"Taking place immediately after where the
previous season left off, Season 9 will cover the events of a single weekend that lead up to
Barney (
Neil Patrick Harris) and
Robin's (
Cobie Smulders) wedding.
[4] During the course of the weekend, "The Mother" (Milioti) will separately be introduced to Robin, Barney,
Lily (
Alyson Hannigan), and
Marshall (Segel), before finally meeting
Ted (
Josh Radnor). The season will also feature frequent flashbacks and flashfowards in order to fully integrate The Mother's character with the rest of the cast.
[5]Thomas said in an interview that Season 9 is like "the Wild West - anything can happen."
[4]
On February 2013, Bays and Thomas teased that Season 9 is "going to be a new way to tell the story".
[6] The initial reaction to the new storytelling structure of Season 9 was mixed. Ethan Anderton from
Screen Rant was concerned about how "24 episodes of television are going to be crafted from just three days of time,"
[7] and Alan Sepinwall of
HitFix was exasperated that after eight seasons, "they are really going to stretch Robin and Barney's wedding weekend out over the entire final season".
"