus, Marshall has still got his bet open with Lily that Ted and Robin will end up together. Even after everything that has happened with these two, Marshall still says &amp;quot;Not yet&amp;quot; when Lily asks him to pay up. Maybe we&amp;#039;ll see Lily pay him in 2030, or maybe Marshall will just pay up at Barney and Robin&amp;#039;s wedding and that&amp;#039;ll be it. Theory 4: Nothing weird is going to happen, it&amp;#039;s a sitcom for Pete&amp;#039;s sake Or perhaps no-one will die and everything will play out like it should. Sometimes die-hard fans of a longrunning show can think a bit too much, even with a comedy series. Occam&amp;#039;s Razor states that one shouldn&amp;#039;t make too many assumptions, and that sometimes the simplest explanation is usually the correct one. These kinds of HIMYM theories both need lots of events to occur, and minor details of flashforwards and flashbacks are perhaps being examined too much. Cristin Milioti has described the theories that her character will die as &amp;quot;insane&amp;quot;, which you expect would mean it will definitely not happen. While HIMYM has dealt with sad moments in the past, surely they wouldn&amp;#039;t drop such a huge bombshell right at the very end..?  It is doubtful that CBS would allow the series to end in such a way, especially when syndication is involved and a spinoff is on the way. Chances are, we will see Ted and The Mother finally meeting in the concluding scenes, while other big moments from their life are revealed in flashforwards.  Preferably, I would like to see Future Ted joined by The Mother on the sofa with the kids. Carter Bays and Craig Thomas recently revealed that the kids filmed scenes intended for the finale years ago, as to avoid them looking like adults today. I would also like the very final scene to include the main gang and The Mother hanging out in their booth one last time. What do you think is going to happen in the series finale on March 31? Is The Mother dead in the future? Are fans reading far too much into a sitcom? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.digitalspy.com/tv/how-i-met-your-mother/feature/a558803/how-i-met-your-mother-4-theories-for-the-big-finale/>