NOTE: The following post contains SPOILERS concerning Monday night's series finale of How I Met Your Mother.
Usually I think people put too much stake in endings. But when the ending is the title of your freaking show, then you should probably get it right.
Here's my issue with the How I Met Your Mother finale: none of it felt earned. The scene with Ted and his kids was filmed all the way back in season two. So the writers knew how they wanted HIMYM to end and orchestrated everything to get to it. And while I personally have nothing against Ted and Robin, that entire ending was a slap in the face. Show runners Craig Thomas and Carter Bays literally had years to build to the Ted/Robin ending in a satisfying way. But instead they wasted our time for the sake of misdirection and "classic" HIMYM hijinks.
Knowing since the pilot that Robin and Ted would not--and premise-wise, could not--be together, the show instead tried making Robin and Barney into a plausible couple. We spent a large part of the later seasons cultivating this relationship. The entire final season revolves around their wedding weekend. And whether you bought the pairing as realistic or not, it was pretty clear the show was committed to this coupling, so the audience had no choice but to accept it as fact. The wedding was literally seasons in the making, yet the finale tore it apart as quickly as you can say, "We got a divorce." I was dumbfounded at the audacity of it all.
Similarly, we spent this entire final season getting to know The Mother, Tracy. She became a character. She became a pretty great character. Someone perfect for Ted. And someone his friends and fans were happy to see him end up with. Everything involving Ted and Tracy were the best parts of the finale, particularly the titular meeting under the yellow umbrella (which cast a great, warm glow over the couple). Towards the end of the season it was implied The Mother would be sick in the future and we all began speculating that she might end up dying. Because why else would Ted be telling the story of how they met? But what was really concerning was how she was only in a ninth of the story Ted was telling his kids. If she was in fact dead in 2030, how horrible is it that Ted spent all that time talking about Robin and every other random woman he dated/loved/proposed to? When asked, Thomas and Bays, as well as the mother herself--actress Cristin Milioti--assured fans this was not the case. But it was the case.
I'm actually not upset that The Mother dies. And I'm not upset that post-divorce Robin and widow Ted get together. And I realize the show was really never about The Mother. But what does upset me is that we spent an entire season getting to know The Mother as a great character. And her death gets glossed over just like Robin and Barney's divorce. The Mother's death gets sidelined. And the tone immediately after in the scene between Ted and his kids, is just straight up weird. They gleefully encourage their father to call Aunt Robin and ask her out. I realize in the world of the show it has been six years since Tracy's death. But in the real world of me watching this show, her body is still warm. Hot even. The transition was abrupt. And the subsequent scene of older Ted recreating the blue French horn moment for older Robin felt cheap, shallow, and cold. And its not because Ted shouldn't be with Robin. It's because it all happened way too quickly and awkwardly.
No one told the writers they had to waste an entire season on Robin and Barney's wedding. I don't understand why that couldn't have been half the season. Because everything that happened in the hour-long finale could have easily filled the other half. Take your time. It's already been nine seasons, we're in no rush. Spend a couple of episodes on Robin and Barney's marital issues, on Barney's regressive man-boyhood and fatherhood, on Marshall and Lily having another baby and moving out of the apartment, on The Mother getting sick, and on saying goodbye to Tracy. One thing the finale did really well was make me believe in Ted's love for his wife. And I would have loved to see more of that. Because she deserved a goodbye and Ted's character deserved time to grieve. And we should have seen Ted care of her and later his melancholic widower years. And I would have even liked to see Robin reenter Ted's life to help him through his grief. So that the audience could see what Ted's kids see. Because Ted wasn't just telling this story to his kids, he was telling it to all of us. We might as well have been on the couch right along next to them. And so we might as well have been nodding along when they encouraged Ted to move on.
If we saw all that. If we took the time to build towards it. Then maybe when we realized what the last minutes of the finale were doing, we would have smirked rather than cringed. We wouldn't have felt like the love of Ted's life, the mother of his children, was being sidelined. Maybe we would have realized Ted's heart was big enough for two big loves. Tracy's was. And our hearts would have warmed because maybe we would have been rooting for this ending to happen. Because it would have felt earned. We would have been okay with it. And it would have been legen...wait for it...dary(ish). But we got none of that. The asinine structure failed us. We got awkward pacing, frustration, and disappointment. If things were more carefully structured we could have gotten an "I got off the plane" moment instead of HIMYM's version of a sad trombone: the blue French horn.
Usually I think people put too much stake in endings. But when the ending is the title of your freaking show, then you should probably get it right.
Here's my issue with the How I Met Your Mother finale: none of it felt earned. The scene with Ted and his kids was filmed all the way back in season two. So the writers knew how they wanted HIMYM to end and orchestrated everything to get to it. And while I personally have nothing against Ted and Robin, that entire ending was a slap in the face. Show runners Craig Thomas and Carter Bays literally had years to build to the Ted/Robin ending in a satisfying way. But instead they wasted our time for the sake of misdirection and "classic" HIMYM hijinks.
Knowing since the pilot that Robin and Ted would not--and premise-wise, could not--be together, the show instead tried making Robin and Barney into a plausible couple. We spent a large part of the later seasons cultivating this relationship. The entire final season revolves around their wedding weekend. And whether you bought the pairing as realistic or not, it was pretty clear the show was committed to this coupling, so the audience had no choice but to accept it as fact. The wedding was literally seasons in the making, yet the finale tore it apart as quickly as you can say, "We got a divorce." I was dumbfounded at the audacity of it all.
Similarly, we spent this entire final season getting to know The Mother, Tracy. She became a character. She became a pretty great character. Someone perfect for Ted. And someone his friends and fans were happy to see him end up with. Everything involving Ted and Tracy were the best parts of the finale, particularly the titular meeting under the yellow umbrella (which cast a great, warm glow over the couple). Towards the end of the season it was implied The Mother would be sick in the future and we all began speculating that she might end up dying. Because why else would Ted be telling the story of how they met? But what was really concerning was how she was only in a ninth of the story Ted was telling his kids. If she was in fact dead in 2030, how horrible is it that Ted spent all that time talking about Robin and every other random woman he dated/loved/proposed to? When asked, Thomas and Bays, as well as the mother herself--actress Cristin Milioti--assured fans this was not the case. But it was the case.
I'm actually not upset that The Mother dies. And I'm not upset that post-divorce Robin and widow Ted get together. And I realize the show was really never about The Mother. But what does upset me is that we spent an entire season getting to know The Mother as a great character. And her death gets glossed over just like Robin and Barney's divorce. The Mother's death gets sidelined. And the tone immediately after in the scene between Ted and his kids, is just straight up weird. They gleefully encourage their father to call Aunt Robin and ask her out. I realize in the world of the show it has been six years since Tracy's death. But in the real world of me watching this show, her body is still warm. Hot even. The transition was abrupt. And the subsequent scene of older Ted recreating the blue French horn moment for older Robin felt cheap, shallow, and cold. And its not because Ted shouldn't be with Robin. It's because it all happened way too quickly and awkwardly.
No one told the writers they had to waste an entire season on Robin and Barney's wedding. I don't understand why that couldn't have been half the season. Because everything that happened in the hour-long finale could have easily filled the other half. Take your time. It's already been nine seasons, we're in no rush. Spend a couple of episodes on Robin and Barney's marital issues, on Barney's regressive man-boyhood and fatherhood, on Marshall and Lily having another baby and moving out of the apartment, on The Mother getting sick, and on saying goodbye to Tracy. One thing the finale did really well was make me believe in Ted's love for his wife. And I would have loved to see more of that. Because she deserved a goodbye and Ted's character deserved time to grieve. And we should have seen Ted care of her and later his melancholic widower years. And I would have even liked to see Robin reenter Ted's life to help him through his grief. So that the audience could see what Ted's kids see. Because Ted wasn't just telling this story to his kids, he was telling it to all of us. We might as well have been on the couch right along next to them. And so we might as well have been nodding along when they encouraged Ted to move on.
If we saw all that. If we took the time to build towards it. Then maybe when we realized what the last minutes of the finale were doing, we would have smirked rather than cringed. We wouldn't have felt like the love of Ted's life, the mother of his children, was being sidelined. Maybe we would have realized Ted's heart was big enough for two big loves. Tracy's was. And our hearts would have warmed because maybe we would have been rooting for this ending to happen. Because it would have felt earned. We would have been okay with it. And it would have been legen...wait for it...dary(ish). But we got none of that. The asinine structure failed us. We got awkward pacing, frustration, and disappointment. If things were more carefully structured we could have gotten an "I got off the plane" moment instead of HIMYM's version of a sad trombone: the blue French horn.
