Reviews Series / How I Met Your Mother

Honestly, I really liked the finale. One of the aspects I found most grating this season was all the bumps Barney & Robin kept having when we all knew they were going to get married. So when I found out they got divorced, I suddenly realized that rather than being forced conflict to pad out the episode, their sub-plots were really about showing why these two just don't really work together. That's actually genius, as now all those sub-plots suddenly have a lot more meaning. As for the stuff with Barney's kid, I'm actually happy with it, as I was cringing seeing Barney go back to being the playboy after two seasons worth of character development. While Robin was the closest Barney may ever come to a real romantic relationship, his daughter was the one who ultimately opened his heart, and that's actually pretty sweet, considering how afraid he had been to have a child before. My only real complaint about this finale was that Tracy needed more screentime. Every scene she was in this season lit up, and she really helped breathe some new life into the show. It's a shame that they only used her for about a third of the season. But as for the finale, I have to agree, it was a lot better than people give it credit for. But then, I'm often a defender of controversial finales, so what do I know?

I uh...don't know anyone who made any of these complaints. Here's my interpretation of what the popular negative reactions are in response to your interpretations.

1) Nothing wrong with Ted moving on. It was the show that moved on too quickly. He had six years to get over her. We had about thirty seconds. It's mostly an editing thing.

2) To my knowledge, the scene with his daughter is one of the only universally liked things from the finale. There are tons of other problems with his storyline, but that scene is not one of them.

3) Don't recall any complaints about Lily. You're right, there's not much to tie up.

4) I'm going to be honest here. Most of the talk about shipping wars and sinking or what have you have come from people who liked the finale, not those who disliked it.

5) A common complaint you don't address is the poor pacing/editing/storyboarding that appears in the finale which, IMO, is one of the biggest complaints that people have.

The complaints on Lily come from feminists and internet Social Justice Warriors that felt she got a "raw deal" just because they don't see her doing all these things as an artist. This is not the right place to talk about if they're justified in their accusation or not through.

As for the ship sinking, I can list quite a few pages on tumblr that are, very, very, very pissed about the divorce and Tracy dying.

Personally I really don't like this finale but it could have been better had they only devoted half of the season to wrapping up the wedding and the other half as an epilogue.

Also much of the Unfortunate Implications was indeed due to poor pacing issues and all of this being crammed into the episode—it was 6 years for Ted but only a few seconds for the audiences there was something wrong with Ted ending up with Robin. not with moving on because the show has always hammered the "they're wrong for each other". Many people would have preferred he end up with some random girl(or even Victoria is acceptable in some fan circles due to her popularity) or had an scenario similar to Up where he never remarries and moved on through what remains of his love for Tracy, in this case, he enjoys his life as a single father.

As said before, it wasn't a specific issue, but the sum of it's parts. One of the problems with the divorce is that while it's in terms of chemistry issues between Barney and Robin, it goes and forgets Ted and Robin's chemistry issues and pairs them together, which gives the feeling of designated pairing. It also in many people's opinions, doesn't fit with the rest of the series. This series has been both acclaimed and criticized for it's idealized views of love and life, with Ted, Marshall and Lily being the biggest drivers of this, then decides to flip the scrip at the very end and be very realistic or even cynical.

I just feel that it was uncalled for, because in one of the last episodes of the series it shows that Ted lets Robin go. First in a visual sense, and then later on when she gets cold feet.

It's just such a big waste to me because they resolve that ship, they pair Ted and The Mother as well as Robin and Barney, and everything is good... but after that, everything that season had built up to was completely unravelled in 2 episodes. I can see Ted putting Robin at ease within his heart and feeling like going back when they both have the chance, and the chances of Robin and Barney staying together weren't great, but it felt cheap - still kind of feels cheap - that they made this entire season around how Robin and Barney are getting married and love each other, top it with Ted getting over Robin and meeting the mother of his children, and proceed to undo that in the span of 2 episodes.

In the last episode in particular, all of this happens: the marriage falls apart, Barney turns back into a wild playboy after resolving his character arc three times (The Playbook's destructions and the passing of it to a new generation), Robin is made unhappy for favoring her career over settling down, the mother is unceremoniously killed off (with footage showing Ted's grief being cut from the broadcast), and they finally get back together as 60-somethings.

What was the point of destroying the Playbook twice and Barney handing a new playbook off, if he was just going to return to his life of lechery? What was the point of Ted letting Robin go in the last episodes if they were going to be the final couple? And though yes, I can see that they were building up to it pretty well, why the hell would they kill off the mother after birthing Ted's kids, giving him stability, generally being his soulmate - just so he could reconnect with Robin?

I understand this is an old review, people have their own opinions on the finale and that's fine... but the last episode undoes the last couple of seasons, and personally I think it undermines the show a bit to spend 9 years looking for the mother, characterizes her in bits and pieces over the last season and then kills her off for another ship. What a waste.

Another quick note - the reason I personally disliked the baby part is that it comes out of left field from a 1 night stand Barney had, the mother of that child is unnamed, and Barney - after saying he'd never give his possessions up for a woman, flips his perspective as soon as his initially unwanted child comes into the world. There's also a hint of unfortunate implications to me, because Barney changes after the birth of his child - which is something Robin could never have done for him. Could that mean that Robin could have never made Barney happy? That's what it feels like to me, but it is a bit of a stretch.

All in all, it's not that the characters are inherently bad - it's just that the writing jumps through hoops to undo everything the 9th season accomplished to suit an ending which could have passed after 4 seasons, at the most. After all, the ending was planned from the second season. The issue here is with the writing - that they thought this ending would pass after 9 years of build-up to Ted and The Mother.

@marcellX

And you can well argue that if they want to aim for a tragic or "realistic" ending, but assuming the story was about Ted and Robin and not the buildup to meet Tracy than it fails to make it realistic in that regard and may actually be intrepreted as a overwhelming happy ending.

I am inclined to agree that the poor editing problems are indeed what caused these Unfortunate Implications. I may have addressed specific issues I'd seen from the Fan Dumb due to them being too ridiculous for me to ignore, but yeah, that was my bad.

I didn't like the final season itself. It felt too padded. Should have found a way to make more of season nine about Ted's time with Tracy (I know, they flashed forward but I want more.)

But accepting that they couldn't find a way to do that, I really liked the finale.

I think they made it clear that Barney left because in spite of his best efforts he couldn't live in Robin's motel room for the rest of his life. Yes I know "Well he should have known she was a career woman." Well that comes with balance doesn't it? Couldn't she settle in one spot occasionally for a little while every now and then to let him actually have a life? Assuming they just can't ever be apart for any significant length of time? I mean she lived in New York for nine years. I think she could get in plenty of traveling and have an exciting journalist career and still let Barney have some time in one place periodically to actually do things other than just blogging.

And just because you know in your head that your spouse is always going to be traveling doesn't mean you can fully envision what that life is going to be like.

And I always felt like Ted's journey was about giving up foolish fantastic notions about love while still embracing hope and passion. He kept having conflicts with how real life got in the way of his romances. So Tracy being in his life for 10 years and then dying fits. This is what his previous romances prepared him for, embracing love while you have it and being prepared to lose it and move on some day. None of those past loves were mistakes. He may have made mistakes during the relationships but having the relationships was never the mistake.

We even get a hint when he gets back together with Victoria. Ted has grown. He's ready to consider "Maybe it was just bad timing with her. Maybe she's the right woman for me NOW at THIS point in my life. Maybe thats how life and love work." Which sets things up for Robin. They clearly never stopped loving each other and they were great friends. He had to let her go because it was the wrong time in their lives to be together. Barney is kind of the proof.

I really liked the development with Barney's daughter. He clearly craved a family and he got it in a way that makes sense with him. We could see he was ready to change with Robin but that was the wrong time and place to change but he couldn't see that. After his failure he thought "Guess I'm just meant to be the same old Barney" and the birth of his daughter gives him another chance at that.

And as someone in his mid thirties who has been single for his entire life, I like to see there's still hope ahead for me in the remaining decades. I like this. I just wish the finale had been given more room to breathe.

I\'m sure plenty more people would\'ve liked the finale...if the show had ended earlier. As it stands, they dragged the Ted/Robin thing out way too long and with all the hints through the final season of the fate of The Mother, people could see the end coming from a mile away, especially when the couple whose wedding was the entire focus of the last season split up after only 3 years. By the time the creators would\'ve needed to create a new finale, they couldn\'t due to age issues with the actors that played Ted\'s children in the first episode (seeing as they filmed the finale with those actors near the end of the first season, they couldn\'t replace them with lookalikes). It was a great show, but the finale handled a lot of things poorly.

I keep going back to the argument of the only way it works is if you turn you brain off and accept it. If we think of it as the culminating happy ending of Ted and Robin, it comes out as messed up that for the designated couple to be together, one of the people in question's soulmate and ideal match had to die.

If we take it as a shot of realism, then one has to remember that the last 2 seasons were about Barney and Robin changing some things for the other, acepting the other, sacrificing, compromising, etc. not to mention growing together as a couple. Ted and Robin didn't go through that, the same reasons they broke up and didn't work together are still there, possibly more pronounced. ex. Ted has two children and Robin may be good aunt but she doesn't want kids of her own.