Bewitched, Bothered, Bewildered

Doctor Who lately has put me in the mood for a bit of full-scale-nerd activity in the form of spotting little hidden clues which may mean nothing or everything and I do have a huge list of little things which could tell us something about the finale for Series 4 of Who. However what I didn’t expect was to find myself getting drawn into the same thing for my other favourite show of late, How I Met Your Mother.

You see the ongoing premise of the show has been exactly what the title says, our hero Ted in the future of 2030 is telling his teenage kids just how he met their mother, except that for the last four series he has never actually said who the mother is. We had the opening plot twist where we are led to believe that Robin is the mother, until he ends with “And that’s how I met your Aunt Robin.” Bear in mind he calls all of his friends Aunt or Uncle, so the mother isn’t Robin’s sister before you think that. From that moment on we were given clues to her identity, subtle details such as a montage of photographs all with her face blurred out in series one, then of course the appearance of that yellow umbrella which is now used as a representation of her (For those who don’t watch, in all of Ted’s flashbacks during the telling of his story, all we ever see of the mother is a yellow umbrella she carries with her.)

This came to a head recently when Ted went out for St. Patrick’s Day and ended up at a bar, making it clear to us that the mother was also at the same bar. The episode ends with him returning to the bar to try to find his lost phone, only to find it pouring with rain when he goes to leave. He picks up a yellow umbrella that’s been discarded by the door to keep the rain off.

Now a blogger has come forward claiming to have irrefutable proof as to the identity of the mother. We already knew that Ted’s current girlfriend Stella (Played by Scrubs‘ Sarah Chalke) was apparently at the same bar as Ted on St. Patrick’s Day however Sian and I had discounted this as a red herring of a clue. However Seat42f who has been watching far too much Lost lately spotted something rather telling when we were introduced to Stella’s daughter. He has a screen shot of the scene from 2030 of the kids sat on that sofa and has highlighted a framed letter behind them, then another shot of Stella’s apartment with what he thinks is the same framed letter. I’m rather sceptical myself, the framed letter behind the children appears to be two sheets of paper side by side rather than the single sheet in Stella’s apartment, as well as the fact that I simply don’t believe Stella is being set up as the mother. My gut tells me otherwise.

I’m still holding out hope that it’s Victoria.

Side Note: This article is set to publish after 2am.