How I Met Your Mother Season 9 Spoilers on series finale, final slap and more

How I Met Your Mother has only a few episodes left in both Season 9 and the series as a whole. The cast (minus Jason Segel, who had a schedule conflict thanks to a film), creators Carter Bays and Craig Thomas and director Pam Fryman appeared at the annual PaleyFest on Saturday night to help bid goodbye to the show.

Wayne Brady, who plays Barney's brother James, moderated the event and started by asking about the widely held theory that The Mother (Cristin Milioti) has died, which is why Ted is telling this story to his children. Bays and Thomas remained mostly silent on that issue, and Bays said, "We're wildly excited about the finale and it's great...but we can't say anything," according to a report from IGN.

Thomas added HIMYM was "really strange for a sitcom on Mondays" and that they wanted to keep the show's secrets until the end. "Stay tuned for two weeks and we'll see," he said.

The creators also said that the final scene filmed for HIMYM (though this is not necessarily the final scene in the series) is Ted and The Mother meeting at the train station. The panel also revealed that some of this material was part of Milioti's audition to play the character a year ago.

An audience member also asked about the final slap and Bays replied, "It happens. It will happen. We didn't forget."

The panel started with an airing of tonight's episode, "Gary Blauman," which is "a strong installment that definitely feels like the show is starting to say goodbye," according to IGN's report. The episode features a scene near the end that involves one long tracking shot that runs about three minutes in length. The producers said they were proud of it, and IGN states "it's a pretty great, impressive moment for HIMYM."

What do you make of all this? Let us know in the comments below.