‘How I Met Your Mother’ inches toward a mother of a reveal

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Last night, during a relaxed and pleasant viewing of ‘How I Met Your Mother,’ we noticed that our hearts were beating a little faster. Ted (Josh Radnor), who often digresses with stories about his life in the CBS series, was focused on one about how he actually met the mother of his children, and he was carrying that yellow umbrella.

We knew this meant something because, if we’ve learned anything from ‘Lost,’ it’s that we must not be couch potatoes when watching TV. We must be active and alert at all times, and last night this served us well, as we remembered that, eons ago, it was revealed that his children’s mother carried a yellow umbrella when they met.

Ted was telling his kids (now teenagers) about how life is full of little decisions that lead us to the big things that most matter to us, things like where we might buy a morning bagel or how we treat the homeless man we walk by every day. Everywhere Ted went in this episode, he carried a yellow umbrella, the telltale Easter egg.

Then the final scene came: Ted stood on a rainy corner, waiting to cross a street, his yellow umbrella covering him when he is tapped on the shoulder and it is revealed to be his former fiancee, Stella. (Sarah Chalke, pictured with Jason Jones and Radnor).

Wait, whaaaaaat?

Ted and Stella broke up because Stella got back with her ex-boyfriend, played by Jason Jones. Was it possible that she and Ted were reconciling? Quickly, we went through everything we’d learned on this show about the mother, and we also recalled that CBS President of Entertainment Nina Tassler definitively told the press this year that Stella was not the woman Ted eventually married.

What then? Is Stella a smoke monster, um, we mean smokescreen?

It seems so. CBS, which kept Chalke’s visit to ‘Mother’ a big fat secret, told us today that running into Stella would lead Ted in a roundabout way to the woman of his dreams. Chalke and Jones both return for next week’s episode, and by May 18, when the season finale airs, there will be a big reveal about the mysterious mother -- just not her identity.

And this is a comedy?

-- Maria Elena Fernandez