Warning: The following recap contains major spoilers from Monday’s season finale of How I Met Your Mother. Read on at your own risk!



A day after Mother’s Day — and not a day too soon — How I Met Your Mother gave viewers the best present ever: a real glimpse of the titular mom (who appears to be played by Cristin Milioti from the Broadway musical Once)!

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The big reveal comes on the heels of Ted announcing to Lily that he’s finished renovating his house “just like Ryan Gosling in The Notebook” – and he promptly plans to sell it and move to Chicago! After failing to find love in New York, the eternal bachelor has decided that maybe The One is in Chi-Town. So the day after Robin and Barney’s wedding, he plans to catch a train back to the city and leave his old life and friends behind.

Lily tries to convince him he will have a family in that house – until she realizes the real reason he’s leaving: It’s because the love of his life is in NYC, and she will soon be married to his best friend.

Ted insists that he wants Robin and Barney to have an amazing life together, but it might be better if he weren’t around for it. Lily asks if something happened between him and his ex recently, and he insists nothing did.

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“Where’s the poop, Ted?” she continues, bringing back one of my favorite catchphrases. So Ted tells her about the rainy moment in the park, which leads Lil to reveal that Robin’s “something old” locket has been in a pencil box on Ted’s desk all this time. Right before he was supposed to marry Stella, a heartbroken and Japan-bound Robin got drunk and dug it up since she wasn’t ever going to marry Ted, and that’s where Lily hid it. Now, Ted has the perfect wedding gift for Robin, but Lily still warns him to be careful. Meanwhile, just as the bachelor is getting ready to give up on sex love and the city, the bass guitar-carrying mom is buying a train ticket to Farhampton!

Elsewhere in the episode, Barney and Robin’s night out is ruined by an annoying couple (Happy Endings‘ Casey Wilson and Mad TV‘s Keegan-Michael Key). They decide to “make those smug obnoxious sons of bitches pay” and try to break them up. In the end, they actually end up helping the strangers get engaged and, oddly enough, prove to themselves why they’re so twistedly perfect for each other.

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Lily spends much of the episode dealing with Ted’s relationship drama, but it looks like she may have some of her own soon. On the cusp of their move to Rome, Marshall gets offered his dream job, a judgeship, and doesn’t tell Lily about it.

HIMYM fans, what did you think of the long-awaited moment? Was your heart pounding during those final seconds? Do you like that the show didn’t go for a super recognizable face (but still one that could pass for David Henrie and Lyndsy Fonseca’s mom)? And what are your theories for next season’s premiere? Will Ted meet the mom then?