Every Season Of How I Met Your Mother, Ranked

Back in the days when television seasons had 20+ episodes per season (you know, when we lived in a proper society), Carter Bays and Craig Thomas’ hit sitcom “How I Met Your Mother” managed to wring nine seasons and 208 episodes out of its premise. With Josh Radnor as the series lead, Ted Mosby — whose older self, voiced by Bob Saget, is telling his kids an interminably long story about how he met their mom — and Jason Segel, Alyson Hannigan, Cobie Smulders, and Neil Patrick Harris as his best friends Marshall Eriksen, Lily Aldrin, Robin Scherbatsky, and Barney Stinson, the show explores Ted’s love life in New York City as he tries to find “the one.” To say it takes him a long time is a serious understatement.

As with all long-running series, “How I Met Your Mother” had definitive high points and low points from season to season. So, which seasons show off the very best of the ensemble comedy and use its concept and framework to the fullest, and which ones fall incredibly flat? (Fans of “How I Met Your Mother” likely won’t be that surprised to see what comes in dead last.) I’ve watched this series several times over, so I feel pretty confident in saying that this is the correct ranking of all nine seasons of “How I Met Your Mother,” from worst to best.

The ninth and final season of “How I Met Your Mother” absolutely sucks, and I cannot possibly be clearer about that. This borderline unwatachable season of television makes a bold and terrible choice to take place over a single weekend — specifically, the weekend of Barney and Robin’s wedding in the Hamptons — and as a result, almost every single episode feels like filler. For the first significant part of the season, Marshall is also separated from the rest of the gang as he tries to get to the fictional town of Farhampton, and keeping any of the core cast members separated brings this ensemble show down in a pretty noticeable way. There’s only one good episode in the entirety of Season 9 of “How I Met Your Mother,” and that’s “How Your Mother Met Me,” a spotlight for Cristin Milioti’s turn as Tracy McConnell (aka “The Mother”).

Season 9 might have been a little better if it didn’t close out with the truly dreadful “How I Met Your Mother” series finale, “Last Forever.” After forcing all of us to slog through Robin and Barney’s wedding festivities for 22 episodes, the two-part finale tells us, in the first 15 minutes, that the couple actually got divorced upon realizing that their wants and needs weren’t compatible. Add in the fact that Tracy gets killed off in a montage so that Ted can chase after his best friend Robin (who, frankly, is way too good for him), and you’ve got an absolute dud of a season.

Season 7 of “How I Met Your Mother” isn’t as bad as Season 9, but that’s a very low bar. As it approached the end of its run, “How I Met Your Mother” undeniably started to slow down, and to be frank, this stretch of episodes just feels like proof that the writers and showrunners were out of ideas. Yes, this is the season where Lily finally finds out that she’s pregnant — she’ll ultimately give birth to Marvin, a baby named for Marshall’s late father — but it’s also the season with “The Burning Beekeeper,” which is readily one of the show’s worst episodes, and it’s also the season with “Noretta,” an unbelievably creepy episode where the gang keeps realizing their partners are a lot like their parents. (It’s creepy because the show communicates this by swapping out actors; in one scene, Barney is about to kiss his girlfriend Nora, played by Nazanin Boniadi, before she transforms into Barney’s on-screen mother Loretta, played by Frances Conroy.)

The seventh season is also seriously dragged down by Barney’s romantic subplot with Quinn (Becki Newton), an exotic dancer with whom he ends up falling in love; the way the sitcom treats sex work is genuinely never good, but the offensive impulses are definitely at their worst when it comes to Quinn. Finally, this is the season with the whole kerfuffle over the “ducky tie” that Barney is forced to wear after losing a bet, and every time attention is drawn to that friggin’ tie, I die a little inside.

Again, Season 8 of “How I Met Your Mother” really has the show spinning its wheels, but it fares a little better than Season 7, largely because it’s not bogged down by all of the Quinn subplots. (Sorry, Becki Newton. You’re very funny, and this series did you dirty!) Unlike Season 9, which strands viewers at Robin and Barney’s wedding for lack of a better idea, Season 8 breadcrumbs us about who’s involved in the wedding, dragging out the reveal that Barney is the groom and Robin is the bride … but honestly, this delayed reveal works a lot better than pretty much anything in either of the seasons surrounding this one. 

There are also a handful of standout episodes in this season. “P.S. I Love You” dives back into the rich Robin Sparkles well to reveal that, as a teen Canadian pop star, Robin was dangerously obsessed with musician Paul Shaffer. (It also features one of the show’s funny “rules,” which Marshall dubs “Dahmer vs. Dobler,” to measure whether a gesture is creepy or romantic.) Then there’s “The Ashtray,” which utilizes the show’s framework in a particularly funny way when Ted and Robin get really blitzed at Lily’s professional event. On top of all that, you’ve got “The Time-Travelers,” which features one of the series’ most emotionally resonant moments between Ted and his (unseen) future wife.

Unfortunately, Season 8 also introduces Robin’s childhood locket, a ridiculous MacGuffin that takes up way too much air in Season 9 … but there’s a decent amount to love in this season all the same. It’s still pretty low on this list, though, all things considered.

The beginning of Season 5 of “How I Met Your Mother” is definitely its roughest stretch due in large part to — and I hate to say this, truly — the way the writers handle the initial relationship between Barney and Robin. These characters really do work as a couple, but the show doesn’t seem to really trust itself and just let Neil Patrick Harris and Cobie Smulders’ chemistry do the heavy-lifting. Instead, there’s a horrifically awkward episode where Ted “teaches” Barney how to date Robin (which is an enormous and bizarre invasion of her privacy!), while the episode “The Rough Patch,” in which the couple breaks up for the first time, isn’t just fatphobic but also incredibly ill-conceived to boot.

So, why is Season 5 ranked somewhere in the middle and not at a lower spot? Well, after Barney and Robin split, we get some all-timer episodes like “Last Cigarette Ever” (which ropes Harvey Fierstein into being Lily’s smoking voice), “Of Course” (which features a perfectly cast Jennifer Lopez as an advice writer), and “Say Cheese,” where we learn that Barney physically can’t take a bad picture. Best of all, this season features the show’s 100th installment “Girls Versus Suits,” where guest star Rachel Bilson isn’t even the best thing about it. The episode forces Barney to choose between a hot girl (Stacy Keibler) and suits; he ultimately goes with his beloved bespoke garments, leading to an absolutely delightful musical number featuring the entire cast. That’s enough to elevate Season 5 on this ranking, frankly.

Unfortunately, the sixth season of “How I Met Your Mother” is the one that introduces Zoey (“House” and “Once Upon a Time” veteran Jennifer Morrison), a wholly irritating character who pairs up with Ted for far too long. Luckily, Season 6 is also the season that features “Bad News,” which is easily one of the best episodes of the entire show. As a countdown quietly runs from 30 to 1 in the background of each scene (brilliantly using signs and clocks to convey that something is coming), Lily and Marshall undergo stressful tests to make sure they can have a baby; when the countdown ends, Lily emerges from a cab (with the number 1) and tells Marshall that his beloved dad Marvin, played by Bill Fagerbakke, has died.

Not only was the moment where Lily gives Marshall the titular bad news fully improvised, but the episode that follows, set at Marvin’s funeral, is just as emotionally intense as the ending of “Bad News.” Beyond that, Season 6 introduces Laura Bell Bundy as the beautifully absurd Becky — who works alongside Robin as a co-anchor and drives her up a wall — and Kyle MacLachlan’s wealthy “the Captain” (who’s stuck being Zoey’s husband, sadly). Also, I think one of the season’s final episodes, “The Perfect Cocktail,” is criminally underrated; watching Jason Segel and Neil Patrick Harris experience radically different reactions to various liquors is genuinely one of the funniest things the show ever did.

It’s rare for comedies to find their stride right out of the gate; try watching the first seasons of shows like “30 Rock” and “Parks and Recreation” and tell me they’re not sad, weird imitations of future seasons. The first season of “How I Met Your Mother” isn’t quite as bad as all that, but it’s still firmly in cheesy sitcom territory, and none of the actors really embodied their characters quite yet. Still, there are moments of brilliance to be found, and Season 1 explains precisely why the show stuck around for so long in the first place.

The end of the “How I Met Your Mother” pilot provides our first (and now, as Barney would say, “legendary”) major misdirect when Ted, in voiceover, tells his children about how he met “Aunt Robin” (the audience is, unquestionably, set up to think that Robin is the mother before the rug is yanked out from under them). “The Pineapple Incident,” one of the show’s funniest and most innovative episodes, then uses the series’ storytelling framework perfectly as Ted tries to piece together a wild night out involving a mystery girl and a pineapple. We’re also introduced to Barney, Marshall, Ted, and Lily, and watch as they meet and befriend Robin, who becomes an indispensable member of their group, all while major players like Victoria (Ashley Williams), Sandy Rivers (Alyson Hannigan’s real-life husband Alexis Denisof), and Wendy the Waitress (Charlene Amoia) make their mark on the show. Season 1 isn’t perfect, but it’s a stronger start than you might recall.

A lot of Ted’s love interests are, to be honest, total duds, but Sarah Chalke’s Stella Zinman is actually really great. Introduced as the doctor who helps Ted with a laser tattoo removal in Season 3 (more on that shortly), Stella accepts Ted’s marriage proposal in the Season 4 premiere “Do I Know You?” just as Barney realizes his feelings for Robin aren’t a fluke; amidst all of this romance, installments like “The Best Burger in New York” and “Woooo!” are genuinely phenomenal standalone episodes. When Stella leaves Ted at the altar for her ex-boyfriend Tony (a perfectly deployed Jason Jones), he’s left bereft, but frankly, the show is best when Ted is single and ready to mingle. “Not a Father’s Day,” “Murtaugh,” and “Three Days of Snow” are “How I Met Your Mother” at its very best, and in “Sorry, Bro,” we’re treated to a half-hour of Ted’s super-toxic college girlfriend Karen (Laura Prepon), who’s rightfully despised by the rest of the gang.

By the time Season 4 reaches its finale, “The Leap,” it’s clear that this is a near-perfect season of “How I Met Your Mother,” showcasing all of the series’ best impulses. Unfortunately for Season 4, there are two that reach even higher heights — including the season that leads directly into it.

Season 3 of “How I Met Your Mother” is home to some of the best episodes the show ever made. “How I Met Everyone Else” finds a clever and unobtrusive way to incorporate origin stories for how the gang originally assembled, complete with Abigail Spencer as Ted’s absolutely ludicrous date for that particular evening. Elsewhere, “Spoiler Alert” explores the gang’s worst and weirdest quirks, letting them attack each other before all coming back together to celebrate Marshall passing the bar exam in New York state. Meanwhile, “The Chain of Screaming” gives a term to that “thing” where you end up taking out your frustrations on people and create an endless loop, and in “The Platinum Rule,” we meet Stella for the very first time as Ted’s friends warn him that he shouldn’t try and date his doctor. (Naturally, Ted does not listen.)

There are two episodes in Season 3, however, that make it a top-tier installment: “Slapsgiving” and “Sandcastles in the Sand.” As I mentioned earlier, it’s never not funny to see more of Robin’s time as Canadian pop star Robin Sparkles, and guest star James van der Beek is incredibly funny as her childhood crush; plus, this is the first time that Barney and Robin hook up, leading to a major throughline. “Slapsgiving,” on the other hand, is just a laugh-a-minute as the slap bet from Season 2 finally comes into play during the gang’s Thanksgiving; Ted viewing Robin’s ever-so-slightly older boyfriend as an extremely old man is just the cherry on top. Plus, Jason Segel performing “You Just Got Slapped” while Barney yelps melodically in pain is one of the funniest things that’s ever been on TV.

Season 2 of “How I Met Your Mother” is the best season of the show, and I’d say it’s not close, but that would be a lie. (Season 3 is actually good enough that it took me a minute to decide between the two.) At the beginning of Season 2, Lily and Marshall are broken up after Lily absconds to San Francisco to attend art school (at the end of the previous season, she gets cold feet about marrying Marshall), and Marshall’s brief singlehood is extraordinarily funny; the episode “Swarley,” where his new flame Chloe (Morena Baccarin) has “crazy eyes” and can’t remember Barney’s name correctly, is a true series highlight. “Ted Mosby, Architect” is another great use of the show’s unorthodox storytelling, “Monday Night Football” has some fantastic physical comedy, and Lily and Marshall’s wedding, which closes out the season, is as heartfelt as it is funny. (Marshall gets frosted tips, shaves off a large swath of his hair, and can’t figure out a solution until Lily simply puts a hat atop his head.)

“Slap Bet,” though, is the single best episode of “How I Met Your Mother.” When Robin tells Ted that she hates shopping malls, the rest of the gang frantically tries to figure out her “secret,” and though Barney is convinced that she used to make adult films, the truth — she was a teen pop star in Canada named Robin Sparkles who only performed at malls — is so much funnier. (Try thinking about Robin Sparkles and not getting “Let’s Go to the Mall” stuck in your head; I dare you.) Add the fact that this is the genesis of the long-running slap bet, and what you’ve got is a perfect episode.

“How I Met Your Mother” is currently available to stream on Hulu and Netflix.