On March 31, How I Met Your Mother will air its series finale after nine seasons and over 200 episodes. Ted, the main character and narrator, has been telling one of the longest stories ever told about how he met his wife and is almost at the end of his odyssey. As Ted, Marshall, Lily, Robin, and Barney take their final bow, we chose to relive some of the best episodes and moments from one of the best sitcoms of all time.
“The Pineapple Incident” from Season 1. Ted’s main objective in Season one is to get with Robin, girl of his dreams. He wasn’t getting anywhere with her and Barney said Ted over thinks things and it screw him up in the end. Barney tells Ted to take five shots so that he’ll loosen him up. Ted blacked out and remembers next to nothing of the previous night. The next morning Ted wakes with a girl in his bed, a sprained ankle, his jacket burnt, strange writing on his arm, and a pineapple on his nightstand. The gang comes together and tries piece together what they remember from the previous night.
From Season 2, “Slap Bet.” Not only is this episode one of the best in HIMYM history, it gave us two long-running jokes: “Slap bet” and “Robin Sparkles.” This episode is about the gang trying to figure out why Robin doesn’t like going to malls. Marshall claims it is because she could have been married in a mall, a popular pastime in Canada. Barney thought is was because of porn. Yes, porn. They make a bet on who’s right and the winner gets to slap the other in the face. But neither is right. Barney finds a video, thinking it was a porno featuring Robin, but instead it was a Canadian pop music video of Canadian pop star “Robin Sparkles” and her mega hit “Let’s Go to the Mall.” Due to the provocative intro of the video, Barney claimed it as porn and slapped Marshall without consulting the slap bet commissioner, Lily. Since Barney was wrong, a suffered from “pre-mature slapulation,” his punishment is that Marshalll could slap him five times anytime anywhere. Marshall slapped him once…for now.
“The Playbook” from Season 5. Robin and Barney have just broken up and Barney wastes no time getting back in the dating scene. He shows the gang The Playbook, a book of all the cons and schemes he has ever done and hopes to do to hook up with girls. Many of them are very elaborate schemes like doing a knock-off Mrs. Doubtfire but instead of spending with his kids, he would be the house mother of a sorority or simple things like saying it’s the anniversary of his wife’s death. All in all, honesty isn’t his thing.

Swarley from Season 2. Ted, Marshall, and Barney go get coffee and they notice that Barney’s cup says “Swarley” instead of Barney. Due to the oddness of the name everyone starts to refer to him as Swarley. The name was only mentioned in the episode “Swarley” until this past season in “Vesuvius”, Ted and Marshall referred to him as Swarley.
“Nothin’ Suits Me Like a Suit” from Season 5. This isn’t as much of a joke. It’s more of a song but it’s memorable. Barney wants to hook up with a hot bartender who hates guys who wears suits, which is what Barney is known for wearing. Barney has to choose between his beloved suits and this one stand. His mind drifts to a musical number about how no girl can replace his suits. At the end of the all-cast dance posing in suits, he claims she is  “very hot” so he’ll go thru with sleeping with her. But he lies to her saying he’ll get rid of the suits when he really does not.
You Know What I Would Do from Season 8. At this point Ted doesn’t know where his life is going. All his best friends are married or engaged and he’s alone. He is with all his friends at Maclaren’s and he is deciding whether or not to go to Robots vs Wrestlers, an event the gang goes to every year. It turns out he was just imagining the whole night and was alone. His older self from 2030 says if he could go back to that night he wouldn’t go to Robots vs Wrestlers, his kids knows what he would have done. Present day Ted runs through New York and gets to an apartment and says, “Hi. I’m Ted Mosby, and exactly 45 days from now, you and I are going to meet, and we’re going to fall in love and we’re going to get married and we’re going to have two kids, and we’re going to love them and each other so much. All that is 45 days away, but I’m here now, I guess, because I want those extra 45 days with you, I want each one of them. If I can’t have them, I’ll take the extra 45 seconds before your boyfriend walks up and punches me in the face. Because I love you, I’m always going to love you, ‘til the end of my days and beyond. You’ll see.”
At the end of Season 8 we saw what the mother looks like and we are ready for the longest story ever told to end.  All of Season 9, we have seen the big moments in their relationship from their first date, to their second child’s birth. All that’s left is to see when they first meet. Ted will finally meet the love of his life and March 31, let’s hope we can hear the words, “and that is how I met your mother.”