I wouldn't jump to that conclusion so quickly. When one of my friends (who didn't want kids) found out she was infertile she was devastated as well. But her devastation came from an identity crisis. She felt being infertile somehow made her a failure as a woman. Her thing was "I still don't want kids, but being told I can't is a different thing all together. Am I still a real woman?" So those feelings can be very, very complex. Also, as Wisaboo said, you don't have to hate kids to not want them. You can really love your friends kids and still not have any interest in being a parent yourself. (I present myself as exhibit A in this instance! )
All true, but I suspect Ted wouldn't have considered asking out Robin again if it was obvious she had no interest whatsoever in being a stepmother. In fact it's likely that by the time the two of them did get married (if they even wanted such a thing), the kids would have already moved out of the house anyway.
I'm watching last nights The Soup. "It's a sad day, the final episode of How I met Your Mother aired last night... In case you missed it, he met her in a Philippino Whore House, and she gave him AIDS"
The kids thing wasn't even the deal-breaker for Ted and Robin in my eyes. That's not the thing that made the ending feel so hollow. What made it feel so hollow is that Ted and Robin, to me, didn't seem to really "get" one another. Not in the same way Tracy and Barney got them, respectively. I know that's all extremely subjective, esp. considering how all-over-the-place the chracterizations have been ever since this show stopped being great. Ted in particular suffered. The lovable, eccentric, and slightly dorky romantic of the early seasons was more and more turning into a pretentious superdork. By the time The Mother was introduced, it seemed hard to imagine that anyone would actually dig Ted's many quirks ... but thanks to Cristin Milioti's fantastic portrayal, and some bits and pieces of decent writing, it felt to me that The Mother really did. Robin, on the other hand, felt like someone who was willing to accept Ted's quirks, because under all the dorkiness, he was still a decent and reliable guy. For Robin, it was worth putting up with Ted's quirks. The Mother actually thrived on them. (Yes, this is all pretty Ted-centric - to me, Robin actually became *unpleasant* with the character assassination the writers dumped on her in later seasons. Seriously, what the hell was up with her treatment of Patrice?) You know, I've actually had a Ted-Robin relationship. There was nothing wrong with it. We got along fine, we still do. My Robin and I get together every few months for coffee, beer, or shots, depending on our respective mindsets. We inevitably end up talking about the romantic misadventures we're going through now/have gone through since. Their parallel nature makes me wonder if we subconciously agreed to subject ourselves to the same mental injures at the same time. And whenever we discuss the wounds we've suffered and/or inflicted on ourselves, we both start thinking about how much easier it'd be to just say "oh, screw it", hook up again, and give up on the whole idea of ever having the kinds of conversations Ted and Tracy had under that umbrella. My god did the conversation Ted and Robin re:"If we're both in our forties, and [...]" remind me of her/us. But, we've both so far managed to remember that, to paraphrase Barney, that isn't the dream. Now this'll come off as a bit melodramatic, but regardless of how awful HIMYM has mostly been this last year, it's kind of helped me deal with some shit in my own life - or at least has given me some temporary relief from it. Last August, my then-girlfriend, after almost three years, revealed herself to be more Stella than Victoria, and left a gaping hole where my heart once was. Said hole is still there, and will be for some time. In trying to prevent myself from becoming a complete cynic, I actually *really appreciated* glimpses of the Ted-Tracy dynamic. They felt so real, and so relatable - even for a no-longer-that-young eccentric romantic/pretentious dork as firmly stuck in a my-insides-are-dead-and-I-will-never-love-again mindset as I was/am. Yeah, I know nobody can/should demand that fiction tells the stories you want to see/hear/read, but given all that, there was no way for me to feel about the reveal but ... sad.
I love how everyone has a different view of the finale that seems to be based on their own life experiences.
Was just about to post this. Wondering, if they will splice it into the actual episode and make it watchable as the actual ending or if it will be just a cut scene essentially. Same goes for the supposedly cut 18 additional minutes.
Huzzah! I hope this is a happy ending that has Ted and Tracy living happily ever after and then I can chose that to be my canon!
I doubt it, because they said they only filmed one scene. It's the editing that makes the alt ending. That would mean that the kids scene won't be in it because all they talk about is Aunt Robin and Ted (and the 6 years gone mother). And it is pretty cool that Lyndsy and David kept the ending to themselves for 7 or so years.
Also, producers have been known to shoot 2+ radically different versions of key scenes, without telling anyone which one's the real one. So anyone wanting to violate an NDA wouldn't know which version to leak to the press. For all we know, there's footage of those kids out there supporting a radically different ending.
There must have been several endings shot, right? They couldn't possibly know they could make this ending happen back in season 2, when the kid scenes were filmed.
Bays and Thomas have came out and said that was the only scene with the kids that was shot for the series finale.
Which is a huge mistake. CBS must be pissed, they were hoping for magic to strike twice with the spinoff type of thing. The ratings won't be as high now that they pissed off a lot of the fan base.
Arguably that's why there's a lot of backlash. In fairness all the kids said that Mom had been dead for six years and that he was in love with Aunt Robin. It didn't really say anything about the story... in fact it probably works out better if it was done at the end of Season 2 or so. When you go back and look at Season 1 and 2, the show looks like it could easily go in the Robin direction. It's just about how Ted wants to settle down. The mother isn't especially established as a one true love for Ted, just someone who is the mother of his children. However the show is entirely different now that it was then. I actually see a shift beginning in Season Three, but doesn't fully develop until the fourth season. When you look at the show at the start, it's about Ted looking to settle down and get married. We know he gets married to the kid's mother in the future, but we know next to nothing about her. There's really no reason to believe that she's his soulmate or one true love. The only references to "I never would have met your mother if such and such didn't happen" could easily be interpreted as for the sake of his children. That's why this ending works there. Because as of now, Robin is seen as that one true love for Ted. However, once "No Tomorrow" happens they introduce the idea of destiny to the fold where they begin trading the Yellow Umbrella. Still he's getting over Robin at the time, so there's still time to have this work as an ending, but once the end of Season Four comes around, it just doesn't anymore. The last few episodes of Season Four ("The Three Days Rule" "Right Place, Right Time" "As Fast as She Can" and "The Leap") all paint the Mother as Ted's soulmate. And that is the story the run with for the rest of the series. Especially in Double Date and Girls Vs. Suits. And congruently to that, they make Robin less and less of Ted's soulmate. There are too many false starts and times where they give it a try and it just never works. That's why we say the series outgrew the ending and what the writers wanted no longer fit the narrative demands. I fully admit that there was a time where I wanted Ted and Robin together, but nine years later, that's no longer where the show was. And don't give me anything about how we're not supposed to see that Ted and Robin are meant to be together and how it's just an example of Ted finally being open to other possibilities after the death of the love of his life. The swell of the music (hell read the lyrics) and the Blue French Horn show that ultimately the story was about how Ted and Robin are destined to be together. That's why it doesn't sit well with me. That may have been the story that they were telling early on, but I was in High School when the show started and now I'm two years out of college. A lot can change in that time and this show was one of those things.