How We Made it Rain | S1E22 "Come On"

Summary

How We Made Your Mother: S1E22 "Come On" | How We Made It Rain

Podcast: How We Made Your Mother
Hosts: Josh Radnor & Craig Thomas
Episode: How We Made It Rain (S1E22 "Come On")
Date: September 1, 2025

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Overview

This episode marks the season one finale of the How We Made Your Mother podcast—a reflective deep-dive into the making and legacy of How I Met Your Mother, centered on the pivotal S1 finale, "Come On." Josh Radnor (Ted Mosby) and co-creator Craig Thomas reminisce about crafting the episode’s magical realism, the emotional stakes for the characters, the daring narrative choices, and the real-world uncertainty about the show’s future. They discuss the show's enduring resonance, respond to fan letters, and share personal growth through revisiting HIMYM twenty years later.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Episode’s Core Story & Thematic Overview

Description & First Impressions

• "Ted uses a rain dance to keep Robin from camping."—The official succinct episode summary, which the hosts lampoon for its odd, AI-generated tone but admit is technically accurate. (03:12)
• The finale sees Ted desperately attempting to win Robin over before she leaves with Sandy Rivers, while Marshall and Lily's relationship is rocked by her secret application to an art fellowship.
• The larger themes: the ritual of looking back, how life's highs and lows are often concurrent, and HIMYM’s willingness to balance hilarity with heartbreak.

Craig Thomas:

"I'm startled at how successful [the first season] was just in the basics of what a television season is supposed to do. It weasels its way into your heart. It tickles your funny bone." (08:19)

2. Revisiting the First Season with “Older, Wiser Eyes”

Rewatching the Show

• Both hosts had not rewatched in full until now; the experience is alternately nostalgic, illuminating, and generous. They express new appreciation, less self-criticism, and see the show’s “beating heart” more clearly.
  Josh Radnor:

"It's so interesting that you go back and there's so much more generosity. Any little details that could have been a little bit this way or that way, they just kind of come out in the wash. The thing is the thing." (17:17)

3. The Art and Tension of the Finale

Magic, Storytelling, and Earned Surrealism

• The discussion pivots on how the show balances grounded New York realism with moments of magical realism—especially Ted literally “making it rain.”
• The hosts connect Ted’s “Come on!” rooftop plea to themes of faith, intention, and storytelling: is it magic, coincidence, or simply the magic of how we remember and retell our own stories?
  Craig Thomas:

"There is something baptismal and renewing about the rain… Rain is change. Right. Water is change." (22:14)
"Ted is actually invoking a kind of cosmic magic trick... There’s magic in the universe. If your belief is strong enough, if your intention is pure, if you’re aligned, there’s magic." (25:07)

• The writers deliberately waited to “break the rules” (telepathy, rain dances, time jumps) until the audience trusted the characters, having “earned” surreal moments through previous emotional investment. (23:48)

Josh Radnor:

“The energy, Josh, you had in that whole sequence, and when it started to rain, and the joy and the freedom… How did that feel acting that whole sequence? Because energetically, something really shifted…” (24:28)

Nick Cave Quote—On Transcendence
Craig riffs on Nick Cave’s essay about the inability of AI to write a “great song”:

"Greatness lies in the fact of a human being transcending limitation. But robots and machines don’t have limitation, so there’s nothing to transcend." (42:02)

4. The Craft of the Finale — Emotional Crosscurrents

• The rain is a dual symbol: “absolute magic and celebration for Ted, total devastation for Marshall.”
• The showrunners praise Alyson Hannigan and Jason Segel’s acting in the emotional breakup scenes—highlighting how HIMYM gave sitcom tropes genuine emotional weight.
• The juxtaposition of Ted’s euphoria and Marshall’s heartbreak is cited as "one of my favorite moments of the entire series." (65:00)

5. The Reality Behind the Scenes

CBS’s Resistance to Serialization

• After the sound mix for the finale, the writers were called into a meeting, expecting congratulations—but instead were told:
  "You’re too serialized, you’re too emotional, you’re too 'emo.' Be more standalone. Don’t throw this thing away." (49:08)
• Instead, they doubled down and stayed true to the vision, anticipating that TV was about to shift toward their style.

Craig Thomas:

"We didn’t stop doing any of that stuff. If anything, we did it more." (50:36)

6. Legacy, Fandom, and Personal Growth

• The hosts read fan letters from viewers around the world about how HIMYM helped them navigate life, even learn English, and become a source of comfort and education.
• Josh opens up about his past ambivalence regarding the fame and loss of anonymity the show brought, and how re-examining the series (and international fan encounters) has shifted his perspective:

"Now I’m just seeing the sweetness of it… If you see me on the street, you’ll have a much nicer encounter with me if you call me Josh, you just will… But largely I’m just able to understand why people love the show so much." (71:33)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Craig Thomas (on episode titling, 03:27):
  "Let your future self name the episodes."

• Josh Radnor (on magical realism’s payoff, 30:45):
  “Maybe it just rained. Maybe it just happened to rain at that moment. But in future Ted’s story, he made it rain… And who’s right?... The answer is yes. The storytelling is what makes it magic.”

• Craig Thomas (on shared sorrow and joy, 35:08):
  "The rain to Marshall is tears, and the rain to Ted is proof that magic exists and Robin will be mine."

• Fan Letter, Joe (81:36):
  "There’s a future version of you to whom this all makes more sense… no matter how lost and confused I felt, I would inevitably make it to the other side..."

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• Listener Voicemail from Argentina — Impact of the show: (00:55–01:34)
• S1E22 Aired & Plot Recap: (03:45–06:26)
• Reflections on Season One’s Surprising Solidity: (07:17–10:00)
• The Necessity of Constraints & Creative Compression: (10:00–11:54)
• On revisiting the show as actors and writers: (17:17–19:15)
• Exploring the “magic” and narrative risks of ‘Come On’: (21:31–34:50)
• Behind the scenes: Rain Dance filming & big gestures: (56:27–58:55)
• Fan Letters and Legacy: (81:36–90:15)
• Hosts’ emotional sign-off, celebrating their friendship: (90:15–91:18)

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Other Highlights

Relationship Dynamics & Performances

• The bittersweet “pause” tactic between Marshall and Lily is commended as a “very good relationship tactic,” but one that ultimately fails amid overwhelming emotion. (59:57)
• Barney’s role as “voice of reason” and the subtle parallels between Barney’s sleight-of-hand magic and Ted’s more cosmic, sincere brand of magic.
• Alexis Denisof, Amy Acker, and Lou the weatherman get personal shoutouts as delightful guest stars. (58:55)

The Show’s Meta Commentary

• Fans and hosts alike comment on the multi-layered meta nature of the podcast—actors looking back on a show that is itself about looking back, now “adding commentary and hindsight to these past memories.” (83:24)

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Fan Insights & Reflections

• Fans say HIMYM has helped them learn English, has offered comfort during illness or loneliness, and continues to teach them about friendship and emotional resilience.
• The finale’s mood struck many as comforting for its authenticity—acknowledging that "the universe of the show is Ted's dating life," and the show dares "to make us pay attention, to sit in the uncomfortable emotions." (53:35, 82:51)

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Closing Thought

Craig Thomas (to fans):

"It's the fans that are the keepers of these stories, these characters, and their souls. The soul of the show itself continues to live in the hearts and minds and lives of the people who love it dearly." (87:58)

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The hosts end with emotional gratitude for each other and their audience, looking forward to season two and promising more magic, heartache, and time-bending fun ahead.

Transcript

[Josh Radnor]

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[Craig Thomas]

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[Josh Radnor]

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[Craig Thomas]

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[Jordana Radnor]

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[Jordana Radnor]

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[Josh Radnor]

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[Jordana Radnor]

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[Craig Thomas]

Hey guys. Ryan from Argentina here and this show.

[Josh Radnor]

Really means a lot to me.

[Craig Thomas]

What you've made here is absolutely a masterpiece. I watch it when I'm sad, when.

[Josh Radnor]

I'm angry, when I'm happy, when I'm frustrated. I've watched it for a lot of years now.

[Craig Thomas]

I'm 25. Last year I was diagnosed with autism. So I learned that this show had.

[Josh Radnor]

Also helped me make sense some social skills and understand social cues in a.

[Craig Thomas]

Way that I didn't quite understand. It scratched that itch for me and it really has helped me with a lot of relationships right now and in the past as well.

[Josh Radnor]

It really has in some way shaped.

[Craig Thomas]

Who I am as a person. You've made something really, really beautiful here once again and thank you for making this show. I'm alone. What a pity I won't be soon in New York when I see you. Please permit me to tell you everything in New York City. I can't believe it. Craig. Can you believe it?

[Josh Radnor]

I can't believe it. We're here.

[Craig Thomas]

Here we are at the end of season one of How I Met yout Mother. Episode 22, appropriately titled the End. Welcome to the end of season one, but certainly not the of, of all of it. We got eight more seasons to go but welcome to How We Made youe Mother where I, Josh Radner, who played Ted Mosby on all nine seasons of How I Met yout Mother, am am going back through the show with all, all these years later, uh, with our, our older eyes and our wiser minds. Uh, with Craig Thomas, the co creator of the show along with, uh, Carter Bayes. Uh, hi, Craig.

[Josh Radnor]

Hello, sir.

[Craig Thomas]

Great to see you as always. Thrilled we've made it to the end of season one. How's this been for you 20 years later? Looking back on all this? It's been a blast for me. But let's go get into it.

[Josh Radnor]

Point of interest, the episode's actually called Come on and not the End, but the End might be a better title. And I think it's on theme because we've pitched better titles for many of the episodes that we've gone through. Like, yeah, no, no, Come On.

[Craig Thomas]

Come On's a pretty good title.

[Josh Radnor]

Come On's pretty good. Come on works. Milk was slightly controversial. There were a few who were like, eh, maybe we could have had a better title there.

[Craig Thomas]

Milk is the only one. Maybe zip, zip, zip were the two. Although I do think you're right. The wedding should have been called plus one.

[Josh Radnor]

Plus one.

[Craig Thomas]

That one.

[Josh Radnor]

I feel pretty strongly about what you learn 20 years later is call it the thing that you're going to call it 20 years later. Call it that in the moment and that'll be easier 20 years later.

[Craig Thomas]

Let your future self name the episodes.

[Josh Radnor]

Let older, wiser future you name your episode.

[Craig Thomas]

So, Alec, tell us when this aired. When did episode 22 of season one air?

[Alec Lev]

It aired on May 15, 2006.

[Craig Thomas]

Can you, Craig, let us know, give us just a bare bones description of what happens in this episode.

[Josh Radnor]

This was the description on Hulu. I think I watched a plug for How Much Mother and How to Watch it in America. You can watch it on Hulu or Netflix. And I've been jumping back and forth between the two as we go through the season. So that's my little plug for how to watch How Much Mother on Hulu. This was the description of Come On. And it sounds like AI wrote something wrong. It sounds like something glitched. Here's the description. Season one, episode 22, come on. Ted uses a rain dance to keep Robin from camping. It's just like. It's like, is that. Did something glitch out there? Is that tight? Are there tight?

[Craig Thomas]

If you're like, oh, I heard good things about this show. What's this episode? Wait, what?

[Josh Radnor]

Ted uses a rain dance to keep Robin from camping.

[Craig Thomas]

Yeah, I guess that says it.

[Josh Radnor]

It's true. It's all true. All those words are tr. But it's a weird little haiku. It's been distilled down to there. It's raises more questions than it answers, as they say.

[Craig Thomas]

Yeah, so Robin's gonna go camping with Sandy Rivers.

[Josh Radnor]

Robin's gonna go camping with Sandy Rivers. She's learning that he is Moving on from being her co anchor, he got a big job at CNN and now he's saying, hey, let's finally get together. You have a no dating co workers thing. So there's this threat that Robin could end up with this other guy who's kind of horrible and ridiculous.

[Craig Thomas]

There's a little broadcast news going on here, don't you think?

[Josh Radnor]

There's definitely broadcast news. I found myself thinking about that great movie for you young kids out there. Watch the movie Broadcast News from the 80s. Hilarious and heartfelt comedy and elements of this. There is really the pretty boy newscaster guy played by William Hurt very brilliantly. And does he have any substance at all is sort of the question of that movie. And Sandy Rivers is very similar to that. So yeah, there's this threat. Is Robin gonna go with this other guy or does Ted still have a chance with her and Marshall and Lily? Marshall discovers that Lily has, without telling him, applied to this months long art internship in San Francisco. That would interfere with their wedding, which sends their wedding and their whole relationship into an existential crisis. Right as Ted is also trying to kind of, you know, see if he can win Robin over before Sandy Rivers gets his chance. And his best way of doing that is to make it rain to watch wash out rain out the company camping trip that Metro News 1 is about to have. So yes, Hulu distilled it down to one beautiful perfect sentence there.

[Craig Thomas]

So how's it been? How's old or wiser future Craig feeling about present day 2005? 6. Craig who made the first season of this show.

[Josh Radnor]

I have loved rewatching season one. By the way, I'm wearing my. If anyone's watching this, I'm wearing my Bigfoot shirt. In honor of Marshall Erickson. In honor of our final episode of season one for the podcast. I've loved this, Josh. It's been amazing. I really had not rewatched the show since it ended. I had not a couple episodes here and there. A Thanksgiving thing at Thanksgiving or someone, you know, someone wanted to watch this or watch that. I've not done this. I've not gone back through. And a lot of these I hadn't seen in years and years and years. And I'm loving it. Some of it plays very different through 20 years older eyes and other parts of it. I'm just right back in that moment and I can remember precisely what that moment felt like. What about you?

[Craig Thomas]

Well, you know, someone told me remember who it was. But if someone on the show said during first season we're going to look back on these, and it's going to look pretty raw, pretty like we were finding our footing, we were finding our vibe, our voice, all that. And I think on some level, that's true. You look back and you say, oh, we figured out how to do this better or this better. But I was startled at how fully formed the show was from the jump. Like, the show gets funnier, the stakes get higher, the characters deepen. We figured a lot of stuff out. You figured out how to mine more comedy. Like, you figured out more comedy for Robin, different comedic tracks for Ted that weren't there in the first season. But I was surprised at how many bangers are in first season. Like, there's some classic episodes in first season. And I think that if you watch all 22 episodes, I understand some more of the, like, stickiness of the show. Like, there was that episode where Jordana turned to me and she was like, I'm in.

[Josh Radnor]

Like.

[Craig Thomas]

Like, I'm. I'm emotionally invested in this. These. These characters. I want to. I want to figure this out. I want to keep journeying with these people. And I think for a first episode of a. The first season of a television show, it did exactly literally what a TV show is supposed to do. It weasels its way into your heart. It tickles your funny bone. It makes you want to spend at least 22 minutes a week with these people who are now a lot more than that if you can watch it at your own pace. But I think it was, like, I'm startled at how successful it was just in the basics of what a first season of television is supposed to do.

[Josh Radnor]

Yeah. Oh, that's. I'm so glad it still feels that way. Similarly, I'm impressed by what we. What we could cram into 22 minutes. There's some of these episodes, including the one we're going to talk about today. Come on. The season finale, where I'm like, I can't believe how much is in there in 22 minutes. I mean, every single episode I wish was 30 full minutes or 45 minutes every episode. I'd say that's the hardest thing to watch, is just to rewatch it and go, oh, so many of those. I would have loved to have been a little longer, but given that parameter, 22 minutes on the nose, basically, that's what a half hour has become. My wife and I are rewatching MASH, like, from the 1970s, and they're like, 25, 26 minutes long. And every time I see that time code come up that says that I'm like, I would have killed for those extra three or four minutes. The huge three or four minutes. But that said, there is also. There's creativity, right? Necessity is the mother of invention. And you make the container the size that it is and you say it has to fit in this container. Container. There is invention and creativity that comes out of that. I'm very impressed by the daring of how much we crammed into that 22 minute container, all of us.

[Craig Thomas]

You can see as the series goes on, you know, how we've kind of been tracking, you know, I think the first time we really noticed you guys leaning into. Oh, it's a narrator and he's telling this story and he can forget a detail. You know, Marshall's crown in. Okay, awesome. Like, oh, I forgot there was a detail I forgot to tell you. Right. Or, you know, there's just these different things where you guys really leaned into the narrator. Because think about it. If you're telling your friends a story, but one of them has to go in 12 minutes, you'll tell the story in 12 minutes. Like, you'll figure out a way to compress the story to get it told. And I think that, yeah, 25 minutes would have been great. There would have been some. But also, you might have looked back and said, wow, we could have taken three minutes out of that episode. Like, I think there's something. I think I've mentioned this, but Leonard Bernstein said, you know what, what are the necessary ingredients to create a work of genius? You need a great idea and not quite enough time. And we didn't have quite enough time. Right. Like, it forced us into some very interesting narrative, daring narrative choices that, you know, you look back and again, it's an imperfect, perfect process. It was an imperfect, perfect show or a perfectly imperfect show. And I think, like, you look, I'm looking back not just at my performance, but the whole show as a kind of warts and all, lovable thing, you know, that you much like a child or someone you love, you love not because you love, in spite of you love all of it. And I wrote you this little ditty to sing to you in New York City. We'll be right back. I love learning new things about my friends. And I just learned something astonishing about Craig and Alec. What did I just learn?

[Josh Radnor]

Well, it's Craig and Alec and also involves Carter Bayes, co creator of How Met yout Mother. Carter Bayes and I got a cat when Carter was living at my mom's house for the summer. We were doing an internship we got a cat during that summer because the cat wandered into my mother's yard. And we got this cat, and we said, we gotta take this cat back to college for senior year. And I did, to my senior year house, where I lived with Alec Lev, our producer. And we essentially had a cat together for a year. Right. Alec, the Carter didn't live with us. So really it was our cat, Alec. Right. And you don't. What was the cat's name? You don't even remember.

[Alec Lev]

Okay, I'm gonna full disclosure. I did not remember.

[Craig Thomas]

Now I remember, but only because you.

[Alec Lev]

Told me 15 seconds ago.

[Craig Thomas]

Well, I know the cat's name. The cat's name was Otis.

[Josh Radnor]

Oh, yes. After Otis Redding. Carter and I were in a soul band at the time.

[Alec Lev]

I'll tell you another thing I forgot about, because it was completely forgettable was the kitty litter that we used. There was nothing special about it.

[Craig Thomas]

Nothing interesting.

[Alec Lev]

I didn't learn anything about my cat's health from it. I feel like if we had Otis today, we would do things differently.

[Craig Thomas]

Yeah, they've come a long way in terms of kitty litter technology.

[Josh Radnor]

Very long way. And it was stinky. And it did not tell us anything that was wrong with Otis. And here's where Pretty Litter comes in. This is a Pretty Litter ad. That's the. That's the big reveal. And I want to say this. Living with. Living with more than one cat means you've got double the cuddles. That's part of the ad. And I wanted to say that. I wanted to say that phrase, double the cuddles and double the litter duty.

[Craig Thomas]

Duty.

[Josh Radnor]

But Pretty Litter makes things so much easier. Here's what Pretty Litter actually does. Let's just skip ahead. It helps monitor your cat's health, detecting abnormalities. You're breaking me. You're breaking me. Why are you losing it this badly? It's not helping me. It's not helping me. I'm gonna try. I'm gonna get it back. Ready?

[Alec Lev]

Because I'm sad that we didn't have this 20 years ago, 30 years ago.

[Josh Radnor]

It's been a long time. Oh, you're crying. You're not laughing. You're crying about it. Someone else say what Pretty Litter does.

[Craig Thomas]

Maybe if you had Pretty Litter, Otis would still be around.

[Alec Lev]

Wait, who's Otis?

[Josh Radnor]

Otis is the cat.

[Alec Lev]

Oh, the cat.

[Josh Radnor]

The cat.

[Craig Thomas]

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[Josh Radnor]

Our college house definitely smelled like a litter box. So I would have loved if we had Pretty Litter. So this is what you do right now. You can save 20% on your first order and get a free cat toy at prettylittleitter.com hwmym the acronym for this very podcast that's prettylitter.com whimyum to save 20% on your first order AND get a free cat toy prettylitter.com whimyUM Pretty Litter cannot detect every feline health issue or prevent or diagnose diseases. A diagnosis can only come from a licensed veterinarian. Terms and conditions apply. See site for details.

[Craig Thomas]

Craig Summer is here. And you know what that means.

[Josh Radnor]

It could mean a lot of things. I'm not gonna guess. I'm gonna feel dumb if I don't get it right.

[Craig Thomas]

It's time to listen to music in your headphones.

[Josh Radnor]

That was gonna be my guess.

[Craig Thomas]

Yeah, that music that was featured on season one of How I Met yout Mother. What is some great music people can listen to from season one of How I Met yout Mother.

[Josh Radnor]

Yeah. And you're gonna hear. You're gonna be listening to this music just to get this out there on Raycon's Everyday Earbuds. That's you're listening to the music on.

[Craig Thomas]

There the best earbuds to listen to. Season 1 Music from How I Met yout Mother.

[Josh Radnor]

And so what are our top season one songs? I'm gonna start near at the end and work my way back. Block Party this Modern love. My God, what a summer song. What a summer song that is. What about you?

[Craig Thomas]

Let's go. If you want to get into your feels. As they say. Rachel Yamagata 2:00am yeah, nothing good happens after 2:00am put on any Rachel Yamagata tune. But that that tune was from her great album Happenstance. What else? What do we got?

[Josh Radnor]

Yeah. Well so the pretenders back on the Chain gang as the at the end of the How Much Mother pilot. That's an amazing. Also an amazing like bittersweet love song. Great summer song.

[Craig Thomas]

The 88 you belong to me.

[Josh Radnor]

The 88 you belong to me by the 88 pavement spit on a stranger. That's an amazing one voices by cheap Trick all of these songs are gonna sound so good on your Raycons.

[Craig Thomas]

On your Raycon Everyday earbuds. All you gotta do is go to buyraycon.com yourmother to get 15% off Raycon's best selling Everyday Earbuds. And if you're loving your raycons, they offer three 30 day happiness guarantee return policy, no questions asked. But right now Raycon is offering 15% off their bestselling Everyday Ear Earbuds only at buyraycon.com your mother by Raycon R A Y C O-N.com your mother and now back to the show.

[Josh Radnor]

I think I've been avoiding rewatching it sometimes thinking I'll be harsh on it. I'll judge it. I'll see where there could have been better jokes. That joke we never beat in that scene, that blow to that scene. The ending of a scene that I always thought could have been better. It's gonna bother me from 15 years ago and it just fucking doesn't. It's so interesting that you go back and there's so much more generosity. I have such a better ability to see the energy of the thing, the beating heart of the thing, the essential important cor of what it is. And any little details that could have been a little bit this way or a little bit more that way, they just kind of come out in the wash. And the thing is the thing. And I'm really proud of how the soul of it is there. And I think that has transcended any go backy nitpickiness that I thought I would have. It's so much about the energy. And I think your energy in that performance of TED in season one is such a live wire. There's such a drive to Ted and especially in this episode, Come on. Where Ted literally makes it rain, literally has a supernatural power to make it rain. In this episode. There's something that I thought that really celebrated what Ted's energy has been through the whole thing. And everyone, it's just their energy is coming through. It was such a great cast. You guys were so great. You were great together. You were great when you were featured, when it was a little more of a TED episode or a little more of a Lily episode. We were talking about the last couple episodes of this season where Lily's kind of spiraling out and has this totally new kind of slightly unhinged energy. Just getting to see what everybody can do episode to episode. And you see us all as writers and as actors discovering what we can do. And what it can be and figuring out these moves. And there's a real joy and curiosity and spark to that because you're watching people. It's like the part of the superhero movie where the superhero is discovering their powers. Oh, I can do this. I can fly. I can shoot lasers out of my eyes. Like, it's, it's, it's that. It's like it's finding those. You're watching the show, find it, find itself, find its powers.

[Craig Thomas]

And then as the show goes, all of those tricks, like the expanded toolbox that you discovered in season one, you bring all that into season two and you know, oh, we have. We can go to telepathy. Like, that's a. Well, we can go to. That's a community.

[Josh Radnor]

That's a move kind of move we can make.

[Craig Thomas]

We can compress time by having the narrator do something that will actually be really funny and sharp and say something about memory, say something about storytelling. Say something about a father trying to, you know, I don't think he did it as much in season one, but the, the knowledge that he's telling, what, like a 16 year old and a 14 year old, these stories. I don't know how old they were supposed to be, but that kind of like, we had sandwiches. That's what we were doing was eating sandwiches, you know, protecting their, their young ears from these things. Yeah, it just occurred to me, and I'm jumping way ahead, but I just want to remember to say this. The phrase come on was something that had been littered throughout the show, but Ted said it a lot in a kind of like, come on, you know, like, come on. A very casual like, join me in my, Join me over here. Just step over here, come on. But in this episode, he is shouting to the cosmos, come on, come on. Give me what I need. Right? It's so much less of a seduction and more of a demand. I remember I had a meditation teacher who said, if you read great prayerful people, they never are delicate with the Lord. They never say, oh, if it's not too much trouble, could you please slay my enemies and could you please deliver my people? No, if you're busy, I understand. If you read like the psalms of, if you read the Psalms of David, if you read the prophets, there's an almost like ordering, slay my enemies, you know, deliver my people. Like, you be very clear with divinity what you need. And I think the reason the rain dance works is because, Ted, it's almost like the cosmos recognize, like a pure request. They're like, we're gonna give this one to him. Like, he needs this. He wants this.

[Josh Radnor]

He's earned this one.

[Craig Thomas]

Yeah. And I loved. And I know this is jumping to the end, but I loved. I had forgotten the euphoria and the joy at that rate. What that rain means to Ted and how just every raindrop that he gets pelted with is just. The universe is on my side. The universe wants this to happen. I am receiving a blessing. And there is something. Not to get too theological about it, but it's how my mind works. There is something baptismal and renewing about the rain. There's something holy about the rain or the flood or the washing away of the old and the birthing and the welcoming of the new.

[Josh Radnor]

That final moment with the narrator where he said everything had changed. And rain is change. Right. Water is changed. It's a baptism, but it also washes some things away. And Marshall and Lily are a little bit washed away by this flood in this moment, as Ted is sort of reborn into this whole new chapter. And the idea of a chapter ending in a way that is sad for Marshall and a chapter beginning that is euphoric for Ted. Oh, my God. Your performance in that was so wonderful, Josh. Those two paths kind of crossing as one trends up and one trends down. That is one of my favorite moments of season one and maybe of the entire series. Alec.

[Alec Lev]

Well, you used the word earn, and that was exactly what I was going to ask you about that. I felt like you earned this bit of magic, this bit of miracle through the 21 episodes that came before it. You already broke some rules, as Ted did, by saying, I love you on the first date in the first episode. But then you got all the way to and now I can make it rain. Which, of course, would not have worked in the first episode. That would have been, what show am I watching? This can happen. But whether it's this telepathy or the jumping out of the window that doesn't there. Or the I don't remember. All these things built up to this moment where, okay, now you have all of this. You've built this up. You've earned this. What are you going to do with it? And you just did something huge and something huge for the character and for the characters and for the story going forward in this moment that you. You've reached the finale of season one and now you can do something like this.

[Josh Radnor]

Yeah, Yeah. I wrote down in my little notes for this episode, I wrote, ted is entertainingly crazy. Here is one of the notes I wrote down because he's like. He really is. There is this kind of euphoric. It's magic, right? He's conjuring up magic on a rooftop in the middle of a storm. I mean, it really. And the energy, Josh, you had in that whole sequence, and when it started to rain, and the joy and the freedom, like, how did that feel acting that whole sequence? Because I sensed you. I thought, you're doing amazing work through that whole last couple minutes of that. There's something really shifted in you. And energetically there. That was wonderful.

[Craig Thomas]

Well, I can answer that. But I do want to say I find it amazing that Barney is the one on the roof with him saying, you're an idiot. What are you doing? But Barney's a magician. Like, Barney's really into magic, but he's into sleight of hand. He's into being the. The God of his trick, Right? Like, he's the one kind of tricking people and stunning people. Ted is actually invoking a kind of, like, cosmic magic trick. He's petitioning something much bigger than himself. But. But the thing, if you look back, and again, they could. Someone could write a college paper on this or ask ChatGPT to write a college paper on this for them. But, you know, don't do that. Kids. Don't do that. But what I'm saying, I think that one of the things that. About How I Met yout Mother is it's a recognizable universe. It honors Newtonian laws, but every once in a while, it dips into this quantum, magical cosmic zone where magic exists, where literal magic exists. A rain dance. He made it rain. And I think there's something sweet about him telling his kids, you know, there's that. The Einstein quote. Like, you just have to decide if this is a friendly universe or not, right? And Jordana has talked about, like, that's the role, especially of the mother in the early years, that her face should reflect, this is a friendly universe. Like, you're wanted here. You're loved. This is friendly. But I think in some ways, Ted is also trying to give his kids the gift of it's a magical universe. There's magic in the universe. If your belief is strong enough, if your intention is pure, if you're aligned, there. There's magic. You know, what did it feel like.

[Josh Radnor]

To act that just that ending sequence where, like, it works, it rains. And the euphoria and the abandon, the kind of joyful abandon and the very confident. It's very crazy, but it's very confidently crazy. It's a great energy you hit there. What did that feel like?

[Craig Thomas]

I remember, I think Carter was smiling on set one day, and he had just come from either maybe breaking the story or he knew I was about to read it. And he said, ted's going to do a rain dance. He's going to make it rain. And I just remember going, awesome. Like, how cool. Like, this is exactly.

[Josh Radnor]

That's why the perfect Ted.

[Craig Thomas]

Yeah, this is perfect. And he was so excited at that twist, at that. And, you know, I was very interested in magical Ted Mosby. Like, that was my favorite. Ted was, like, the one who could control the elements. And it wasn't that he controlled them because he actually knew how to do invocations in magic. He did it because through sheer force of will, you know, And I think that there's that great quote that says, you know, when you. Once you truly decide, Providence rises up to support you, like, once the decision is fully made divinity or Providence is on your side. And I feel like. I mean, how crazy to be on CBS in prime time and get to kind of act that out. I just knew that it was cool. And I knew that it was cool in the same way that I was very interested in esoteric spirituality. Not as interested as I got into it, but I was a meditator. I was interested in what's beyond the unseen, what's behind the veil. I've always been curious about that. And I thought that was something. When people say, how are you? Like Ted? I go, well, I believe in a magical universe. Like, I do, you know, And I. And I. And I enjoy the moments when the show got magical and weird. I thought it was like, there's some of my favorite How I Met yout Mother moments. And certainly Ted was pulled down by gravity a lot. And he thudded when he came back down, but he always dusted himself off and danced again. I remember working with the choreographer who I think was Barney's cousin.

[Josh Radnor]

Oh, yeah, right. It was her again. It was from. Ok. Awesome. Right. I forgot that she came back around. That's okay.

[Craig Thomas]

Yeah. I do remember we landed on moves that kind of, like, felt good in my body. And moves that were both. Felt like could be plausible as moves he would land on but were also funny and joyful to do. You know, I remember, know fingertips and. And that kind of like almost like a running man. Like a. I was hopping from foot to foot and going in circles. And it was like. It was ludicrous on some level, but the fact that it works makes it great. You know, like, and. And. And I don't know if it's the dance that works or his. His howl towards. Towards the heavens, his demand that. That it rain. But I just feel like in that moment, like, heaven smiles on him, you know, the skies open up for him, you know? What was the thing I heard once someone said about astrology? At a certain level of consciousness, the stars control you, but at a higher level of consciousness, you control the stars.

[Josh Radnor]

Yeah, it's a great line.

[Craig Thomas]

And I think in that moment, for whatever reason, he just. He seizes control of the elements through his enormous heart and his enormous will. And it doesn't always work because he's often foiled pretty spectacularly by the elements and by reality just not agreeing with him. But in this moment, it works. And I always found it to be completely charming.

[Josh Radnor]

It's like everybody has something in their life story or many things that in retrospect, seem magical or seem impossible, seem improbable. And I think the magic is made in the storytelling. Right. Maybe it just rained. Maybe it just happened to rain at that moment. But in future, Ted's story, he made it rain.

[Craig Thomas]

Right.

[Josh Radnor]

And who's right? Did it just rain or did Ted make it rain?

[Craig Thomas]

Yeah.

[Josh Radnor]

The answer is yes. The answer is yes. Right. And it's like the storytelling is what makes it magic. The way we shape our story is what is magic. The telling of the story itself is magic. Especially when you're trying to tell your kids who you were and what your life was before they existed, and what your heart was like and what you put out into the universe and what you got back. It's so pure. Ted is so pure of heart. In 2006, when this is happening, and the act of telling his kids the story is also, in its own way, very pure of heart. And I believe that magic comes from that.

[Alec Lev]

Yeah.

[Craig Thomas]

And it's also like we become so deadened to the miraculousness of the everyday because we live in it every single day. But. But if you're just like. If you were just dropped in here and you saw, like, trees and dolphins and ocean and constellations and, like, it's a stun. If you were like, that's how you make other humans. Like, it's so unbelievably miraculous. Or what's that term, the pathetic fallacy. Do you know that literary term where you. Where it's raining outside and you think that it's reflective of your. Your depressive state, but it's just. It's.

[Josh Radnor]

It's.

[Craig Thomas]

It's. It's almost like a Miss Association But I. I believe in it. I feel like, yeah, some days you feel blue and the weather reflects that, and it's just for you, it's. It's okay. I don't think that's narcissistic or whatever, but. Do you know the. The famous David Foster Wallace graduation speech that he gave at Kenyon, which is commonly called this Is Water? He tells that story of. There's two men talking, and they're talking about whether God is real. And the non believer says, you know, I was lost in, I don't know, Alaska or the Arctic, and. And I. And I was stranded in a snowstorm, and there were. There were no humans around, and I was sure I was going to die. And I cried out. I said, God, if you're. If you. If you exist, save me. And then the believer looks at him and says, well, you're here, so clearly you were saved. And he goes, no, it wasn't God. There was just some Eskimos started to wander by and they saved me. So it wasn't. It wasn't God. Right? So it's like whatever angle you're looking at it from, to confirm your. Your bias or your previously held point of view, you'll. You'll hook into. But I've always loved that. I. I always. I do think that there is a theological, and I don't know if that's the right word, but there's a cosmic magical realism thing running through the pulse of How I Met yout Mother that I think people really love. I think that's part of its secret magic of why people love it. Extra special.

[Josh Radnor]

I want to give Carter Bayes a shout out there. I think that's a real specialty of Carter's. I think Carter has a real. Like him pitching you that story and him having that childlike grin on his face about Ted's going to make it rain. That is a very Carter Bayes energy. And I think that. That. I think that this episode captured something very special about Carter as well. So I just wanted to shout that out.

[Craig Thomas]

It's almost like Raindance is Carter Bayes, Bigfoot and Aliens, Craig Thomas. It's like you guys each had your own kind of areas of magical specialties.

[Josh Radnor]

Where are you gonna see the magic? And it's like the magic is in what you choose to include or not in the story, what you choose to see as part of the story, or maybe your failure to see the magic that's in the story. It's like when you're depressed, you're not seeing the magic and when you're in those moments where you're actually seeing some shape to your life and realizing, like, wait, that's kind of. That's unbelievable that it worked out that way. There's something happening there. There's some sort of, like, shape to this that can't be quite explained. And I think we've all had moments in our life that are one or the other, and this is just both, because it's Marshall's worst moment and it's Ted's best moment, and they happen at the same fucking moment. That rain means something completely different to Marshall than what that rain means to Ted at that moment.

[Craig Thomas]

Like, Marshall is getting to Marshall. It is the kind of. The dourness or gloominess of the moment is meeting him, and the rain is pounding him. The rain to hit the rain to marshal is tears. And the reign to Ted is proof that magic exists and Robin will be mine.

[Josh Radnor]

And how do two best friends share that moment? That moment of you guys on that stoop and how you sit next to him? It makes me cry every single time. They're in two different worlds, but they're together. And Ted knows he needs to sit and be in Marshall's version of the moment, which I love about Ted. Again, Ted's loyalty.

[Craig Thomas]

Yeah. It also, I think, is really smart about how, as friends, you have to navigate, let's say, you're having success or something, and your friend is. Is hurting, or you're getting married and your friends just getting broken up. Like, there's so many times where you're not linked up emotionally with your friends, and you have to navigate that. You have to dip into their narrative for a little bit and offer solace and even accept that they might not be in a space where they can be as happy for you as you would wish they would be. When Ted pulls up in the cab and then sees Marshall, Jordana realizing what had happened, she says, they won't let us be happy for one goddamn second.

[Josh Radnor]

Oh, my God. And I think Carter and I are the they in that sentence. Yeah, we are the they are the they. Oh, my God. But I bet she wants to tune into season two.

[Craig Thomas]

So we got to.

[Josh Radnor]

Yeah, we win. Look, I mean, story is conflict, right? And you need a reason to tune in. It's like. It can't just be like. And then it all worked out, right? Then it all worked out. It's the roll credits. That's the whole show. It's, you know, it's the journey. But it is true. Ted is so euphoric, even Riding in that cab with the look on Ted's face with the way you played that Josh. The Christmas morning euphoria of that makes it such a knockout punch when Ted walks and finds Marshall on that stoop. It is one of my favorite moments in the series, but I acknowledge that it is surfing into a brick wall.

[Craig Thomas]

Yeah, but it's also great as an actor to know that you. The assignment was you go from the happiest you've ever been to, oh, my God, my friend. Not only is my friend heartbroken, but my entire social family has just cracked, you know? Yeah. It's really like. And, And. And yes, that's hard. Maybe the audience who, who wants just happy, happy, fun, fun. Like, maybe they'll be upset about it, but people who are really there for the emotional ride of it, they secretly love this. You know what I mean? Like, that's why I think we all.

[Josh Radnor]

Secretly love this shit.

[Craig Thomas]

They do. Because also, you know that you're not gonna. It's a cliffhanger. The hero's about to. Is not gonna make it. The story's. You know, we're not gonna figure it out. But you tune in because you're like, we want twists and turns. We want to. To. We want to see people overcome. And this old man, he must admit he fell in love with you. New York City.

[Josh Radnor]

And now commercials.

[Craig Thomas]

Alec Das. How's the summer going? And what do you. When. When I say the word summer, what does it bring up in you? What do you think about what are those just some free association here?

[Alec Lev]

Sure, sure, sure. Now, for me, summer is year round, my friend. I live in sunny Los Angeles. And so when you say summer, you're asking me, you're asking me about life, man. When I think about life, man, think about the beach, man.

[Craig Thomas]

Yeah, you Angelina's. I was one of you for many years. You don't even know when summer is. Someone asks you what month it is, and when you live in Los Angeles, you need 30 seconds to come up with an answer.

[Alec Lev]

I checked my watch for. It's October. That's.

[Craig Thomas]

That's.

[Alec Lev]

I have my watch just set to tell me the month. But I'll tell you one thing that's hitting me, hits me every year on the. The summer when those, when those rates spike is my. My wireless plan.

[Craig Thomas]

Oh, yeah, that happens on the east coast too. That's not specific to the West Coast.

[Alec Lev]

Oh, oh, oh, okay.

[Craig Thomas]

It's a national problem. It's a national problem.

[Alec Lev]

What's a man to do?

[Craig Thomas]

I mean, we could take a page out of our friend Dougie's book and switch up our wireless carrier. You know what I'm saying?

[Alec Lev]

The exciting adventure pictures of Doug and.

[Craig Thomas]

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[Alec Lev]

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[Craig Thomas]

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[Alec Lev]

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[Craig Thomas]

What a deal.

[Josh Radnor]

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[Alec Lev]

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[Jordana Radnor]

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[Josh Radnor]

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[Craig Thomas]

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[Jordana Radnor]

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[Josh Radnor]

It's on prime. End of commercials. Back to show.

[Craig Thomas]

Nick Cave wrote one of my favorite things. He's asked, will AI ever write a great song? And he said, AI will write a good song, but they'll never write a great song because they can mimic human feeling, and they can make you feel all the things that a good song will make you feel. But a. But greatness lies in the fact of a human being transcending limitation. But robots and machines don't have limitation, so there's nothing to transcend. Therefore, there's nothing. To wit, you can't witness greatness because there's, you know, he talks about, you know, Kurt Cobain and smells like teen spirit. It's like. It's. It's. It's the audacity to try to transcend this little town he grew up in, to transcend his addiction to howl towards heavens, you know, for this generational lament. An AI has never been heartbroken. An AI has never been addicted to drugs. An AI has never lived in a small town and felt stifled by it. There's all these human things that. That the AI will never be able to transcend. So I just love, you know. And again, watching Ted try to transcend the limitation of a person who doesn't know how to make it rain, but by golly, he does, you know. Yeah.

[Josh Radnor]

Yeah. There's so much humanity in this episode. But the AI description would be Ted makes it rain to keep Robin from going camping. You know what I mean? It's like, yeah, those are the facts, but what's the nuance? Yeah, right? That's beautiful. That's exactly it. There has to be skin in the game. There has to be blood in it. And that's what we're going for with the ending of the season. I'm kind of thrilled that still, 20 years later, it makes people scream at the TV, like, even Jordana's like, what are they doing to us? It's like we were trying to get that reaction. We really were.

[Craig Thomas]

It's evidence that she was in. You know what I mean? Like, she was really happy, and then she got pulled back down to earth, just like Ted, just. You know what I mean?

[Josh Radnor]

Like, she's.

[Craig Thomas]

That's where Ted is really the tour guide of the show. He's taking you on this emotional tour.

[Josh Radnor]

I wish we got two extra minutes at the end of that episode, and we could have had that song play out even more and made that montage a little longer, Made the ramp up to Ted seeing Marshall longer, made the very end a little longer. It's beautiful. I love that song. That's an amazing song. This Modern Love by Block Party. One of my favorite music drops that. I think we entirely got to that song because Josh Ewan Carter went to Coachella.

[Craig Thomas]

Correct.

[Josh Radnor]

Saw Blockbuster I think. And then you're like, we have to use that song. So that was like a joint song pitch from Ewan Carter. The perfect song, maybe my favorite music. Needle drop in, certainly in season one, maybe ever, of the whole show. It's an amazing song for that moment. But just to do behind the scenes for one second, I just want to say this because I do feel like I've heard from some younger writers who listen to this podcast and directors and produce people who make stuff. I'll just tell one little story about what happened to us at the end of season one. Carter and I went to the sound mix for this episode, which is the last thing. For the last episode, for the last, you know, for the end of season one. And from the sound mix we had, where you're just putting the cherry on top, you say, all right, we're done with season one. You feel really good. We went to a meeting at cbs, which we thought was a meeting about season two, just to give us some feedback and lay out some dates and some plans. But it was like a big meeting. The head of CBS, the head of our home studio, 20th, the presidents of that studio were going, and it was a lot of people at the meeting, a lot of department heads from marketing and this and that. We thought it was about season two. Instead, we walked in having again, basically just finished the marathon break. The tape collapse after this 26 mile run and you're pouring water on your head. You limp into this meeting and they go, we don't like what you've done here. And the reason they didn't like what we had done here. Well, the real reason is that we were starting to lose to that show where Howie Mandel would open suitcases full of money, and it was starting to get better ratings than us. That's why that was their bigger concern, which I share that concern. I also was disturbed by that turn of events, but we were starting to get beaten in the ratings by that show, which was the briefcase full of money show. Deal or no Deal, I think it was called. Um, but so. Which has really stood the test of time, too. Who's not watching that on Netflix and Hulu?

[Craig Thomas]

I listen to how we made Deal or no Deal every week.

[Josh Radnor]

How we dealed or no Dealed. So, yeah, it's very. It's oddly pensive and reflective. Howie Mandel is just going very deep because what's in the briefcase is what's in our soul. Well, definitely check that podcast out next once this one's over. But we were losing. We were Getting creamed by what's in the briefcase. And our ratings dipped a bit and we got called into a meeting, and I will say this by called in a meeting with a bunch of very nice people who had believed in the show till that point. And himyeom style flash forward continued later to very much believe in and support the show creatively too. But at the end of season one, there was a bad moment, a moment of doubt. And they thought the thesis given to us was the reason you're losing out to Briefcase Full of Money show is that you're too serialized, you're asking too much of the audience. You're too emo, it's too emotional. You're counting on the audience to watch every episode and track these arcs and these narratives. And I'm sure it didn't help that the final two minutes of the season was magical realism in which a guy makes it rain and then comes home and sees his heartbroken best friends on the steps. And the last shot is. Is a pulling back shot in the rain of the highs and the lows of life set to a indie rock song by a very cool British band that finishes and you could flip the channel. And Howie Mandel's like, there's money in here. And at 9 o' clock you're gonna watch Two and a Half Men and it's Charlie Sheen. And we were fucking weird. We were a fucking weird show. We were the Black Sheep on CBS. We were probably the Black Sheep of 8:30 to 9:30 on network TV. Cause what the fuck were doing with this guy? Making it rain.

[Craig Thomas]

Hey, Howie Mandel was making it rain every night.

[Josh Radnor]

He was making it rain so much rain. The best kind of rain. The green kind.

[Craig Thomas]

If, if, if, if we'd gotten canceled after season one, I think we would have been, you know, it would have been another Jason Siegel classic that got canceled after one season. You know, like, it would have been, I think, a kind of Freaks and Geeks.

[Josh Radnor]

A noble, noble failure where the network gets.

[Craig Thomas]

But for some weird cosmic reason, it feels like, because we. Through some sort of. I don't know what kept us on the air, but there was something. I think we were more on the bubble than we thought we were.

[Josh Radnor]

We were on the bubble. We were definitely on the bubble. Here's the end of that story. We're in this big conference room with this huge table full of people. It was the heads of the studio, the heads of the network. And it reminded me of that scene where Joe Paschy in Goodfellas, he thinks he's Walking in to become a made man and have this great positive meeting, and then instead, he's assassinated. That was how the meeting felt a little bit where Carter and I were a little bit looking down like, oh, this is not the meeting we thought. And we were just told, be less serialized. Be less emo. More standalone episodes. Come on, you have a great cast. Don't throw this thing away. Don't throw this thing away by being so heady and emotional and intricately serialized, all that kind of stuff. Flash forward to season two. We didn't stop doing any of that stuff. If anything, we did it more. And so the point of my story is, stick to your guns. The point of the story is we believed that the audience was there for this type of show with this tone. Maybe our ratings had dipped a little. Maybe we were. Maybe we were gonna be a slow burn. Maybe we're gonna have people find us. And we just had to hang out till that happened. It started to happen more in season two. It started to happen more in season three. The show got on Netflix. That really made it start to happen. And all of a sudden, everyone was consuming television in the way that rewarded serialized storytelling, emotional storytelling, intricate, playful, curious, weird, abstract, creative storytelling. And we just were able to weather that storm. And again, by that point, all those same people who had expressed that concern at the end of season one kind of went, we get it. We see what you're doing, and it's working. And they did stick by us. Carter and I thought we were gonna get fired. We didn't even necessarily think the show was gonna get canceled, but we're like, are we gonna get fired off our own show? Which has happened, because it's like the feeling was you're squandering this opportunity because you're telling stories in this crazy way. And we disagreed. Pam Freyman disagreed, you guys, the cast disagreed. You all had faith in us, and we basically just doubled down and kept doing it. We didn't change much of anything in season two. If anything, we just did it more. So I'm very proud that we stuck with what the vision was, and I'm so happy it worked out in the end.

[Craig Thomas]

Well, it's almost like TV shows are not unlike romance, right? Where things can line up. They can be the right. Right. Right people, wrong time, right? And so much had to break our way. Like, truly. Like, I remember when we went on Netflix and it was. I remember Breaking Bad was kind of a quiet, critically beloved, but. But kind of quiet show. And then it went on Netflix, and it Just became a phenomenon. And the, and, and a similar thing happened to us. I, I, I do remember very strongly. I think it was fourth season. We were sitting around on a Tuesday waiting to start, or maybe we were waiting for the execs to come. I think it was that we were waiting for, like, everyone to come down for a table read. I mean, for the run through. And I remember Jason said to us, are things getting weird for you guys out here? Anyone else? Like, meaning he was getting recognized for the show more than ever. And before, we always said we were like this sleepy little sleeper. We were, we were beloved by the people that were watch, watching, but otherwise we were whatever. But when it went on Netflix, people just caught it. It started spreading around. We all started to feel like we were more on a hit television show than we had ever felt. We hadn't felt that the first three seasons and so much had to go right. It was like we had all the right elements. I think what the executives were saying was, we know we have something special here. They were just trying to figure out how to keep it, you know, to make it blaze a little brighter. Right.

[Josh Radnor]

I genuinely believe that. I really do think they loved it. They were good people, and they did stick by the show. They were concerned at that one moment. And the ending is happy because these were executives that did stick with believing in us, believing in the show. I feel like the show was doing a rain dance. The show itself was doing Ted's rain dance on the roof, saying, please come on, come on, come on. And the universe, it delivered for us in the end. And thank you, thank you. Honestly, thank you to the fan.

[Craig Thomas]

Yeah, well, why don't we. Let's go through, like, these were kind of my notes that I really liked. What was the thing Marshall said? Whoa, chills. Anyone else get chills? What was that at the beginning?

[Josh Radnor]

He says to Ted, unless your dating life is the glue holding the entire universe together. Chills. Did anybody else get chills? I love that line because it's the stakes of the whole show. Ted's dating life is the universe.

[Alec Lev]

Right.

[Josh Radnor]

The universe of the show is that that's the universe of, of this story. So it's actually kind of true.

[Craig Thomas]

Right. It's almost like he's saying, like, what if, what if we're a part of a story that's being told? It's very simulation theory.

[Josh Radnor]

It is a simulation theory.

[Craig Thomas]

I love when Sandy river says, camping out in the rain. Muddy. Yuck.

[Josh Radnor]

I wrote that one down too. Muddy. Yuck. It's just he has Nothing to say if he's not given. He's one of those talking heads that has nothing to say except what's on the teleprompter. He really can't get it through a meaningful sentence. His pink shirt and pink tie is amazing. And his freak juice flowing line. It's also amazing.

[Craig Thomas]

I loved hearing. So we had a script supervisor named Janet Kagan, who was this hilarious, lovely, delightful British woman who was always at a podium just to the side of the monitors with Pam Freyman. We would gather around. For nine years, we gathered around her podium before four big scenes. We ran lines with her. She was so funny. Such a.

[Josh Radnor]

Such a.

[Craig Thomas]

Just delightful, essential presence on the stage. But we hear her voice. I think she even says, this is Janet Kagan. She's the one who offers Ali her summer fellowship acceptance. Right. That, that. That Marshall hears.

[Josh Radnor]

Yeah.

[Craig Thomas]

So just, just a shout out to Janet. We love Janet. I. I will say that I am not a fan of the gesture that Ted is a fan of. Of the over the top. Like hiring a blue string protector. It's ridiculous. Plus how many roses. There had to have been like eight dozen roses. And like, he's an architect. He's a young architect. He's not making that much money. Like, it's an absurd gesture. And I think that her kind of allergy to it is appropriate. And it's one of those things when people ask me, like, what do I love about him? What do I hate about him? This is something I don't particularly like about him. I think it's over the top. I think it's a little creepy. And I think it's sometimes really misplaced. Like, he. The Ted I like is my gesture is I put on a bleach stained sweatshirt and I come to your cupcake shop and I kiss you. You. That to me is just more, I think, because he started the Robin adventure with this grand gesture of stealing the blue French horn. I think he tries to up the ante and it's just something that makes my skin crawl a little bit.

[Josh Radnor]

I just wanted to say that I agree. Well, I think you notice in the season one, when he tries to do the perfect thing, it doesn't work. When he puts on the sweatshirt with the bleach stain, it does. And even in this one, this gesture does not work. But the sort of messy and insane and unhinged thing that is not at all traditionally romantic. The rain dance, the act of faith and asking the universe for help, that's what works. Not the roses. I feel like there's interesting lesson there. And I think it's in accord with what you just said.

[Craig Thomas]

I also think there's. I remember you guys said that Ted was pitched as Lloyd Dobler meets George Bailey from It's a Wonderful Life. And I think that there's a thing you can watch on YouTube of like all the times that John Cusack has been rained on. I think he's been one of the most rained on actors in cinema history. And I think that was a little wink to the Cusackian film bio, you know, that he was getting just doused.

[Josh Radnor]

Absolutely. I mean, there's just such a power to seeing you out there in the rain. That big crane shot, the big jib shot looking down on you and you're getting fully doused and you are really soaked. You're looking up, it's getting in your eyes. Like you can't replicate. The performance that you achieved in that moment is partially because of that rain and going into your eyes and washing down your face. It really changes the energy, doesn't it?

[Craig Thomas]

I always loved one. We've talked about it going down to New York street where you would just, you would either take a golf cart or. I liked actually walking down to New York street, but it was like a eight to ten minute stroll down to New York street from stage 22 and you're in Southern California. It's almost never raining like that. So they would bring in this huge tanker of rainwater and they just would make it rain on the stage. And I always felt like when I was on the stage getting. When I was on New York street getting rained on, I felt like I've made it in show business. Like there was so many such a feeling of like old timey Hollywood, you know, New York street getting rained on. It was such a sweet, cool feeling of make believe, but real. Like it was just. I just loved it. So I think part of my joy is in the. I'm in the character. I'm in the moment.

[Josh Radnor]

It's the, it's the Hollywood of the end of Pee Wee's Big Adventure.

[Craig Thomas]

Yeah, I'm in the. I'm in the joy of the character, but I'm also in the joy of the actor getting to do this fun thing.

[Josh Radnor]

Just to point out, Alexis Denisof is wonderful in this episode. So is Amy Acker, who plays Barney's quote unquote ex, who he dated twice, who knows about Native American culture and is studying it in grad school. And she is from the show angel, where she was a co star and eventually love interest of Alexis, Alexis's character on Angel. Angel's the spinoff from Buffy. I love both shows. So did Carter. So it was wonderful to have an angel mini reunion in this episode. And also for the sharp eyed vampire. Lou is, of course, Lou the weatherman.

[Craig Thomas]

She really. She was wonderful, Amy. Jordana even said, I really like her. She's great. You know, she. I just thought she was such a winning presence and really, she gave it to Barney in a really funny way that I thought was really quite charming. I loved when Barney said, you're forcing me to be the voice of reason. And it's not a good look for me. I loved Craig. I loved pause. Where did pause come from? It's actually quite a smart relationship tactic. But where did that come from? Do you remember?

[Josh Radnor]

It is a very good relationship tactic. I think that is something to steal from. I think it was invented. I can't remember if anyone in the room really did that. I have a faint memory, like, maybe somebody did. But we may have invented it for Marshall and Lily, who have been together long enough to have created something like that. Right. They're the old married couple in their late 20s and I think they've come up with something that has helped them get this far. Except we see that tactic run out of gas here in the end, too. It doesn't quite save them this time in Red Lobster.

[Craig Thomas]

Like, they can't. Like, pause is maybe effective in some ways, but when you have that tsunami of emotions behind it, it's like you can only pause so much and something's going to come up and take over. That's a great.

[Josh Radnor]

Yeah. I love. Their whole story is amazing and heartbreaking. They're so, so heartbreaking in this one. Watching them unravel and still be adorable at the same time. And crying and eating lobster and still.

[Craig Thomas]

Loving each other so much.

[Josh Radnor]

Yeah, still loving each other. It's not that. It's not that they're not in love. It's just they're discovering they're in two different places at this moment. And that's really fucking hard and really scary. They've been in the same place till now.

[Craig Thomas]

You know what was really startling to me and really beautiful was Ally. Just the ferociousness with which she kisses him. Him to get him to stop. I was going to say I really feel.

[Josh Radnor]

And you think it's going to work? You think it's going to work? That's the great part about that.

[Craig Thomas]

Yeah.

[Josh Radnor]

You think that's the end of the story.

[Craig Thomas]

Yeah.

[Josh Radnor]

That's what's so good about that moment.

[Craig Thomas]

But I just love the. The passion. Like, you see that this is not like an old married couple. Like, they're still really hot for each other. They're still really. They still really feel it. And, and you know, it's also a kind of. It's a young tactic to try to like, we can't talk about this anymore. Let's just go have sex. You know, like, it's. I mean, sometimes that can work.

[Josh Radnor]

Let's bang our way out of this.

[Craig Thomas]

Yeah, let's bang our way out of this.

[Josh Radnor]

Exactly.

[Craig Thomas]

Sometimes that, that can work. But. But it is. It's a great mislead for the audience. But I think, I think, you know, whenever you guys threw us these big dramatic scenes that almost could be in a play on Broadway way, you know, like, they get to. You can see that. That Neil and I'm not Neil. Jason and Ally are just like, they're so present with each other. They're so. They're so. They're just acting their fucking asses off. And it's such a pleasure to watch us. And you know, my, My comrades take this, this so seriously. You know, no one was phoning this stuff in, especially in scenes like that.

[Josh Radnor]

I remember feeling heartbroken watching that, right? And I remember the whole crew, it's like, it was funereal, right? It was like, we all love them so much, and we're watching them fall apart and it goes silent on the stage because you feel everybody on that crew caring about this couple so much, who are not real people, but it feels so real. And those are the moments when you feel like the boom mic operator, when you feel the camera operator, when you feel them leaning in like, holy shit, I can't believe they're having this big of a fight. Those are the moments. You're like, this may be a TV show, this may go a few seconds seasons, because we're all in here.

[Craig Thomas]

We had to depend on our crew as our first fans and our first viewers. And like, I remember, like, how much Bruce loved the show, how much Rabbit loved the show, how much just people would tell you they'd been on enough shows to know, you know, when you're on a turkey, you know, you know, when you're on a show that you're kind of like, this is a paycheck and it's going to be good. I'm going to feed my family and this is the business I'm in, and it's fine, but it's extra special when you get to do the same job and love what you're filming love what the sound you're catching. And the crew was always. They were so invested. And I think the thing with Marshall and Lily is, you know, Ted was just up. He was down. He was. He was having victories. He was getting punched around. He was really the one who was always kind of up in the air. Barney is, you know, doing his Barney stuff. Robin was trying to figure out who she was. If there's one thing you could depend upon emotionally in the first season, you're like, well, if anything, in this crazy world of How I Met yout Mother is solid. It's this Marshall and Lily couple. Like, they give us hope that you can make it work. You can have a relationship. And the moment Ted gets his victory, that relationship falls apart. And it's quite devastating because pulled the rug out from under. One of the big promises of the show is there's one couple that really is here to stay.

[Josh Radnor]

Yeah. And I think it's very seismic. It's seismic for the group, it's seismic for everybody. The fact that it's pouring down rain feels like somehow both Ted and the end of Marshall and Lily's relationship both made it rain in different ways. And it's huge. It's a huge moment. It's a very powerful feeling moment. And I feel that power there. Acting is so powerful. Your acting is so powerful. You guys meeting up in these completely different moments. You're almost under two different rain clouds sitting on one stoop. It's so powerful. That moment. It's one of my favorite moments of the entire series. You and Jason sitting there on that front stoop and. Yeah, it's great. I loved that. I love the ending of that episode. It's one of my all time favorites.

[Craig Thomas]

Well, this is a segment of the show we like to call questions and observations from a clinical psychologist who's never seen How I met your mind and also happens to be married to Josh.

[Jordana Radnor]

I saw a friend this weekend who loves him, Yim. And she listened to some of my questions and she said, okay, that's fine. But what I really want to hear about is what it's like for you to watch Josh on tv. So I'll answer that. I'll say it's thrilling and also somewhat surreal. First of all, and I tell Josh this all the time, I think he's an extraordinary actor and hilarious and I'm so proud when watching him in his craft. And it's a very special thing to laugh at something he's done on TV or a face he's made and simultaneously get to hold his hand. But it's also very strange. You know, I feel like I'm watching my husband, but not my husband, watching a version of him without the 20 years of wisdom that he's gained over time and has now. You know, I'm watching not yet the man that I met, but the seeds of that man. And I'm also watching him play a version of a character that he has some overlap with, but he's ultimately very different from Ted. So it's him, but it's not him, which is something we've unpacked and talked about a lot, what it was like to be known as. As someone called the name of someone that he wasn't. So as his wife, I'm personally glad I didn't see the show before we met. And I'm glad I waited this long to watch so that I never get confused. I never conflate the two. I know who Josh is and I know who Ted is, and now I feel like I just get to love them both.

[Josh Radnor]

Yeah, that's the best. How does that feel, Josh? Gosh, that's the best. That's the podcast, right? That's the. This came from that, right? This podcast that we're doing came from that in some way, did it not? Isn't that. That's the spark in some ways?

[Craig Thomas]

Yeah, yeah. She said, I want to watch it. I'm ready to watch it. And so then I thought, I, you know, I called you, I said, you want to do something more formal? Because I'm going to start watching the show with Jordana. I think I had listened. I had listened to that voice note, but I was very moved just now, and I really. I think I'm getting to see my. I think a real love is you get to see yourself through someone else's eyes, through someone else's very loving eyes. You get to feel yourself worthy of that kind of love. And I think that getting to watch the show with her and her being so clear on the boundaries and borders of my identity and who I am and who she met and who she fell in love with and who she's with now, but also that he had this big life before her and this big, very public facing aspect to that life and just the ability to. Yeah. To sit with her and show her, this is what I was doing. This is what helped me become the kind of man who could marry you and be here with you on this couch in Brooklyn watching this show. It's very sweet. And she, as you can hear, I guess I also really want to thank Jordana1, for wanting to watch the show again, wanting to learn about this part of me, and also.

[Josh Radnor]

For.

[Craig Thomas]

Her contributions week to week. I think they've really elevated the show. I think they've invited us, me, you, and Craig and Alec to go deeper in thinking about the show. I think she comes at this from such a pure but really informed and thoughtful place. I love that my wife is both psychological and spiritual. You know, she has these two qualities that were very important for me in partnership because I have those in myself. So it's been a real treat to both watch the show next to her and also hear her reflections on them. She goes into our office and I think, thinks for a little while and records these for us. But it's been a real asset to the show to have her. She would die if we ever had her on as a guest. She would freeze up. And she doesn't like to be put on the spot, but she really likes to contribute in this particular way. So it's been just lovely. So thank you, Jordana, for upping the quality of this show so considerably, and I love you.

[Alec Lev]

As we're heading towards the end of this, Josh, I want to ask you a question about this whole venture that you have set us on here, these podcasts. I went back and I listened to the trailer, which we took much of from our very first and second episodes. And the last line of the trailer is you saying, it's like, are you ready to go back to Titanic? And I am, as a huge Titanic fan who, yes, saw twice on opening day and yesterday, went to see the virtual reality experience here in Los Angeles. Angeles. I'm reminded, of course, that at the end. I know. Hold for applause. At the end of Titanic, I'm reminded that he didn't find what he was looking for. Or more importantly, what he says is, I never let it in. Right. He discovered something new when he finally went back to Titanic. So my question to you, Josh, is there something new that you never expected rewatching all of this and talking about it would do for you? Or even more Titanically, is there something that you're letting in? Is there something that you've let in that maybe you haven't over the last decade or 20 years that doing this has. Has done for you?

[Craig Thomas]

Yeah. What a great question, Alec. I think that I've mentioned this before, but it bears repeating. I have always had had a conflicted relationship with this show insofar as it gave me so much, and it also took away something that I didn't know I had and was precious my anonymity, my ability to be thought of as a singular, unified personality. Josh Radner it bifurcated that and split that up in certain ways that were unsettling. It gave me an identity crisis over the years that was hard to navigate. And it gave me. It was my patron. It allowed me to live a creative life and do all these different things and explore all these different parts of myself and travel and expand my world in so many ways. It also. One of my favorite things is if I reach out to someone that I love their work or if I just admire them, whether it's show business or not, my reputation precedes me a little bit. And people generally say, thanks for reaching out. Let's have coffee. You know, so it allows me to be in the world in a pretty dynamic way that I've always really loved. But there's always been this shadow side to it, and it's always been this thing that I kind of was swatting away. You know, if. If someone came up to me and called me by my real name, I was so much friendlier than if they called me Ted, you know, or if they shouted Ted from their car. I would bristle, and I would be angry about it. But I've done a lot of work around it, and I was doing a lot of really good work around that before we even did this show. Getting married helped me a lot with it, just because my wife is a psychologist, and she was so acutely and beautifully sensitive to this particular kind of sensitivity that I had around this. So I was moving through it and past it and integrating it more and more. But the process of revisiting the show and watching the show, I think I was able to. We talked about this on a commercial, but I was just in Ecuador last weekend or the weekend before for a Comic Con. I was there for three or four days, and I met a ton of people, all from Ecuador, and they were so lovely and so such beautiful people. And they were so excited to see me and meet me. And it wasn't all just about the show. They seemed to really see me in a kind of 360 way. But meeting people who just said, you know, I love you so much. You taught me so much about life. You inspire me. I don't know what my life would be without Ted Mosby in this show. Like, I could hear it with different ears. I could hear it with. I could hear it that they weren't saying, you're just this one thing. They were saying you changed my life. Something you were a part of, and the energy you brought to it changed my life. And that to me has been. I'm so glad that my ears are open enough and my heart is now open enough to hear that. And, you know, we talked about this, Craig. I remember we were saying, like, sometimes people when they're such big fans of the show and they come up to you about the show, it almost feels like hostile or aggressive, like they're being a little like mean or it's tinged with some kind of edge. And I felt that for years, but now I'm just seeing the sweetness of it and I'm seeing, you know, when a 14 or 15 year old comes up to me and I'm like, like, you weren't born when this show started, but you love it and it's teaching you something. And I think that even though we're doing some mea culpas around some stuff we did, I think 85% of this show is like, we stand by it and we believe that we were imparting something beautiful. We are putting something beautiful into the culture and it remains. And I feel really grateful to have been a part of something like that. Some of those tender spots still remain. You know, if you, if you see me on the street, like, you'll have a much nicer encounter with me. If you call me Josh, you know, you just will. I still have some sensitivities towards, like, call me by my real name, you know, but, but largely I'm just able to, to, to, to understand why people love this show so much. And I'm getting to be. I think I've mentioned this, but Paul McCartney said, you know, when people come up to him and say, I'm such a fan of the Beatles, and he says, oh, me too, you know, he was both a part of the Beatles and a. And a huge driving force of why it was so brilliant and successful. And also he can hover outside it now and go, wow, this was a phenomenon. We were, we were carried aloft by something much bigger than just me and my own talent, my own songwriting ability. This was bigger than me. And I'm a fan of the thing that I was a part of, which is a very strange thing to say. I'm a fan of this thing I was a part of. You know, if I, I suspect if I wasn't on How I Met your mother, I would have really, really loved it. I was actually thinking about this, Craig. I was thinking, what are the chances of meeting two guys who were mostly My age, who both went to. We all went to small liberal arts colleges. One of them was from Ohio, where I was from. From. We had the same taste in music, the same taste in movies, the same kind of concerns in the world we both wanted. Me, you, Carter. We all want our lives to be magic and creative and funny and deep and philosophical. We want to interrogate what we're doing here. And what are the odds that you guys were creating a TV show at just the moment that I was the right age for it. I was the right look for it. I was the right. I mean, this is why so much of, you know, life, they say, is, you know, luck meeting, preparation. But, like, what. What a stroke of good fortune that we all found each other when we did and that we shared a sensibility, and we shared so much that we could really speak shorthand. I mean, I never. I never came up to you with a script, and I was like, I don't get it. You know, like, I understood what you guys were writing. You know, I really understood it in some sort of cellular way. But I'm just. I'm so glad that I'm able to revisit this show with older, wiser, more forgiving eyes and ears and heart and say, like, we did good. We did a good thing, and I'm grateful to be a part of it.

[Josh Radnor]

Beautifully said. I feel the same way. I feel the same way. And one of the things I've gotten out of doing this podcast is just. It's really solidified my sense of. Of this show belongs to the fans now and to the world. It used to feel like, so possessively ours. Like every little part of it was us and reflected on us. And did we do it right? Did we do it right? There's just a softening and a release and a surrender of it in revisiting it like this, that I just. I'm so grateful it was received by the world. I feel like it's for the fans of this show. That's why we wrote it, and that's what it's become, and that's what it always should have been. I think when you're making it, it's hard to fully understand that. And now it'. Snow. I get it. It is that. And thank you. I just want to say thank you to the fans. Like, that whole story I told about getting questioned at the end of season one. Were we telling the story the right way? Thank you, everyone out there who found and supported this show and liked what we liked about the show. And you validated the kind of leap of faith pun intended for future episode of Hymnyum. The leap of faith we took to keep telling the story the way we did in season two, even after getting some doubt thrown at us about that. The ending of the seasons of season one is one of my favorite things in the series. It spun us into what I think is a great season two. And just thanks, thanks to the fans who found this, who got this, who supported it and proved us right to stick with our guns and keep telling the story the way we have. Thank you to Carter Bayes. Thanks to everybody who worked on the show. Josh, what a pleasure to revisit it with you. Thank you for having this idea to go back and it's a great way to bring on some of the other wonderful collaborators like Carter and Pam and Ashley and Kobe. And we'll have more in season two. It's been a joy and it really. The show looks different through 20 years older eyes, but I'm loving it. I'm loving watching it again as future Craig with future Josh.

[Craig Thomas]

So we've come to the final chapter of the final episode of season one of How We Made youe Mother. We are delighted. We have had so much fun. We've loved hearing from everyone. We've loved strolling through season one with you all. Thank you so much for tuning in, for letting friends and family know about this, for sending in your letters and your voice notes. And we're just, we're having a great time. We'll be back.

[Josh Radnor]

Back.

[Craig Thomas]

We're not stopping. We're going to carry on to season two. Alec, what's happening? What's season two going to look like? It's going to be bigger and better than ever. I hear it's going to be bigger.

[Alec Lev]

And better than ever. I guess there's a couple things we can say now is you're not going to have to wait that long. So very, very likely it's going to just be certainly during this calendar year. So you're not going to have to wait that much longer. A couple weeks, Couple months. We will be hard at work on season two. There is something. Guys, guys, what can we say?

[Josh Radnor]

A new opportunity that's going to help make the season two even bigger and even better. A very cool, exciting opportunity that we'll be able to talk about in a little bit. Not yet. And hopefully sometime in the fall, season two will come and there'll be some cool stuff we can share with you but can't talk about. But here we are.

[Alec Lev]

And so our final letters of the.

[Craig Thomas]

Year we're doing a medley of letters. Yeah. So this will be. Me and Craig are both reading these. Thank you again so much for sending these in. They've been just incredibly moving to read and illuminating. We learn new stuff about the show every single week. So thank you. The first letter. This is from Joe. There's a future version of you to whom this all makes more sense that immaculately sums up what I always found so comforting about Himyam. It reminded me that no matter how lost and confused I felt, I would inevitably make it to the other side, where I would then look back and see how those times of pain served a greater purpose in my life.

[Josh Radnor]

This is from Brittany M7491. I like. They were calling these letters. They're like comments on things. They wrote us a letter. Let me open up this piece of paper now. So this is a comment from Brittany. I was gonna watch episode by episode with the weekly podcast. I accidentally watched the entire series. I love it. Look, more power to you. I've heard that a lot from people, and I love it. My. My son. I'm watching it with my son for the first time, and he's way ahead. All right. He's just blazed well in his middle season two, and I'm trying not to do that because I kind of want to watch them fresh each time. But I. I love.

[Craig Thomas]

If I wasn't. If I wasn't demanding that Jordana watch it weekly with me, she would have. She'd be done with the show by now. So I understand the impulse. This is from Millie. I think ultimately what made my favorite show tied with Mad Men was that you dared to be storytellers, to play with chronology and subjectivity. You dared to make us pay attention, to make us think. You dared to make us sit in the uncomfortable emotions that come with life. This sitcom had a heartbeat and not just the formulaic pace of comedy.

[Josh Radnor]

Love that. This is from divelostmind. I would just like to acknowledge the level of meta to this podcast. The Real life Josh Radner. At 50 years old, looking back on a show about older Ted, looking back on a younger Ted and adding commentary and hindsight to these past memories of working on the show and all the misadventures. It's the most him yam thing of all time.

[Craig Thomas]

It's true.

[Josh Radnor]

That's fantastic. We have to make a poster blurb of that one. Yeah.

[Craig Thomas]

This is from Georgie Me Dash villi5851. I literally learned English language watching this TV show when I was a Teenager now I'm living in Canada and when people are asking me how I learn the language, so how I learn the language so fast, I always answer, watching him Yim. No one believes me, but it's the.

[Josh Radnor]

Absolute truth that blows my mind every time I hear that. It's amazing. This is from Julia Nelson, 8190. Just want you all to know that I've watched every episode of this beautiful podcast multiple times. And the Salute General Questions. General Questions episodes as well. I joined the Facebook group also, and of course I'm rewatching him on the daily. This has just been such a joy. I adore this podcast, especially because I work the night shift and I'm always awake when the episodes drop. Which what, Alec, is that like three in the morning on Sunday night into Monday? Monday morning, I should say, on the east coast.

[Alec Lev]

Three o' clock midnight on California.

[Josh Radnor]

It's fantastic. I've heard this from a bunch of people that they work the night shift and put it right on at three in the morning.

[Craig Thomas]

I love that. That's wonderful. I love keeping people company on the night shift. This is from Kira Johnson. This is my first time watching the podcast instead of listening and I have never seen Craig and Alec before. It's so weird. They are not what I thought they would look like.

[Josh Radnor]

I so need there to be more after that. Even if it's an insult, it's the wondering. It's the wondering if it's an insult that is so gutting there.

[Craig Thomas]

It kind of depends on your mood of the day, how you're taking that. You're either thinking, oh, she thinks we're much better looking than she thought, or she's shocked by what she saw.

[Josh Radnor]

Yeah, yeah. Like the rest of it probably isn't like just how much like Brad Pitt we look. It's. That's probably not the sentence that got chopped off there, but thanks. Kira Johnson. 3029 or how dare you? 50. 50. Okay. This is from Cassandra. Josh, I am so truly proud of you and so happy for you that you have finally reached a place that you could do this. I know it took you a long time to come back around to this character that was immensely beloved by so many. Haemyum has truly been my escape for years. Even to this day, I still rewatch my favorite episodes. It's become a comfort to me. I truly thank you for your many years on the show and I really appreciate you doing this not only for yourself, but for the fans. I hope this brings you more healing and peace.

[Craig Thomas]

Oh, thanks. Cassandra, that's so lovely.

[Josh Radnor]

That's nicer than Kira Johnson's thing about Alec and I, right? Or not as nice. Kira, you can follow up. We don't know. You gotta. You left us hanging. Here we go.

[Craig Thomas]

We're gonna open season two with a further explanation from Kira.

[Josh Radnor]

The reveal was the missing sentence there.

[Craig Thomas]

David Anthony writes. I think it is also so loved because they captured a moment before two major changes. Major changes, major changes. One is the sort of preceding the death of cable TV and sitcoms about young 20somethings figuring it out as things transition to streaming and overly dramatic bingeable tv. The second is that it captures life in the sweet spot of the Internet. It was there and you used, but it was not our entire life. We go on it and then got off it and we still interacted with each other in real life and made plans. So it's not just the romance of the show, but the romance of a time before these inventions changed who we are and how we live. I think that is brilliant. I haven't really thought about that, but that is really great insight. Thank you for that, David.

[Josh Radnor]

Yeah, it's there, but it's not everything. I love that. Thank you, David. Brilliant. Sanjay says, like Marshall talks to Stella about Ted's relationship with Star wars and how he watches the movies when he's happy, sick, et cetera. The same is for me with How I Met yout Mother. I lost count of how many times I watched the series from beginning to end. There are days that I'm in a special mood and I watch a very specific episode. This show helped me in my worst times, kept me company during my sleepless nights, made me laugh and cry uncontrollably. Many, many times since I bumped into it by accident on TV back in 2008.

[Craig Thomas]

And the final letter from hello, Leash. I so appreciate when you guys recognize that this show belongs to the fans, perhaps more than it belongs to those who created it. It took me a while to recognize that this is the case. In all honesty, I've been frustrated when an actor doesn't remember one of their iconic lines when asked in an interview or when one of the show's writers gives an opinion about one of the characters. That defies all the analysis I've done of that character for decades. Decades. And then I realize this belongs to the fans. No one has watched and analyzed these stories as much as the fans have. It's the fans that are the keepers of these stories, these characters and their souls. The soul of the show itself continues to live in the hearts and minds and lives of the people who love it dearly. And just like an artist can put her love and care and spirit into creating a painting, if that painting is passed on to a new owner, it's quite likely the owner will come to love and know that painting, particularly from studying and appreciating it daily, more than the creator of said art. The spirit that went into that thing is amplified or diminished depending on how much the keeper loves and appreciates it. And the reason this show is so magical is because there is a band of keepers that continue to nourish the soul of this work of art. Thank you for not only creating it, but for passing it down to us. You may never know how much this means to so many people's lives. Lives. Well, we are getting to know it from letters like that. And I'm just humbled, Craig, to have been a part of something that means this much to people and also to create it with someone I like so much. I just love you, my friend. And when I thought about who I want to walk down memory lane with, you were the person that I wanted to do it with. You and I have always had had a sweet and special connection. I know that Ted was based on Carter, and I think it's funny that the guy who was playing the Carter, you know, felt this ease of friendship with you, who was the Marshall. Because Ted and Marshall love each other, you know, And I love you always. And I'm grateful that we are getting to have this second life professionally together by revisiting this thing we made. And I just think you're the sweet, sweetest, specialist, funniest, kindest dude, and I'm just so grateful you're in my life.

[Josh Radnor]

Oh, man. Thanks, Josh. I'm very moved by that. Thanks, buddy. I feel the exact same way about you. How lucky that you walked into Carter and my office in 2005 and were Ted Mosby and you were the guy and you became our dear, dear friend. We loved you then. We love you now. There's no show without you. And getting to go back on this journey with you and celebrate our friendship and all. All the friendship we shared with everybody that created the show. It's really special, and I really need it right now. I think I keep hearing from fans that say, I like this right now. I need this moment. I need this time travel. I need this little break from what the world feels like. And it's really a gift to get that with you, Josh. So thank you for inviting me on that journey, and thanks to Jordana too, because I really think it sparked from her in a lot of ways and sparked from your marriage and it sparked from where you are in your life right now. So thank you for letting me continue to be a part of your life, my friend. I love you.

[Craig Thomas]

Love you too brother. Hey Alec, we love you too my friend.

[Alec Lev]

And I love you guys. Thank you so much even though you.

[Craig Thomas]

Don'T look anything like I was picturing. We'll see you next season everyone. Thanks so much for going on this journey with us. Thanks. See you next season. I am guilty. Please acquit me. All sins are forgiven in New York City.

[Alec Lev]

How We Made youe Mother is hosted and executive produced by Josh Radner and Craig Thomas. The show was produced by me, Alec Lev and our co producer is Doug Matica. Our audio producer and mixer is Alex Reeves at Point of Blue Studios and our digital content producer, AKA Gen Z Master is Emily Blumberg. Artwork by John Morrow. Please follow rate and review the show on Apple Podcasts or your podcast player of choice. It really does help the show. Our theme song is NYC by our own Josh Radner with additional music by Craig Thomas and Andrew Majewski. Special thanks to Lola Kennedy and Elliot Connors. Visit how we madeyourmother.com to sign up for our Substack mailing list and find for links to our social media. You can also click on the contact page to send us an email or a voice message. Your stories and questions are an important part of the show.

[Craig Thomas]

Want some merch?

[Alec Lev]

Click on the store link or go to howyougetyourmerch.com subscribe to Josh Radner's Muse Letters on Substack. Order Craig Thomas debut [e-mail] novel and you can subscribe to My Dead Fathers Society, also on Substack, to learn about how you make a difference. This show's ongoing campaign to raise money for congenital heart disease research. Check out the Make a Difference tab at the top of our website. This episode was made possible by the support of Backyard Ventures. People will in fact dance the real.

[Craig Thomas]

Question it just hit me. Am I in love with you or just New York City?

[Jordana Radnor]

What do you think makes the perfect snack?

[Craig Thomas]

Hmm, it's gotta be when I'm really.

[Alec Lev]

Craving it and it's convenient.

[Jordana Radnor]

Could you be more specific when it's cravinient?

[Craig Thomas]

Okay, like a freshly baked cookie made with real butter, available right down the.

[Josh Radnor]

Street at am, pm Or a savory.

[Craig Thomas]

Breakfast sandwich I can grab in just a second at a.m. pM.

[Josh Radnor]

I'm seeing a pattern here.

[Craig Thomas]

Well, you. Yeah. We're talking about what I crave, which.

[Jordana Radnor]

Is anything from ampm.

[Josh Radnor]

What more could you want? Stop by AMPM where the snacks and drinks are perfectly craveable and convenient. That's cravenience AM PM too much good stuff.