How I Met Your Mother Season 9 Finale Spoilers: The Mother’s Name, Alyson Hannigan Says HIMYM is ‘Not a Sad Show’ [+Video]

(CBS)

Only three more days before How I Met Your Mother concludes as a series with Season 9, Episode 23 “Last Forever,” and some final hints have been dropped by the cast and crew as to what will happen.

Executive producers Carter Bays and Craig Thomas told San Jose Mercury News that the finale will be an “ambitious” hour spanning 17 years in the lives of all the characters. “Big, important things will happen” in the “Last Forever,” and the Mother’s name will at long last be revealed.

Cobie Smulders, who plays Robin Scherbatsky, said that Bays and Thomas had already envisioned the ending when the series first started, and have not been swayed from their plan.

“They plotted this out for nine years,” said Smulders. “Literally, this is how they intended to end the show nine years ago, which I think is something that never happens.

“You usually listen to the critics or the fans, and they want this to happen or that to happen, and you get swayed, or you change your mind. But they really stuck to their guns, and I think the result is going to be amazing.”

Also, on a recent Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Alyson Hannigan, who plays Lily Aldrin, reveals that the final table read ended up being an emotional, teary event.

“I killed a lot of trees with my crying,” said Hannigan. “99 percent of the room was crying. That’s executives and everything.”

She adds, “but we were laughing and crying. Its not a sad show.”Hannigan’s statement may serve to debunk the notion that some tragic, morbid event will occur in the finale, as has been speculated on the Internet.

When asked by Kimmel for some clues about the finale, Hannigan says, “Well I think the writers really wrapped the show up the way the fans would want it to be wrapped up.”

“And they’re gonna answer the million questions that everybody has and more.”

The one hour, two-part season finale of HIMYM airs Monday, March 31, 8:00 p.m. ET.