Alyson Hannigan

Season 4

The biggest reveal from the chat was regarding an upcoming guest star. Danny Glover will appear in the March 30th episode, though not as you might expect. “He’s not on the show, but he makes an appearance.” Also, some of our “old favorite” gueststars will return at the end of this season.

The finale of this season deals with the climax of the Robin-Barney saga. The finale episode was shot in January to accommodate the pregnancies of Alyson and Cobie so they already decided how it’ll end, the rest of this season will just serve as the build up to that end. When asked for specifics Carter simply said “when a boy likes a girl, there is an inevitable climax.”

The remaining episodes of this season will pick up some languishing story lines, most notably Ted’s romantic life. Carter tells us to expect a return of the yellow umbrella and reiterates what he told EW: the last episodes will directly address the title of the show. He also hints that some old plotlines and stories from previous seasons will return in unexpected ways.

Season 5

Next season will add a new dynamic to the show. Carter tells us to expect a shift in setting, a new world for some of the characters.

We’ll also get closer to meeting the mom (which means we don’t meet her at the end of this season.)

Ted will open his own architecture firm called “Mosbius”

General thoughts on the show Carter was very specific is saying that fans shouldn’t worry because all the things they want to know more about have not been forgotten. The pineapple, the goat, the yellow umbrella, Victoria—all things the writers haven’t forgotten about either and may, someday, return.

When asked if they’d like a specific end date for the show, ala Lost, Carter says there’s “no reason to stop doing [the show] for a long time.” He even mentioned the show going into season 8 or 9. He would like to know when the finale is though, to be able to write a satisfactory conclusion.

The slaps are coming, but they want to spread them out. They also feel like each consecutive slap needs to be built up bigger than the one before it.

There’s a good chance another Robin Sparkles song will be discovered.

The writers all love Victoria and would love to see what happened with her.

The general writing process is one where they come up with a situation or climactic moment and then figure out how to get the characters from where they are to that place.

He confirmed, once and for all, that while certain areas of narration (sandwiches) suggest Future-Ted might be stretching the truth, they will never use this as a cheap bait-and-switch. Future Ted really is Ted, not Barney, there’s no twist coming in that sense.

When asked about LAME Carter said that it’s not often you see a strong, happy couple on a sitcom and they really wanted to show that that exists with Marshall and Lily.

When asked about if Britney would return Carter said “I don’t know, some people had heard of her when she first came on the show but her appearance made her really famous, I don’t know if we could get her anymore.”

There are a lot of stories surrounding parenthood that they would love to write but they decided they just weren’t ready yet to go there this season, there’s too many funny bar stories left to tell.

When asked why the show has had such a slow rise in popularity, Carter credits the fans for spreading the show through word of mouth, the fact that they didn’t have an incredibly well known cast or catchy premise, and that there have now been four years of solid storytelling. He is very appreciative of all the fans and says he’d much rather have a show that is organically popular than get viewers because of gimicks or flashy advertising.

During the first season the writers had a discussion regarding Barney and whether or not he was magical. While they decided he was a real person, he still does some pretty magical things (sweeping The Price is Right, running a marathon, hiring a wife.) The writers even played with an idea where Barney would end up being called out to the mound to pitch in the 9th inning of a Yankees game.

The last question asked was “how does it feel to work on the funniest show on TV?” to which Carter replied “I know some people who writer for 30 Rock, I’ll have to ask them.”