As promised, heres my thoughts on the How I Met Your Mother series finale. Spoiler Warning! So all throughout the day today Ive been thinking about the last episode of HIMYM. Last night when the show faded to black I was left with a sense of being let down. At first I just played it off and decided the feeling was due to loosing a show I had been watching regularly for the past 7 years. Flash forward to this morning and I am still carrying this feeling of being let down. So I start thinking about it and thinking about it and thinking about it, and it finally hit me why I was so bothered. You see, the premise of HIMYM was simple and yet epic at the same time. We begin at the end of the story with our main character (Ted) sitting down with his two kids and beginning the long (9 seasons long) story of how he in fact met there mother (See! Its right in the title!). As the first episode ends we see young Ted meeting this new love in is life whom we assumed was The Mother, but then old Ted fakes us out and it was actually the kids (not-really) Aunt Robin. So from the get go we were told Hey, you see this girl? Yeah, your gonna want Her and Ted to be together, but they cant, cause we already told you that shes not The Mother. So then a few seasons go by with on-again-off-again Ted and Robin stories but near Season 5 the creators of the show are finally pushing us on the fact that Ted and Robin wont be together. It just WONT happen. So they take everyones favorite character Barney and begin to push him and Robin together so that we as an audience can accept the fate of our young Ted and move on from this never-gonna-happen relationship with Robin. So then two story-lines begin to move forward (not counting Lily and Marshall), 1:Ted finding the destined love of his life The Mother, and 2: Barney growing up and falling in love with Robin. These stories continue for the next 5 years, over half the series. Throughout the next few seasons we are given more facts that prove that Ted and Robin wont be together: Robin cant have kids, Robin and Barney get married, Teds destined Love plays at Robin and Barneys wedding (thus giving a reason as to why Future Ted started the story with meeting Robin, because if he hadnt have met Robin then he wouldnt have met The Mother). Much in the same way that Lana and Clark from Smallville still had fans begging for more even though they could never end up together, HIMYM also had these fans that just would not accept the inevitable. So now we reach Season 9: The Last Season. We were briefly introduced to The Mother in the Season 8 Finale with the creators saying wed get to spend a whole season falling in love with the woman who was meant for Ted. But not so fast, they take the 48hrs leading up to Robin and Barneys Wedding and stretch it over the course of 22 episodes! So instead of getting to fall in love with The Mother we actually just get a series of random scenarios where she pops up for no real reason. Dont get me wrong, we had about 7-9 really strong episodes this season, but for every Lilys Secret we get The Slap-training or Drunk Barney cant Lie, it wasnt the best. The writers did take extra time though to make sure we were all on board with this Barney/Robin thing, showing why theyre so great together. And just to be safe, they gave us one last episode to show Ted LITERALLY letting Robin go. We all accepted it, and we all were ready to move on. So we finally reach the Finale, where all 9 years of story is gonna pay off and were gonna finally meet this awesome legendary love of Teds life. Something that Ted has been wanting from the very first episode will be his. All the dates, all the rejections, getting left at the alter, being alone, it will all be worth it because AT LONG LAST TED WILL FIND HAPPINESS!!! So after theyve spent 22 episodes covering 48hrs, the writers decided to use their last 2 episodes (roughly 44mins w/o commercials) to cover about 17 YEARS of story. (Teds Kids say) What? Yeah. And within that 44min span we are given the following info: Barney and Robin get married, Ted goes on a date w/the mother, Ted proposes to the mother, the mother gets pregnant before they get married, Marshall starts working in corporate law again, Barney and Robin get divorced, Robin leaves the gang, Lilly and Marshall move out of the apartment, Barney has a daughter with a random woman, Ted and the mother finally get married after being together for years and having both kids, Robin comes back for the wedding, the mother gets sick, the mother dies, and the beginning of the series starts 6years after the mother has already died. And then we see Ted meet the mother on the night of Robin and Barneys wedding. And to top it all off, to really make sure they end the series, that thing that the creators said would absolutely never happen, it happens. Ted ends up with Robin. So why am I upset? Well for starters freaking Ted has one of the worst lives ever. This guy lives his whole life just wanting to meet the one and grow old with her and have kids, and he finally gets it, after all the crap he went through he finally gets the girl of his dreams. And then she dies like ten years later. COME ON! Sure, tragedy is great and all, and yes he did get to be with her for some time, but what kills it for me is the fact that it wasnt earned. The writers could have easily taken all the story from the finale and spread that over this last season and it would have worked! If I had gotten to love The Mother all season and then have her die, I would have been so sad, but I would have gotten to see that Teds time with her really meant something. And then ending the series with him and Robin would have been much more gratifying. Instead we get a glorified montage, and they expect us to cry for it. Well the only thing I cry is Foul! (A-thank you) The other thing that kills me is Robin and Barney just splitting up after making us believe in them for 4 YEARS!!! Instead of this journey of personal growth for Barney, all we get is him accepting that hell never change? Sure he gets a daughter, but is that really a great way to end his character? And as for Robin and Ted, they have proven to us time and again as to why they dont work. Why they cant ever be together. And now we just throw all that away? Just so the two people we wanted together 9 years ago but gave up on can actually be together? Thats terrible. I feel that ultimately Ted was blinded by the person he wished Robin was and Robin only wanted Ted because he was a good guy. She never loved him. He only loved his own version of her and not really her. So why am I supposed to be happy that they ended up together? Please, someone explain this to me. At least when Ross and Rachel ended up together it had been earned. This feels no more earned than a poem written on a dollar tree birthday card: no thought, no feeling, just forced because of expectations. Hopefully Ill feel better when I do a series re-watch in a few years, but I guess only time will tell.
Posted on: Wed, 02 Apr 2014 00:21:06 +0000
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