'How I Met Your Mother's Final Season Premieres Tonight: 5 Tips For How to Survive the Series' End

Here's the thing: We know she's important. We know everyone who's stuck with the show this long is either overtly or secretly dying to know what the writers are going to do with the character.

Here's the other thing: We all kind of just need to chill the frick out about it. Some people are just bound to not like her; after nine years of anticipation, it's an inevitability. Some people will love her. But the truth of the matter is unless you're part of the cast or crew (or a very lucky person with connection to those people), none of us know how exactly The Mother is going to unfold. So this is perhaps our most important tip of the list: Don't lower your expectations, but maybe just move them to the side for a while. You might enjoy the whole ride more if you do.

For a sitcom, this show has a pretty vast mythology behind it. If you can't re-watch every episode, we suggest you go back and hit the big moments: Robin Sparkles, the first Intervention, etc. We also know they're going to show us the final slap ever sometime this season, so it couldn't hurt to go back and relive the first four; they are some of the show's best episodes, after all.

Ugh, Ted. Sometimes he reeks of Nice Guy™, sometimes he's that fun intelligent guy you want to strike up a conversation with when you're getting your coffee. He contains multitudes, and unfortunately sometimes those multitudes include him being just a giant bag of dicks without realizing it.

This season's promos feature the possible plot point of Ted trying to interrupt Barney and Robin's wedding. It is our personal theory that he's changed his mind about trying to win Robin back and is instead on a mission to provide closure between him and Robin before the wedding takes place. We could be wrong. But! We could also be right.

Either way, we advise giving Ted some time to... blossom this season. That's the cheesiest phrasing we could have possibly used, but just remember: Ted is literally guaranteed to meet the love of his life by the time this season is over. He can be the show's sweetest character when he decides to be, so chances are we're gonna see some of that sprinkled throughout the season, if not heavy-handedly thrown at us when he and The Mother get together.

If you've stuck with the show this long, chances are you're equipped with the patience to see where Ted's character goes for the remaining episodes.

Whether you consider this part of our second tip and just re-watch the episodes featuring Ms. Sparkles, or whether manifests itself in binging on the YouTube videos for "Let's Go to the Mall" and "Sandcastles in the Sand," America's favorite Canadian pop star needs some remembering as we head into the season of her wedding.

These two are by far the flakiest and most commitment-phobic of the cast; the fact that this season focuses entirely around their wedding weekend probably spells a few instances of cold feet — and inevitable hijinks and detours surrounding said feet. It's gonna happen. You might as well just accept it now. They've been doing it for going on seven seasons now, anyway; tiring as it can be, we might as well accept it's gonna keep going until the show's over.

It'll help if there's at least one last Robin Sparkles number along the way. At the very least an Intervention.