But the beautiful thing about narrative is that the best storytellers can shape it to be both true to the complexities of real experience, and generous in fulfilling our wishes. Future Ted talks about how nobody means to, but everybody loses touch with people who were once central to their lives. There are people we never see again, whose rest-of-the-story we never know and are not a part of. Yet Gary comes back, and this prompts a glorious pan around the Farhampton Inn parking lot, where scenes from the futures of minor characters from the whole history of the show are set up like little living dioramas. There’s Carl passing down the bar to the next generation; Jeanette hooking up with Kevin after her court-mandated counseling; Patrice getting calls from Robin on her advice show “Patrice! In The Morning”; Zabka earning a poetry medal; Scooter serving school lunches with Lily’s stripper doppelganger; Sandy Rivers sexually harassing his Moscow television cohosts in Russian; Ranjit living the high life as the owner of the limo service; Zoe getting attacked by the Central Park hawk she’s trying to save; Blitz giving up gambling at precisely the wrong moment; and Blah Blah finally getting a name (Carol). It’s a beautiful bit of miniaturization, reminiscent of the stagecraft and practical effects of the Superdate sequence, one of my favorite HIMYM moments of all time. And it allows Ted to give all those people a final bow, no matter how small or large a part they played in his tale.
