VIDEO PHOTO How I Met Your Mother reveals who the mother is

I admit that I probably need the infamous intervention sign from How I Met Your Mother when it comes to watching me some How I Met Your Mother. Last night during the finale of season 8 the show answered one of the biggest questions in the history of TV as the identity of the mother in the show’s title was finally revealed!

Just in case this wasn’t as obvious as one of Barney’s bar side pick-up lines, there is some SERIOUS SPOILAGE AHEAD. You’ve been warned.

While we still don’t know how Ted meets the mother of his children or anything about who the character is, we do know what she looks like and who the actress is that will be featured in detail during the 9th and final season.

Here’s the final scene as we see this woman boarding a train to the fictional Farhampton to presumably go play in the band at the impending nuptials between Barney and Robin. Just to be safe and so Regis Philbin doesn’t burn me a new one, I will remind you all again that this is a one way ticket to SPOILVILLE!

Well….

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The introduction was so quaint that some casual viewers may have missed it but the dead giveaway was the bright yellow umbrella she was holding. This prop is the defining characteristic that Ted has referenced as the mother’s signature item.

The actress is Cristin Milioti and she’s previously appeared on The Sopranos and Nurse Jackie. She also received a Tony nomination for her role in the Broadway adaptation of the film Once. Part of that may have something to do with the fact that she learned to play piano in a mere 10 days before auditioning.

Here is a photo of the woman who Ted’s been talking about for a long, long time to his kids:

^WENN

While no one will ever really be good enough for Mosby in my book, that ain’t a bad job! Show co-creator Craig Thomas discussed the decision to let the mom out of the bag with EW:

We’ve talked here and there about letting the audience see the mother before Ted. Would that be fascinating or let some air out of the balloon? We were scared of it for a long time, but this past season, it came up, and it just fit in so well. Ultimately we view it like we’ve been honing in on this mother mystery for so long. In season one, it was like a shot of planet earth from outer space. And we’ve honed in and honed in and honed in, and we look at season nine as like now we’re down to Google street view. We’ve gone from a super-wide shot to super-microscopic-tight, and it just felt right to see the mother’s face and to give the audience that gift and that knowledge. There was something exciting about getting a little bit of her before Ted ever does. There was something that we felt like this audience who has stuck with us for all of these years we wanted to reward them with that.

Now we know who, all that remains for Season 9 is the what, when, where and how – and that’s quite a bit actually!