How I Met Your Mother Season 9 updates are both a source of excitement and nostalgia for longtime HIMYM fans. The comedy series returns with a new episode on Monday (Apr. 15) as it draws closer to Season 8 finale. As viewers anticipate the final 27-29 episodes of HIMYM, what burning questions need to be addressed?

How I Met Your Mother Season 9 is officially the final season of the hit CBS comedy starring Josh Radnor as Ted Mosby and Neil Patrick Harris as Barney Stinson. Jason Segel, Cobie Smulders and Alyson Hannigan make up the five main stars of the beloved show. Fans have followed the quirky characters of HIMYM and been nagged by some burning questions for a while now.

Here are Top 10 of the HIMYM Season 9 Burning Questions:

HIMYM creators Craig Thomas and Carter Bays are likely to leave a lot of questions hanging by the end of Season 8. We can only hope these questions get answered early on in HIMYM Season 9:

1. Are there untold stories about Barney and Nora? Rumours indicate Nora will re-appear in the series, but it could only be as a final bow of one of the top favorite guests on the series.

2. What is Barney's job? We've been asking since Season 1.

3. Do we get to see Barney and Robin as a married couple? Reading between the spoilers' lines, it seems the finale will be cut before or in the middle of the supposed Barney-Robin wedding. And then the creators hint Season 9 will look and feel like a different show. Hmm.

4. Is Aunt Robin the kids' stepmom (because the kids' mum died)?

5. Is Future Ted telling the story on a video (because he's dead)?

6. Do we get to see Beercules and Robin Sparkles again?

7. Will we see a lot of the titular mother throughout Season 9?

8. Had the mother been bumping into Ted since Season 1? (Or was Ted's college lecture intro the first time she'd seen him?)

9. Did the mother make a cameo appearance on the HIMYM pilot?

10. Is the mother the second soulmate recommended by Love Solutions? (The one he stood up on the penultimate episode of Season 1.)

More HIMYM questions are being raised in entertainment news and forum sites. On the one hand, you know it's time for the series to close. On the other hand, you know you'll be missing the gang.

#ProudToBeAFanOf How I Met Your Mother #HIMYM

— #HIMYM (@HIMYMFANS_) April 9, 2013

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