'New Way to Tell the Story': Will 'How I Met Your Mother' Take a Page from 'Lost' and Go Nikki and Paolo on Season 9?

Now that we know that How I Met Your Mother will be back for a ninth and final season, fans have spent their time trying to figure out what exactly the show will have in store for them in those final episodes. Will we meet the mother in the Season 8 finale? Will they make us wait until the end of Season 9 to meet her? Will the show just pad out a storyline it already had prepared for Season 8? So many questions and so few answers.

Well, HIMYM co-creator Craig Thomas chatted with TV Guide recently, and in an article released on Monday, Thomas let on that they have some interesting plans for Season 9, allowing TV Guide to declare that next season will "look and feel much different from past seasons," with Thomas telling them that there’s "going to be a new way to tell the story" and that fans are "never going to mistake a Season 9 episode from one of the previous eight."

"A new way to tell the story" could mean just about anything, but here’s my theory: HIMYM is going to go Nikki and Paolo on Season 9.

During Season 3 of Lost, the show introduced the characters Nikki and Paolo and used flashbacks to insert them into key moments of the show’s first two seasons. They were always on the outside of the main group, but somehow seemed to be around whenever cool things were happening. Fans hated Nikki and Paolo, and Lost eventually buried them alive.

If we’re going to get a season of HIMYM that looks and feels much different from any other season, what better way to accomplish that than by spending large amounts of time with Ted’s future wife? The series can show her side of many of the stories that we’ve heard Ted tell over the years. Her experience at the bar on St. Patrick’s Day when she forgot her yellow umbrella. The time Ted was in her apartment while she was in the shower. I’m sure HIMYM could even create some more close calls where the mother almost met Ted over the years. Allowing a group of new actors to carry some of the Season 9 burden would also free up the shows stars to work on other projects, which would make sense considering that the growing careers of stars like Jason Segel almost kept Season 9 from happening.

For this plan to happen, though, HIMYM will have to introduce the mother in the finale of the current season. The showrunners have already made it clear that they’re not going to make a casting announcement when they’ve selected the actress to play the mother, so don’t expect any hints coming in that form. Would HIMYM fans be on board with this idea? After eight seasons of listening to Ted talk, are we ready for How I Met Your Father?