'How I Met Your Mother' Finale: Cristin Milioti is the Mother

Listen, I've never really liked How I Met Your Mother. During the summer of 2008, my friends tried to get me into it, but I always found the jokes to be really stupid and characters annoying (Lily and Marshall make my teeth hurt, and I love Jason Segel), but I tuned in for Monday's finale, as I'd heard that the mysterious mother of Ted's children was finally going to show her face.

She apparently did in the last moments of the episode. A yellow umbrella in hand, actress Cristin Milioti purchased a train ticket to Farhampton, the same place Ted is planning to visit the day following Barney and Robin's wedding, which is depressing enough for him to want to leave NYC forever and start fresh in Chicago. BuzzFeed captured an image of Milioti at the train station:

That's pretty much all we know so far, but as some conspiracy theorists have pointed out, it's quite possible that this isn't the mother. I'm a tad unsure because TV shows always seem to throw off viewers and fans, especially when delivering much-anticipated information. Think about Gossip Girl: Originally, the drama led us to believe GG was the evil Georgina Sparks, but as we learned in the series finale, good old GG is actually someone else (not going to spoil the show for those of you who haven't kept up with it).

Of course, co-creater Carter Bays confirmed to EW that this is the girl, so I guess that should shut up the skeptics:

“Part of what helped us is our casting director Marisa [Ross], she sort of has been talking about Cristin for two years now. It helped that she turned us onto her and then the more we got to know Cristin and see her work, the more we realized, Yeah, she’s the right choice. So that definitely helped, because we didn’t want to do a big casting cattle call — we were going to make it ‘come audition for Barney’s cousin’ or something.”

You can't blame me for being suspicious, though.

What did you guys think of the finale? Did you want to hug sadsack Ted, the last of his best buddies to settle down? Also, what do you think of Milioti, a 27-year-old New Jersey actress who has appeared on Broadway and was in the film Sleepwalk With Me? Let me know in the comments and/or on Twitter: @LauraDonovanUA