Take it from Snee: The dark truth behind ‘How I Met Your Mother’

If you’re like me, you’re a handsome, well-read critic of all media. And, you watch How I Met Your Mother.

If you’re not like me, then here’s the basic premise: a guy in the year 2030 explains to his two teenage children the long ass story about how he met their mother. It’s been on since 2005, and he still hasn’t gotten to the part where he–oh, I don’t know–meets their f@%king mother.

Instead, the story he tells them has covered his failed career as an architect, his friends and their families, doppelgangers and the assorted women he’s slept with who aren’t their mother (more on that later).

This past season has included some kind of heavy s#&t, including the death of Marshall’s dad and Barney meeting his dad. Also, Lily’s dad may or may not be in prison. There’s only one other character, Robin, and I’m guessing she’s going to abort a baby or something to get her dad’s attention.

But, is this really the beginning of a dark era on the show? No, because there has always been something far darker, lurking in the very premise of the show since episode one: why is Ted, who’s played in the series by Josh Radnor, narrated in 2030 by Bob Saget?

You could argue that people change as they age, and you would be right if Ted wasn’t already in his 30s and in recent episodes that jump ahead in time, Ted is still Josh Radner. There are only a few possibilities for this, which I present below from least horrific to most nightmarish.

1) Ted is Bob Saget’s self-image.

In our most innocent scenario, Bob Saget is romanticizing his past, including the wooing of their mother, with his kids. The man is, understandably, going to take some liberties with his appearance. I’m sure the real Bob Saget describes his time on Full House as John Stamos.

But then there are all the women who aren’t their mom.

Ted has spent the past six years talking about every woman he’s nailed in full detail, including with their Aunt Robin. Even when he finishes the essential story about his previously failed engagement, he spends the rest of the season recovering as a manwhore (cool), which means story after story about sluts that aren’t Mom (not cool for the kids).

Series Finale Reveal: Ted and their mother are divorcing because she’s cheating on him.
Ted really wants to convince the kids that he was New York’s greatest pull-out artist while explaining just what sort of man married and inseminated their mother. After listing woman after woman he’s been with, kink after kink, orifice after insert, he will wrap this up with, “… and if you think that’s bad, here’s why I think your mother’s a whore.”

2) Bob Saget has Ted’s children.

Remember: this entire story is being told in a basement full of pieces of Ted’s life, but nothing too substantial. There’s no diploma or photos, just stuff that could be accrued through your run-of-the-mill stalking.

But Bob’s collection isn’t complete. Not without Ted Mosby’s family.

Series Finale Reveal: He’s got the kids, and now he waits with them, torturing them with the story about how Ted stole their mother from him and how they’re all going to be a family soon. In heaven.

3) Ted is Bob Saget’s self-image who is going to kill their mother.

Basically, it’s Scenario 1, only without the divorce. Bob Saget is telling the kids his “Super Ted” stories about all the shit he went through just to marry their cheating whore of a mother. “I could’ve been an architect! I was supposed to change the New York City skyline!”

Series Finale Reveal: Ted forces the children to dig their mother’s grave.
And then he pushes them into it.

4) Bob Saget is narrating George Costanza’s Ted self-image.

If the narrator is untrustworthy, which he proves from time to time with outlandish claims of fighting a goat or Marshall and Lily surviving a three-story jump out of their bathroom, then how do we know he’s an architect at all?

You know who else always wanted to lie about being an architect?

The series takes place in an apartment in New York City. The characters include a guy and girl who used to date but are now friends who occasionally hook up. The married couple run every holiday, which may as well include Festivus. And Ted Mosby nails hot girl after hot girl even though he has very little actually going for him, career- or looks-wise.

This is Seinfeld from George Constanza’s perspective, but the producers couldn’t afford Jason Alexander. Hence: Bob Saget’s narration. It also explains why, despite the original premise, the show focuses on absolutely nothing.

Series Finale Reveal: Barney was Kramer all along.