How I Met Your Mother: The Final Season
- Thread starter ryan123450
- Start date
I can accept that the ending felt jarring to many people because the show got stretched out and had to be padded with "good for each other/bad for each other" filler and that the finale was rushed, but the outcome itself wasn't a bad idea.
I think the mother still should've died. The time that Ted and her had together was the best years of his life, and maybe that's the message he could be imparting to his kids. It would've been beautiful, happy and sad.
What we got, bleh.
Very few bad ideas are bad. it all comes down to execution. And they executed their idea extremely poorly.
That's something I've always believed myself but I was still happy with how they wrapped up the show in the final season and impressed enough with the twist in the finale to overlook any flaws or pacing issues. It might have been nice if the show hadn't been stretched out but that was the network's doing. And some people have suggested that the events in the finale should have been told over several episodes, and that might have been nice too, but again, I liked that we got a big revelation to cap off the show.
A fair compromise.
Ideally though, I wouldn't mind seeing an edit of the finale with the missing 18 minutes.
I loved the BSG ending. The LOST ending was okay (I didn't like season six as a whole but the last episode was fine). Because those endings were true to their shows. They didn't pull out some last minute FU to the audience. (I know some felt that way about the last scene of BSG but they showed mysterious angelic visions the entire series!) (and they were NOT all dead in LOST! that was showing them in the afterlife AFTER they died! they were alive on the Island!)
Right. I'm not opposed to the Mother being dead -- what I am opposed to is the finale suddenly turning the show into How I Met Your Mother (but I really wanted to bang Robin all this time).
Using Barney and Robin's wedding as the framing device for the entire season, then erasing that marriage about fifteen minutes into the episode was 31 flavors of bullshit, too.
If the entire final season was what happen in the final episode, that would have made for a great season. Thats my only issue, I actually liked the final for what it was. However I didn't like how it was all shoehorned into one episode.
doubleohfive
Fleet Admiral
This is where I disagree with you. They dedicated a lot of time, especially in the final season, saying that Robin and Ted needed to move on, wanted to move on, HAD moved on from each other. He let her go.
I don't think it was consistent. It was haphazard.
Ted and Robin never actually felt wrong for each other. A lot of their so called incompatibility felt like lip service and a lot of us accepted it because we knew that she wouldn't be the mother.
Yep. They had spent the last several years showing us, in no uncertain terms, that Ted and Robin do not work together ... then in the finale, Ted uses his wife as a baby factory while still always wanting to wind up with Robin, so he gets to have his cake and eat it too (after having spent the past several years being the biggest creeper on television since Ross Geller). It's the storytelling equivalent of starting a game of Yahtzee and then saying, "Yahtzee, I win!" It wasn't earned.
doubleohfive
Fleet Admiral
I disagree. There's nothing - literally nothing - in the final season to suggest that once Ted and Tracy got together that he was focused on anyone other than her.
I think this is the problem everyone is having. Most of the opinions I've seen opposed to how the finale aired seem to assume that Tracy was the "answer" to the series main question and the "answer" to Ted's character arc. But she wasn't.
Yes, the majority of the series was hinged on Ted meeding Tracy and their lives together. And we get snippets of it in the final season. Enough to see that they lived together quite happily and successfully until she passed away. At no time while Ted was with Tracy did Ted whinge "...but what about Robin?" As far as he was concerned, they'd parted ways. And it wasn't until nearly a decade after Tracy died that Ted finally gathered the balls to approach Robin again.
Here's another angle. Ted and Robin maybe didn't "work" together at the time when she married Barney. There's nothing wrong with that. Robin wanted to travel and see the world. And she did. For 20 years. And when she got back to New York, it's entirely possible that she realized that maybe settling down (with Ted, or Barney or whoever) wasn't such a bad idea after all. People grow and people change and most importantly, what people want changes.
Do I think the finale could use some tightening? Absolutely. Would I like to see the cut with the additional 18 minutes restored? Yes, please. But there's nothing in the finale that contradicts anything that wasn't already established in the series, nor was it's final outcome that outrageous or inconsistent.
I think this is the problem everyone is having. Most of the opinions I've seen opposed to how the finale aired seem to assume that Tracy was the "answer" to the series main question and the "answer" to Ted's character arc. But she wasn't.
Yes, the majority of the series was hinged on Ted meeding Tracy and their lives together. And we get snippets of it in the final season. Enough to see that they lived together quite happily and successfully until she passed away. At no time while Ted was with Tracy did Ted whinge "...but what about Robin?" As far as he was concerned, they'd parted ways. And it wasn't until nearly a decade after Tracy died that Ted finally gathered the balls to approach Robin again.
Here's another angle. Ted and Robin maybe didn't "work" together at the time when she married Barney. There's nothing wrong with that. Robin wanted to travel and see the world. And she did. For 20 years. And when she got back to New York, it's entirely possible that she realized that maybe settling down (with Ted, or Barney or whoever) wasn't such a bad idea after all. People grow and people change and most importantly, what people want changes.
Do I think the finale could use some tightening? Absolutely. Would I like to see the cut with the additional 18 minutes restored? Yes, please. But there's nothing in the finale that contradicts anything that wasn't already established in the series, nor was it's final outcome that outrageous or inconsistent.
I find it unsettling that so many people think that Ted is somehow obligated to be alone for the rest of his life just because his wife died. That would be unrealistic and cruel. Even if Ted does someday marry Robin, that doesn't mean he didn't love Tracy, because everyone knows he did...hell even his kids thought so.
But the finale that aired, in the space of five minutes we went from him being happily married to Tracy to him trying to bang his ex-girlfriend. There was no spacing. I really, really, really liked Tracy. She was perfect for him. I waited nine years for them to finally get together. And five minutes after I finally get that moment they KILL HER and stick with his ex-girlfriend who he was never compatible with?! Foul!
In what way were they never compatible?
Screen time, maybe. But not "real" time.
IIRC, Tracy had been dead for many years before Ted even thought about trying to approach Robin.
I consider that a healthy amount of time to grieve. Or am I just way the fuck off base on this?
I meant screen time. 
Obviously people were watching two different shows, and the final five minutes really split those two groups apart.
In one show, Ted and Robin were always meant to be together. In the other show, the show I saw, we saw over and over that Ted and Robin were not right for each other, and the point of her was to lead him to Tracy his true soul mate. Why was the second half the show dominated by Robin and Barney? Because a) they're made for each other, for better or worse, and b) it is at their wedding that Ted meets Tracy.
Obviously people were watching two different shows, and the final five minutes really split those two groups apart.
In one show, Ted and Robin were always meant to be together. In the other show, the show I saw, we saw over and over that Ted and Robin were not right for each other, and the point of her was to lead him to Tracy his true soul mate. Why was the second half the show dominated by Robin and Barney? Because a) they're made for each other, for better or worse, and b) it is at their wedding that Ted meets Tracy.
I disagree that Ted and Robin were "always" meant to be together. That is, IMHO, a rather shaky premise to build on. It implies that people only have one suitable mate, and if that (for whatever reason) doesn't work out, then nothing else will. I refuse to believe that.
Ted and Tracy met, fell in love, had many years of life together, and unfortunately Tracy's death meant that this could not continue. Then, after a few years of a healthy grieving process, Ted moved on with his life, and (perhaps) started a new relationship with Robin. This does NOT, in any way, mean that Ted's love for Tracy was anything other than genuine and heartfelt. Ted loved Tracy, we all know it; but after Tracy passed away, Ted has the right to move on with his life. That's the end of it, really.
I don't think there's any one person who we are "always meant to be" with. In reality, you meet people, you like them, you may fall in love with them, but it doesn't always last. You move on. You find new people. That's just the way it works.
Ted and Tracy met, fell in love, had many years of life together, and unfortunately Tracy's death meant that this could not continue. Then, after a few years of a healthy grieving process, Ted moved on with his life, and (perhaps) started a new relationship with Robin. This does NOT, in any way, mean that Ted's love for Tracy was anything other than genuine and heartfelt. Ted loved Tracy, we all know it; but after Tracy passed away, Ted has the right to move on with his life. That's the end of it, really.
I don't think there's any one person who we are "always meant to be" with. In reality, you meet people, you like them, you may fall in love with them, but it doesn't always last. You move on. You find new people. That's just the way it works.
If Ted were a real person, I would not want him to be alone the rest of his life after Tracy's passing. However, as part of a narrative of a romantic comedy, the ending was unsatisfying. To boil it down, here is what the ending of the fairy tale (which is what most romantic comedies are, essentially): the prince married the princess, and they lived happily ever after. Then she died, so the prince met ANOTHER princess, and then THEY lived happily ever after. They tried to give two endings to one fairy tale, and I'm sorry but that left a lot of people cold.
Similar threads
