How I Met Your Mother is one of the best TV sitcoms of all time. Yeah, right!!! Friends, Scrubs, Seinfeld, Cheers, Everybody loves Raymond and a host of other sitcoms come to mind when the words, "best sitcom of all time" are mentioned. But here's the thing: HIMYM could have been up there. It could have been one of the best. Up until season 4, this show could rival any other show out there. HIMYM was a unique mix of comedy and depth that few other shows offered. This show had a storyline that could put a number of drama series to shame. But the best stories provide us with, at the very least, a satisfactory ending. Not all shows can end like Breaking Bad, but the least they can do is... oh I don't know.. not shit all over it's loyal fan base!
Now don't get me wrong, the show started losing much of its quality from around season 5, with each season dragging out the same plot over and over. Ted and Robin, Robin and Barney, Ted's new girlfriend, Ted messes everything up... The show lost most of its flavor pretty early on. But then again, no show can go on for so many seasons and keep up the same intensity as it did at it's peak. Admit it, as good as Friends was, there is still a gap in quality between it's third season and it's ninth. But Friends ended perfectly, well almost perfectly. And then there is HIMYM. The main thing that kept up coming back to this show week in and week out was the wait, the wait for the Mother. And she didn't disappoint. Tracy McConnell, who played this role, was just perfect in every way. She was exactly the right person for Ted. A perfect ending to a perfect love story. But then the writers went on and screwed everything up.
The final season was much better that a number of seasons that came before it. It still had its share of filler storylines, but it also had a few classics, and most importantly, the build up to the series finale was perfect. In the third last episode, we said good bye to a number of secondary characters. The single shot scene at the end was just so good. Then the second last episode did even better. First, it put an end to the Ted-Robin story. Or so we thought! But lets put a pin on this for now. Next, it also finished up with the Barney-Robin story. Barney and Robin never looked good together throughout the final season. But this was addressed in this episode when Ted gave Robin the "It doesn't have to make sense to make sense" speech. Another problem with this couple was that the entire relationship between them was based upon a series of lies told by Barney. Again this was handled perfectly. Robin brought this issue up and at the end of the episode, Barney vowed to always be honest towards Robin. They got married and it was, as Ted put it, legendary. This episode also gave Marshall and Lily the ending they deserved. Marshmallow and Lilypad are the best couple in the show and the scene with them making revised vows, with Barney watching carefully, and then later Barney telling Robin that Marshall and Lily were the best couple he knew, that was perfectly executed. Oh and how can I forget, the slap bet! Slap bet is a recurring theme in the show and this has given us some of the best episodes in the show. The last slap was handled very well in this episode. So, with everything else dealt with, all that was left was the main story, how Ted met the Mother.
I loved every moment with the Mother. In fact, she was my favorite character in the final season by some distance. In the final episode, she was even better. The scene where Ted reproposed her was very well done. And then the final scene, when Ted met the mother, the scene that the entire show and also most of the last episode had been building up to, was PERFECT! It couldn't have been any better! This is a scene that people have been waiting for 9 years to see, and so it's very easy for this scene to disappoint. But somehow this scene managed to live up to the expectation. But then the writers decided that this wasn't enough. They needed to throw a curve ball. Because, apparently, "Holy shit! I did not see that coming!" equals "Legend...dary!" to the writers. Turns out the writers had planned all along from very early on that the ending would feature the mother dying and Ted ending up with Robin. The final scene where Ted showed up outside Robin's door is supposed to be bringing the show to a full circle or something. Are you kidding me? A lot had happened from the point the writers decided on this ending and the show coming to an end. And by a lot, I mean A LOT! So instead of adapting to this, the writers decided, "What the hell! Lets just go ahead of the original plan. Who cared about anything else?"
Here are just a few reasons the finale didn't work:
1. Ted and Robin never worked. They had gone down the road a number of times before. What makes this time any different?
2. Making us wait for a character for 8 seasons only to show her in the 9th, making us fall in love with her, and then killing her off is a Very Very Bad idea, even for a drama series, let alone for a sitcom.
3. The children saying "The point of the story is that you totally totally totally have the hots for aunt Robin" and then telling Ted to ask her out SUCKED! I mean yes, it's been 6 years, but did the writers really think we would be okay with this?
4. The entire final season was about Barney and Robin's wedding. In fact, this wedding had been shown as early as season 6. And in like 30 seconds of the final season, the wedding ended.
5. The show is called "How I Met Your Mother", not "How Your Mother Died so now lets forget about her and go after aunt Robin again".
Bottom line: The blue french horn should not beat the yellow umbrella!
Bottom line: The blue french horn should not beat the yellow umbrella!
And that is why the finale actually ruined what could have been among the best sitcoms of all time. Now of course there is the alternative ending, which is a million times better, but that doesn't change the fact that it is still an alternative ending. It's just a cop out. In the end, it doesn't change the fact that the ending that aired on TV is the original ending and it is the one the writers ultimately decided to go with.
For anyone who hasn't seen the alternate ending, I suggest you watch it immediately. Just click here and enjoy.
Thank you for reading this extremely long post. I hope you enjoyed it half as much as you enjoyed this scene:
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