How I Met Your Mother: The Final Season

[shivkala]

We don't know that Ted ended up with Robin. He's tried the same thing before. Who knows if in 5, 10, 15 years from the last scene if they'd still be together? Robin isn't exactly the most stable person in terms of relationships. Just because Ted shows up with a romantic gesture after realizing he's still in love with her, it doesn't mean she will reciprocate. It's the same as the premiere, really.

 

[JarodRussell]

That finale was the mother of all legendary fails.
So the soulmate he has been looking for for 9 years finally arrives, and then dies a couple of years later. Instead be bounces back to the emotionally unstable one that clearly was never the right match. Load of crap.

Perhaps next week there's the real finale and this was just an elaborate April Fools joke.

 

[Mr Light]

I'm just totally shocked that THIS was the ending they knew they were writing to all this time.... then they spent nine years showing us OVER AND OVER that Ted and Robin are not meant for each other, showing Barney grow and mature into the person for Robin, making us fall in love with the Mother as his perfect soul mate...

<<By the way, those people in the bar that Marshall spoke to, were they the ones in the new show? If not that scene felt really odd. >>

I agree, that bit was just awkwardly written and acted and just felt totally out of place. It's like, why are they doing this? I thought Marshall was going to give some touching speech about the things they've done, but instead he just lamely trails off.

I'm pretty sure those weren't the new characters. It was all guys, right? The new show is mostly female.

 

[Takeru]

I'm pretty sure those weren't the new characters. It was all guys, right? The new show is mostly female.

No, the main characters are still 3 guys and 2 women plus the main character's husband who she's divorcing in a supporting role.
But two of the main guys are gay, so the new show is mostly people who are into men.
But I agree that the people in the bar were not those characters, they were too young and didn't look like Greta Gerwig, Nick d'agosto etc.

 

[C_Miller]

I didn't like it. I actually thought the points about a group of friends aging were extremely well done. Sure it was sad to see, but that's a part of life, which is something this show has done so well. Even though I may not have liked parts of the episode, I thought it maintained the show's adherence to the truth of being alive.

But that said, I feel like the death of the mother cheapens the show. From the finale, I didn't get the impression that either Robin or Tracy were the one true love of Ted's life, which kind of renders the entire show pointless. The whole point of Tracy was to show Ted that Robin wasn't the person for him and that there was someone out there that was better than who he considered the perfect woman. And the dialog at the end from the kids made it seem like the relationship between Ted and Tracy wasn't as special as it was made to be throughout the show. In a way, it retroactively makes the entire story a ploy as to get his kids to come around to him dating Aunt Robin.

I think the cognitive dissonance is what really gets to me. What is this episode (and by extent this series) trying to say? We spend 9 years explaining why the relationship with the mother is the epic love story worth waiting for, but here we're left with the mother dead and triumphant music as he brings Robin the Blue French horn. I could handle a sad ending, I could handle a happy ending, but I'm truly at a loss over how I'm supposed to feel.

There was a time where I wanted Ted and Robin to end up together and I couldn't believe there was someone out there better... unfortunately a big part of me wishes the show ended there...

Ultimately, I feel like the show outgrew it's ending and it's unfortunate that they maintained dogmatic adherence to an ending that no longer fir the story they were telling.

 

[the G-man]

We don't know that Ted ended up with Robin. He's tried the same thing before. Who knows if in 5, 10, 15 years from the last scene if they'd still be together? Robin isn't exactly the most stable person in terms of relationships. Just because Ted shows up with a romantic gesture after realizing he's still in love with her, it doesn't mean she will reciprocate. It's the same as the premiere, really.

They're both about 25 years older than when they first met. People change. Robin was mentioned as being close to the kids and the fact she had several dogs would seem to indicate she had settled down in both her life and career.

As such, there's no reason not to assume the factors that led to
Their breakup in the past aren't there anymore.

 

[JarodRussell]

I didn't like it. I actually thought the points about a group of friends aging were extremely well done. Sure it was sad to see, but that's a part of life, which is something this show has done so well. Even though I may not have liked parts of the episode, I thought it maintained the show's adherence to the truth of being alive.

But that said, I feel like the death of the mother cheapens the show. From the finale, I didn't get the impression that either Robin or Tracy were the one true love of Ted's life, which kind of renders the entire show pointless. The whole point of Tracy was to show Ted that Robin wasn't the person for him and that there was someone out there that was better than who he considered the perfect woman. And the dialog at the end from the kids made it seem like the relationship between Ted and Tracy wasn't as special as it was made to be throughout the show. In a way, it retroactively makes the entire story a ploy as to get his kids to come around to him dating Aunt Robin.

I think the cognitive dissonance is what really gets to me. What is this episode (and by extent this series) trying to say? We spend 9 years explaining why the relationship with the mother is the epic love story worth waiting for, but here we're left with the mother dead and triumphant music as he brings Robin the Blue French horn. I could handle a sad ending, I could handle a happy ending, but I'm truly at a loss over how I'm supposed to feel.

There was a time where I wanted Ted and Robin to end up together and I couldn't believe there was someone out there better... unfortunately a big part of me wishes the show ended there...

Ultimately, I feel like the show outgrew it's ending and it's unfortunate that they maintained dogmatic adherence to an ending that no longer fir the story they were telling.

Had it not been for the mother, Ted would have probably bounced back to Robin immediately after he heard about the divorce anyway.

So the mother was just turned into an obstacle that Ted needed to overcome by this episode.

"Fortunately, the love of my life died, and my kids are okay with it, so I can now be with you, Robin."




I think the quality of a finale can be measured by how well you can ruin the show for someone who watches the very first episode by telling him how it ends.
By the time Future Ted says "This was the story of how i met your aunt Robin", just say "Yeah, at the very end, the mother actually died, and he actually gets together with Robin."
BAM, interest in the entire show destroyed.

 

[Photoman15]

And the final insult. No Bob Saget. He spent nine years walking us through the narration and gets absolutely nothing for the final episode where his character actually would have finally appeared and had something to do.

I don't even like the name Tracy

Saget was never going to appear as Older Ted. They've showed flash-forwards with Radner as Ted (grayed a little).

As for Tracy? Well, any name they would have picked, some group of people wouldn't have liked.

 

[JarodRussell]

That her name was Tracy was already revealed in the episode where he made that stripper joke to the kids.

 

[urbandefault]

I thought it was pretty good. Definitely better than "These Are The Voyages."

 

[Professor Moriarty]

Funny, I was just about to remark that we should all look on the bright side: Now Star Trek: Enterprise is no longer the series that had the most insulting finale for its loyal viewers.

 

[Tom Hendricks]

While I was disappointed in the episode, I also liked it. My main issue was, this final episode should have been the plot for the entire final season and it would have been more rewarding. To many things that were crammed in, with a lot of emotion but very little payoff.

They could have explored so many of the themes thoroughly. Without a doubt my all time favorite moment of HIMYM is when Barney is holding his daughter for the first time, it made me cry so hard. Then no more of her after that, so it made all those tears feel like for nothing.

 

[Agent Richard07]

That her name was Tracy was already revealed in the episode where he made that stripper joke to the kids.

Yeah, I was just found out about that last night.

From episode 1x09 which aired in November 2005...

Ted and Robin agree to go to the strip club with Barney for Thanksgiving, and Ted, as an act of charity, pays for a stranger's lap dance. Seeing this, another lap dancer compliments Ted on his good nature, and reveals her real name: Tracy. In the year 2030, Future Ted tells his kids "And that's the story of how I met your Mother", shocking the kids before Ted reveals he was joking, much to their relief.

Source. So they either had the mother's name planned all this time or they went back to that episode for the name.

 

[Agent Richard07]

Here's an interview with Cristin Milioti from a few weeks ago where she debunks the idea that the mother dies...

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IblJpk1GDZA[/yt]

And an article to go with it.

She seems just as charming and quirky as the character she plays and I kind of feel sorry for her that she's seen only one episode of Lost and it was the finale.

 

[Othello]

To say I was not happy with the ending of the show is an understatement. It COMPLETELY cheapens the mother and her importance in Ted's life.

 

[Starbreaker]

I'm still kind of bummed out this morning. Even though I know the show wasn't called How I Met the Love of My Life

 

[Agent Richard07]

From I storytelling perspective, I maintain that the finale was brilliant and well crafted, as was much of the show's structure. I'm surprised by all the backlash I'm seeing all over the net. I'm not totally oblivious to where people are coming from though. It wasn't a fairy tale ending and certain things didn't unfold in a logical manner. But life is rarely like that and this was a big part of what the show was about.

 

[JarodRussell]

From I storytelling perspective, I maintain that the finale was brilliant and well crafted, as was much of the show's structure.

I guess "brilliance of storytelling" is just a matter of opinion then.

 

[tighr]

They ended the show the way they wanted to end the show. Is everyone happy? Probably not. I think the decision to spread out the final season as a single weekend was a bad one. If they wanted to do something unique, they should have made each episode a year.

The way I would have done it:

S09E01 (May 2013) - Robin/Barney Wedding,
S09E02 (still 2013) - meet Tracy at the end of the episode
S09E03 (2013) - First year dating the love of his life, Lily Marshall move to Rome, etc
S09E04 (2014) - Anniversary at the hotel, Lily Marshall move back to New York
S09E05 (2015) - Engagement, Penny, Star Wars, start to see problems for Barney

...etc. After a full season of spending time seeing Ted and Tracy in love, the central conflict for the season comes from the gang losing contact and spreading apart, but still trying to reconnect at least once a year. We gradually would get to see Barney and Robin drift apart, maybe not in three years/episodes, but maybe by November Sweeps. We get hints along the way that Tracy has a health problem, and then the climax of the show comes in episode 14 when she finally passes away. The next six episodes of the season show Ted growing sad but realizing that he was lucky to have spent 11 years with the love of his life, him finally coming around, growing as a person, and in the second to last episode of the series (S09E20 - 2030) decides to sit down and tell his kids the story of how he met their mother, but to do so he has to start at the beginning, then they realize he still loves Robin after all, then the final (hour long) episode is your typical sitcom finale with everyone hugging and crying and whatever. 22 episodes covering 17 years.

 

[Brendan Moody]

This was a show that liked to pretend it was about life not being a fairy tale, but more often than not it went for the cozy fairy tale resolution anyway. (The much-praised "Last Words" is a case in point; after dancing around the reality that we don't always get picturesque goodbyes with our loved ones, the episode gives Marshall that final "I love you" anyway.) Most of the finale reflects that. In real life someone like Barney would be sleazing it up with twenty-somethings until he died of a heart attack in his late 50s, but instead he gets a magic new baby and instantly turns into a doting papa. In real life Lily would give up on art and Marshall would give up on changing the world and they'd wind up bland professionals leading dull lives for the sake of their kids, but instead they get a year in Rome from a magical benefactor and he becomes a judge despite never demonstrating competence, let alone skill, on screen. And none of that's a surprise, because How I Met Your Mother was never an emotionally realistic show. It was a sentimental romantic comedy that used various narrative tricks to obscure and distract from that traditional core.

The very way in which the final Ted/Robin scene plays out is evidence of the show's rom-com mentality. Given everything that's happened between the two of them, all the ups and downs and missed connections and personal losses, a cutesy callback to the blue French horn is the last way in the world Ted would realistically bring up a possible return to their relationship. That's the kind of sentimental shorthand you use when the bond between two characters is a soulmates/destiny/other-cliche-here kind of thing. And that's the problem: the show wants to give Ted that kind of happy ending, but it can't commit to either Robin or Tracy being the one, so it tries to split the difference. It's not realism: it's two kinds of reassuring romanticism, awkwardly stitched together.