Had the show not had an 9th season, I think the finale would've been MUCH more fitting. But for the past year we've focused primarily on Barney's evolution and the wedding, which was thrown away 15 minutes into the finale. We've meet and become fans of the mother, who was thrown away with a passing mention about her sickness. Which I guess would be accurate IRL (a passing mention of an illness 6 years after-the-fact), but television isn't real life and the audience didn't know anything about it. The audience (by and large) came to terms with the fact that Ted and Robin would never be together since they haven't been for the past, what...three seasons? There was a general acceptance of Barnbin and - since it's a sitcom - everyone is assumed to live happily ever after. Again, not realistic...but its generally the way comedy works. No divorce. No death of the title character and if there is it's not a friggin' afterthought. I think the show was written for 8 seasons. The CBS wanted another and the writers had to pad 24 more episodes.
See, for me, I don't mind that she died. I think that it actually motivates Ted telling the story. The kids are old enough to understand, old enough to understand you have to enjoy and celebrate the time you have with your friends and your very special someone. I wouldn't have seen her dying as necessarily meaning a "down" ending. Sad, yes. Poignant, even. And fucking brave. But, that would've required them to handle the death in a mature way. Very unlike what they ultimately did. And THAT was dickish to me.
Why would Ted tell a story where he dwells on Tracy dying? She got sick and died. The kids were around for it...why would he go on and on about it?
Why would Ted tell a story where he dwells on which particular birthday had a loose goat in the apartment?
I'm still undecided if the goat was a metaphor. Like a sandwich, and reading a magazine. Or the duck vs. rabbit argument.
Because we weren't around for it. Show's are written for the audience, not the other characters in the show.
Should have titled the series, "How I met your stepmother because she was my *real* love." Pitiful finale. It's not "brave" to subvert a happy ending simply for the sake of being different. It ruined the series.
Throughout the finale they showed how devastated Lily was just because they didn't hang out together that often anymore. And then they just said "Yeah well, and the mom died" and showed no reactions by anyone. Just the kids "she's dead, who cares, go fetch Robin".
If thèy called it hat, the first episode would have been the last, because the first episode covered that.
Maybe just bad pacing, because everyone keeps saying "two seconds later" and whatnot. None of this is news to the kids, their mother has been dead for 6 years, and who know how long she was sick before that. And they were fairly young when she passed. Is it REALLY shocking that after 6 years, the teenaged kids would like to see their dad move on and try to be happy again? Editing just hurt there, they needed to take a beat and show something in between so the kids didn't come off as immediately moving past it...
Given how important she was, and how much time was wasted on love interests that didn't matter, and an entire season on a wedding, just glossing over her death that way was truly bad pacing. That whole story arc would have deserved one season alone.
Great point. From the kids perspective, more time was spent on Victoria and Stella than was spent on the Mother.
<<Throughout the finale they showed how devastated Lily was just because they didn't hang out together that often anymore. And then they just said "Yeah well, and the mom died" and showed no reactions by anyone. Just the kids "she's dead, who cares, go fetch Robin". >> Excellent point. One of my greatest regrets of how the show ended is that we never got to see Mother as one of the gang and interacting with the others outside of Ted. It would have been fascinating and hilarious.
I liked the group scenes that included everyone and the Mother. The only problem was by not revealing her name till the very end, she still felt like an outsider even when surrounded by the group.
The fakeness of the laugh/audience machine becomes also pretty apparent during revelation such like "and then she got sick". No reaction at all, and then laugh like nothing happened at the next joke.