#HIMYMFinale : Major Disappointment
Spoilers ahead, obviously.
Like many of you, the fiance and I sat down last night with snacks and beer, ready to absorb a moment in television history: the finale of the much-loved TV comedy, How I Met Your Mother. And, much like many of you, by 9 o’clock I was staring blankly at the screen, trying to figure out what just happened. After spending the entire season dissecting Robin and Barney’s wedding weekend, the writers flew through 16 years in 45 minutes. From Barney and Robin’s divorce (don’t even get me started- they belonged together), to the proverbial moving out of the apartment (a classic sitcom ending), to Fudge Supreme and Barney’s baby, the finale took viewers on an emotional roller coaster ride that really couldn’t get any worse. Right? Surely, they wouldn’t do anything else terrible to these characters. Wrong (and don’t call me Shirley). After years of speculation, conspiracy theorists achieved a bitter-sweet victory- Tracey (the mother) was dead all along). And the story wasn’t so much a ridiculous, loving, and touching story about how the gang navigated their 30s and met the mother. Oh no- it was a long-winded attempt by Ted to get his children’s permission to date Robin. The women who rejected him. Multiple times. For years. The blue french horn doesn’t deserve such a disservice.
No matter your reaction to the #HIMYMFinale, moments like this show how important these long running shows are in our culture. We all saw a little bit of ourselves in these characters and have developed a connection to this show or another. In a world where we are increasingly disconnected from each other, it’s become easier to develop that connection with fictional characters. And that’s not bad- we’ve been doing that for centuries through books and stories and plays. Media is meant to evoke an emotional response. And this finale definitely did.
Life these days is hard. I know a lot of people who have had a sucky year, myself included. And while I love realism in my movies, I have to admit that I prefer my TV comedies to have a softer side. I would have loved for the #HIMYMFinale to have a happy ending- Ted and Tracey, Robin and Barney, & Marshall and Lily all on that front porch, drinking scotch and making jokes. But in the end, it wasn’t my story and isn’t my art. The writers don’t owe us anything beyond what they’ve given us, no matter how much we wish it was different. However, the writers should take notice- How I Met Your Dad is already surrounded by negative speculation and the negativity surrounding this finale won’t help. But, as we learned over the past 9 years, only time will tell.
Judge Fudge Ruling: Case Dismissed. Let’s go to the mall.
Photo Credit: FlowTV
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Claire is a self proclaimed books and movies nerd, and spends her free time watching way too much TV and playing with her daughter who loves Doctor Who. By day she’s a grad student studying sustainability, by night a geek mom making the next generation awesome. She drinks too much coffee (if there is such a thing) and enjoys relaxing with her dog Judy and a good book.
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Here’s how I think the last season should have gone if the whole point was for Ted to end up with Robin:
Robin and Barney don’t get married in the first place.
Ted meets Tracey and they fall in love and get married and have babies and are madly in happy love.
Tracey gets sick.
The gang helps Ted and Tracey. There is even some humor found in her illness. Because that’s what HIMYM has always done best.
Tracey dies.
Robin, who had distanced herself from the gang after she and Barney break up, comes back because of Tracey’s death.
We see her getting involved with the kids. Her focus is on her friends, the kids – not on romance with Ted. But the audience can see it.
It’s growing – this romance, this realization that love isn’t about the warm fuzzies but is about standing together in the storms. Robin and Ted end up together – because the basis for love that you choose is friendship. And they find it because they stopped desperately seeking it.
I would accept this.
I would, too…but it would still not make me “happy” just “accepting”
I love this. It would have been way better than pushing us all through Barney’s growth and the smacking us in the face with his reversal.
I think the season DVD is going to need an alternate ending! lol
Doesn’t warrant it’s own post, so just adding my own thoughts to the comments.
Barney and Robin breaking up is ok with me. They’re both really selfish and not willing to sacrifice to make it work. It takes more than “meant to be.” And I think that’s an important message.
The episode overall wasn’t awful, just a lackluster ending to a lackluster last few seasons. Until the last five minutes. Where it becomes “why I want to date your Aunt Robin.” That is bullshit. Period. First of all, it’s disloyal to Barney who makes an effort to be there. Second of all, it just kind of kills everything. Not Ok.
What I hate is that you know they filmed that closing scene (the kids half) in the first season to get it before the kids aged…so they knew ALL ALONG they were doing this. THAT, to me, is what made it worse and a huge slap in the face.
First off, that they had the viewers invest so deeply in Barney and Robin, and Barney’s growth, to do what they did?
Splitting Barney & Robin – I hated it. Yes, maybe I can accept it, but not the way they handled it. W/ an “We’re fine. We wanted it.” Only to have Robin distance herself because she really isn’t…and because she’s crying over her spilled milk of Ted (seriously? how many times did she reject him? OVER and OVER).
Barney’s baby – BEST scene of the night, but could have been done so differently. Why on earth have us watch his incredible growth over the last 3 seasons to just go “Oh, because he divorces he becomes a preening hound-dog again. I don’t buy it. I just don’t.
Killing the mother. No matter how they swung it, unless they actually gave us time and insight to her death and the groups coping of the matter, would have made her, in the end, seem like anything more than a tool to give him the kids that Robin never could. I can’t buy that she’s the great love of his life because she was treated as nothing more than a footnote. This season gave me a lot of hope that she was so much more…but that’s how it felt in the end. IT was a “Oh, what? you thought this was about “How I Met Your Mother”?? ~Snort~ NO…it’s about “How I got the kids I dreamed of w/ my “good enough” woman…so that I could end up with the woman of my dreams later w/ my kids full permission, of course.
Of course, don’t get me started on the match of Ted and Robin. It would never work…not ever. “What could have been” is never as good as your brain makes it. They didn’t make each other happy, they didn’t complete each other…SHE rejected him over and over again. Past regrets don’t make for a happy future.
Ugh. So disgusted.
P.S. If Robin is this huge world-travelling news anchor…why in hell would she have 5 dogs again? Again, not buying it.
P.P.S. To those saying that if you weren’t happy w/ the ending then you honestly weren’t paying attention at all to the series…I WAS paying attention. It’s still crap.
(I haven’t been this pissed off about the end of something since Charlaine spit in her fans faces and ripped up Eric and Sookie…which I’d seen coming 4 books before and stopped reading because of)
ohmigosh THE BABY. Barney becoming a whore again, not surprising. Knocking up a random? I guess probability would suggest that should have happened much sooner but are you kidding me?!. It rubbed me the wrong way that all we ever knew about her was “number thirty-one.” Congrats on being there for the baby, but otherwise terrible set up.
Dogs don’t become good people just because they have babies. It doesn’t happen. They spent all that time on “realism” and then they rushed through that and expect us to believe it? Bullshit.
I love this, you just explained all of my feelings that weren’t in the post. I tried watching reruns last night and I was just so sad I turned them off. The ending was just a huge disservice to the characters.
Barney and Robin were meant for eachother. His growth was beautiful and I loved the episode where he proposes to her, and they just cheapened all that character development. And the whole ending makes ted look like a jerk- “BTW, I’ve been in love with Robin this whole damn time.”
I’m also pissed about the Eric/Sookie split. Ugh.
I think the barrage of harsh realities would have been a lot easier to take had we not spent this whole ridiculous season at their stupid wedding. I get it, we’ve been told for seasons that that’s where Ted meets the mother. Fine. Have AN episode for their wedding. THEN give us what we really deserve, getting to know the mother for the rest of the season. Ted and Tracey’s wedding should have been an episode on its own, not 30 seconds. The divorce made me angry because I just spent so much time in their wedding and 5 min later, it’s over. It actually made a lot of sense that they wouldn’t work out, they didn’t before and they didn’t really change that much. Robin doesn’t deserve Ted but I’m okay with that writing choice (it grew on me). I guess the moral is, I want a rewrite on the season as a whole. More of the mother. More episode 200.
…and speaking of episode 200, this girl has the worst luck. Boyfriend dies, she dies. Was George R.R. Martin guest writing!?
Haha, I wondered the same thing. Maybe Whedon, Moffat, and Martin were consultants. That would explain the giant mess of an episode.
Especially Moffat with the supposed “clever” twist.
I haven’t even seen the episode (or this season) yet because…it doesn’t matter. That’s irrelevant.
All I came here to say is:
Ted is a big, fat whiny bitch, I’m glad his wife died and he’s going to end back up with Robin, who’s going to make his life miserable.
Marshall Erickson RULES!
out.
STOP CALLING THE MEN IN MY LIFE WHINY.
Edit for context: GifTor and I have a running Garrus vs Kaidan argument on Twitter. #TeamKaidan.
That did not work how it was supposed to.
http://cdnpix.com/show/imgs/8f108a0176316bbf5bcf3d17ee8953bf.jpg
TedMosbySucks.com
9 seasons of complaining about love life.
Has ‘relations’ with the following:
http://i.imgur.com/qFXQaen.jpg
QED. Ted’s a whiner.
JUST LIKE KAIDEN.
Kaidan didn’t sleep with anyone but FemShep since ME1. (I don’t belive he banged the doctor on the Citadel).
Also, I really feel the need to compare Ted and Barney numbers now.
My boyfriend made the comment (though he doesn’t remember it now) about he thought the mother might be dead, but I dismissed it. Turns out he was right. I was really unhappy with the ending, though. I would have accepted the alternative that Liz laid out instead of what we got, though.
The very end did make me angry though. Nine years, nine seasons, all to find out that it really did end as a way for him to ask for their blessing to date Robin. Bleck.