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"Before we go any further, be aware that major spoilers from last night&amp;#x27;s episode are ahead... So, on last night&amp;#x27;s HIMYM, Ted started dating a leather cuff-selling, roller-skating 20-year-old (but she&amp;#x27;ll be 21 in six months!) hipster with grandfather issues, Carly&amp;amp;#8212;played by Ashley Benson, she of Pretty Little Liars and that Spring Breakers trailer fame. At first, I really loved this story line because, to me, it rang as something true-to-life. A lot of guys date a questionably younger (and, yes, hot) gal at least once in his life. Or is that just my guy friends? And Ted, reeling from accepting that the (he thinks) love of his life is engaged to his best friend, would understandably get back into the dating game&amp;amp;#8212;and find some inner-confidence&amp;amp;#8212;through a quarter-life crisis. To his credit, Ted doesn&amp;#x27;t want to hook up with Carly unless they have something in common&amp;amp;#8212;and for a while it seems like they can&amp;#x27;t connect on anything until she reveals she loves Star Wars (but only the newer movies, yeesh). But that&amp;#x27;s enough for him, and they hook up. But then... a BOMBSHELL is revealed. Carly&amp;amp;#8212;THE Carly that hooked up with Ted&amp;amp;#8212;is Barney&amp;#x27;s half-sister. To most of you, that&amp;#x27;s an interesting plot point, and it ends there. But to the HIMYM clue-followers and theorists out there, this is a major insight as to who &amp;quot;the mother&amp;quot; is and is not. Many people, myself included, had a theory that the &amp;quot;mother&amp;quot; is Barney&amp;#x27;s sister. First, Ted refers to Barney as &amp;quot;Uncle Barney.&amp;quot; Sure, that could just be what the kids call him&amp;amp;#8212;but what if Barney really was an actual uncle to them? Also, we know now that Ted meets &amp;quot;the mother&amp;quot; at Robin and Barney&amp;#x27;s wedding&amp;amp;#8212;and obviously Barney&amp;#x27;s sister would be at such an occasion. But now that we&amp;#x27;ve met Barney&amp;#x27;s sister that theory is totally debunked. We know now, thanks to last week&amp;#x27;s episode, that the mother is the bass player in the wedding band, and I highly doubt that Carly and Ted are gonna have a lasting relationship. Did you believe in the Barney&amp;#x27;s-sister-is-the-mother theory or no? Who do you think the mother is?"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.glamour.com/entertainment/blogs/obsessed/2013/01/how-i-met-your-mother-barneys>