How I Met Your Mother's mid-season finale on Dec. 16 featured the pivotal mother character meeting Marshall and coming extremely close to meeting Ted as well, but fans will still need to wait until the second half of the season for that landmark event.

In the meantime, spoilers have emerged about several of the episodes that will air before the show takes its final bow in May.

The show is scheduled to return on Jan. 13, 2014 with the episode Slapsgiving 3: Slappointment in Slapmarra. While fans mostly guessed that the episode would feature Marshall delivering the penultimate slap to Barney's face, a new brief synopsis on Spoiler TV confirms it.

"In an attempt to deliver a devastating final slap to Barney, Marshall explains how he mastered the Slap of a Million Exploding Suns," the synopsis read.

Not much else has been revealed about the episode, though Cobie Smulders (Robin) did sit down with The Loop to dish about the show's landmark 200th episode, How Your Mother Met Me. Smulders revealed that the "mother-centric" episode will have more to do with the character's past, rather then her future with Ted.

"It's basically what's going on in her life in the last nine years," Smulders explained. "We get to kind of see how [she and Ted] just miss each other. That episode is a lot about tying up loose ends and showing fans what they want to see."

This news means that Ted will not be meeting his future wife in the episode, as earlier spoilers suggested.

Smulders also confirmed that her character will also not be officially meeting the mother in that episode either, meaning it could still be even longer before the union fans (and Ted's kids) have been waiting nine years for. Cristin Miliotti ('The Mother')herself has confirmed that the character would meet everyone else in the group before Ted.

'How I Met Your Mother' Spoilers: 'How Your Mother Met Me' Episode Told From Mother's Point of View?

Robin's own mother can be expected to make several appearances in the show's final episodes as well, Smulders confirmed, though the role has yet to be cast.

"I pitched Annette Benning. I would really like Mary McDonald I think I pitched her too," she said. "It should be an interesting Canadian callback. I don't know she's going to be abooting it all over the place, but I think she lives up in Canada, so that should be cool."

How I Met Your Mother returns Monday, Jan 13 at 8 p.m. on CBS.

Tags: How I Met Your Mother Season 9 Spoilers CBS television