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Q: What made you guys decide to do the final season as one wedding
weekend?
Thomas: I mean, ultimately, there's no better answer other than it just
felt right. It felt-, what we wanted to do was get really far in the story
at the end of Season Eight. We didn't want to tread water, we didn't want
to say, 'Oh, it looks like we may get a Season Nine, let's end Season Eight
somewhere arbitrary and early to save cool stuff for Season Nine.' And that
instinct led us to the idea of letting the audience meet the mother, which
is our ultimate thank you to the audience, and our ultimate reward to them
for sticking around with us for eight years and counting. So we, and then
that led to the idea of, like, let's meet the mother and we'll tell Season
Nine in a completely different way. We'll tell the story in a different way
where How I Met Your Mother, we have the escape hatch of flashbacks and
flash forwards and fantasies and, in general, the confusing way that we
tell stories. And so we're not hemmed in too much by it being all in one
weekend, but it's really fun and it will feel a little bit different. While
still like How I Met Your Mother. So, it's exciting.
Q: And so will we get to see glimpses of their relationship then through
flash forwards this season?
Bays: We don't want to say exactly what we're going to see, but our feeling
is we're excited to see what happily ever after looks like for Ted, and
we'll get to see that.
Thomas: And we, you know, the other characters will also get to meet
the mother and in our season premier one of our characters meets the
mother. And it was one of the coolest scenes to shoot, it was like, you
know. Someone - not Ted, poor ***, he has to wait a little longer - but
some scene, one of our characters meet the mother and have chemistry with
her, too. Just, it makes us even more excited for Ted to get to meet her.
Q: And flash forwards, flashbacks, the continuity is unbelievable in
your show, but what's your favorite take away after all these nine seasons
of what you've done that you're proudest of?
Thomas: I mean, I think when we hear from fans that, How I Met Your
Mother got them through a tough time, or, you know, when we did an episode
where Marshall lost his father, a lot of people said to us, like, 'That was
very real feeling, and I experienced a loss and that meant a lot to me.' I
think it's the emotional stuff more than the comedic stuff, you know, which
is built into the series early. Like, in the end of Season One, Marshall
and Lily broke up. Season One ends with Marshall with a returned engagement
ring in the rain on a stoop. And I think that was us saying to the
audience, like 'By the way, this is kind of a drama, too, actually.' And I
think that's probably my proudest part of the show.
Bays: I think the moment that I am proudest of or the moment that is just
the fondest memory is the, in Season Three there was the two minute date
that Ted went on with Stella, and what I love about that is not only is it
really cute, very romantic scene and beautifully acted, by Josh and Sarah
Chalke, but also that it, I mean, it's all in one shot and there's like,
crazy things moving around. It was a great moment where you really, from a
behind the scenes perspective, got a real glimpse at, like, how talented
our crew is, and how amazing, you know. You have costumes people and props
people and wardrobe, like, everyone running around trying to make this
thing happen and then it's all right up there on the screen. There was a
great sort of real like old-timey Hollywood kind of moment where it's like,
yeah, we're making pictures. It was really cool.
Thomas: Yeah, and I would add to that, Robin Sparkles, too, like all
the Robin Sparkles music videos we've done, where you said to the crew,
'We're shooting a four minute music video now, on top of shooting a whole
episode of television this week.' And they go, 'Yeah. Bring it on.' And
everybody, hair and makeup and, you know, photography and sets and
everybody's just like raring to go and never says no. And they want those
challenges. We've had an amazing crew all these years.
Bays: Yeah.
Thomas: So we're so proud of that.
Bays: We're going to break them this year, though. This year . . .
Thomas: Yeah, this is the year we get them to quit.
Bays: Yeah.
Q: So you guys have teased there's something going to go horribly wrong
in this wedding. Can you give us any kind of hint?
Bays: Uh . . . can you give me a moment? [laughs] Because I wonder, I want
to ask . . .
[indistinct talking]
Thomas: All right, yeah. You can say that.
Bays: All right, this is an exclusive. Someone's going to die.
Q: Whoa.
Bays: That's it. Was that good? Does that feel good or does that not . . .
Thomas: [laughs] That feels really bad.
Bays: That feels bad. [laughs]