âExcuse me, hi.â âHi!â âIâm--â â âThe best man! Get in here.â Few series finales
remain as infamous as the ending to one
of the most-watched sitcoms of the 2000s:
How I Met Your Mother. âShame on you!â But why was the 2014 finale
so jarring for fans? After all, the very first episode
back in 2005 positioned this as a love story
between protagonist Ted and cool girl Robin,
who likes him but isnât ready
for a long-term thing âBecause that kids,
is the true story of how I met
your Aunt Robin.â And the seriesâ ending delivered
on exactly that promise, concluding the long story
of how Ted Mosby ended up with Robin Scherbatsky. "Okay, suppose I were interested
in Aunt Robin in that way-- it's not like I'd do
anything about it.â From its beginning,
How I Met Your Mother was built on avoiding the answers
to its biggest questions. âChallenge accepted.â The series was propelled forward
by the central mystery of how Ted met
his kidâs mother -- and who this woman
would turn out to be. âAnd that, kids, is the true story
of how I met your mother. âWhat?!â âIâm kidding.â After nearly a decade
of dodging answers, whatever ending
showrunners came up with couldnât compare
to the elaborate fan theories viewers had spent
years developing. Hereâs our take on
why the showâs answer to âHow I Met Your Motherâ
could never deliver on the promise of the
seriesâ original question. âALL ABOARD!â âYouâre watching The Take. âThanks for watching and be sure to share
and subscribe!â Unlike other series
with rocky conclusions, âWhatâs this?â âA song of ice and fire.â How I Met Your Mother
actually set its finale in stone nearly a decade
before it aired. âSay it with me,
LEGENDARY.â Midway through airing
the second season, producers sensed that
the popularity of the show might extend its run
for more seasons, which meant it could
be a number of years before the showâs titular question
arrived at an answer. âWhereâs my wife?â This presented a problem:
the passage of time would make the actors
playing Tedâs children unrecognizable
to viewers. âWhat the f*ck is
wrong with you?â âWhat?â âYou sat us down
to tell us the story of how you met our mother
EIGHT F*CKING YEARS AGO.â So producers made
the radical decision to film the finaleâs
climactic scene what turned out to be
eight years in advance. This road-map represented
a firm sense of direction often lacking in long-running
television shows, who often see
a revolving door of writers and actors
over the years on the air. On the other hand,
television is a medium that can take advantage
of the luxury of time. âMy hands smell weird. Smell this.â âYeah they do. Yeah thatâs new.â A series can develop
and expand the story and characters in ways
a 120-minute film canât "It is growth, then decay,
then transformation." and as a result
of character growth, the most satisfying conclusion
for a show will no doubt
evolve as well. Likewise, as How I Met Your Mother
went on, the relationships between Lilly, Marshall, Barney,
Ted, and Robin grew ever more complicated. Thus, what felt right at the start of the series
didnât necessarily fit for the characters,
or fans, by the end. And this explains why
many fans were upset over the decision to make
Robin and Ted endgame. While this choice was
in the works from the start and evidently intended
to make fans happy -- it was even an example
of outright fan-service -- for many viewers
it flew in the face of years of
character development. âRight? Sheâs like my best friend. *groans*
âMy best FEMALE friend.â What may have seemed
an obvious pairing at the start of the show
became less so after 9 seasons of arguments,
break-ups, resolutions, and finally her marriage
to Tedâs friend Barney-- nine years of proof
to the viewer why the character pairing
just didnât work. âJust tell me,
do you love me?â âNo.â Most saliently, fans saw
this endgame pairing as very out of character
for Robin. However many times she says
or demonstrates that she doesnât want
to be with Ted -- "It's a great look. But you're looking at the wrong girl.â âNo, I'm not.â âYes, you are." the show refuses
to accept this. âWhat do you want me to do Ted? Run up to that roof and knock the ring
out of Barneyâs hand and say sorry to interrupt
but you should be with me?â And after spending
years explaining why they couldnât be together,
why she didnât want kids âI don't want to have
kids in Argentina.â âAnd I don't want to have
kids in Argentina.â and how the most important thing
in her life is her career, in the finale she seems
to be waiting for Ted. So by sticking
to the firm destination it had plotted out
years earlier the show let down
and contradicted the person Robin
had shown herself to be in all that time. InTheseTimesâs Sady Doyle
wrote of the harshness with which Robin
was treated in the finale, âRobin, sans boyfriend,
is condemned to a sad life of bitter spinsterhood,
distancing herself entirely from the core group of friends
she once loved now that she's no longer
dating Ted and/or Barney.â And apparently,
Robin -- the girl who was always
happy being single -- needs to be saved
from this spinster fate by a man with
a blue French horn. âEverybody brings flowers.â After 208 episodes
and too many close encounters to keep track of,
in the series finale Ted finally meets her,
the future Tracy Mosby. Tracy is intimately woven
into the final season, which takes place
over the three days of Barney and Robinâs
wedding weekend. Over the last season,
fan favorites return, and the slap bet
is finally completed, but by the finale,
thereâs still one more promise left to fulfill. Ted still has to find his mystery woman
with the yellow umbrella. âWait a second,
this is my umbrella. I left this umbrella at Cindyâs
you totally stole my umbrella.â âWhat? No I didnâtâ Of course, in true
How I Met Your Mother fashion, Ted is the LAST person
to meet Cristin Miliottiâs character. Sheâs revealed to have crossed paths
with each of Tedâs friends at one time or another,
either crashing into them over the course
of the wedding weekend âIâm so sorry are you okay
that was totally my fault.â âYouâve gotta do it right. Canât be messing around picking up girls
in drug stores.â Fans fell in love with the
charming new character as she made her way into
Tedâs life through his friends âSometimes even
three deep breaths can change everything.â She proved herself to be
worthy of the gang, before she had ever laid eyes
on her future husband. âLinus, whoever
that best man is, I would like to buy
him a double of your finest scotch." Ted and Tracy
come together in the perfect
âmeet-cuteâ scene, but itâs infamously undercut
by the simultaneous reveal that Tracy
has passed away. âEven then, in what can only
be called the worst of times, all I could do was thank GodâŚ
that I had the guts to stand upâ This whole time,
Ted has been a widower, and this story heâs been telling
about his kidsâ mother hasnât been a rom-com
but a romantic tragedy. âwalk over to her,
tap her on the shoulder, open my mouth,
and speak.â And then weâre shown the scene
filmed nearly a decade ago. Ted has reached
the end of his tale, and his children are frustrated
with their father. âYou made us sit down
and listen to this story about how you met mom,
yet momâs hardly in the story.â So itâs quickly revealed
that this still is a rom-com - theyâve just done
a bait-and-switch with the female lead. âNo. This is a story
about how youâre totally in love with Aunt Robin.â One key reason
that the finale backfired is that the writers evidently
didnât give enough thought to how much screentime
they offered audiences to emotionally process
important developments, versus the amount of time
those same events took for
the characters in-story. âMom's been gone
for six years now. It's time.â Even though Ted only met
the mother of his children in the finale,
the show's audience had just spent an entire season
falling in love with her âItâs the TITULAR ROLE.â. Thus her sudden death
felt unsatisfying and brutal-- not the answer to
âHow I Met Your Motherâ that audiences had waited
nine seasons for. The joke in the pilot
that this story is really about
Ted and Robin âAunt robin? I thought
this was how you met Momâ feels sinister when these two
get together mere minutes (in screentime) after the death
of a beloved character. âWhat, I just... just
call her up on the phone and ask her out on a date? âYes." And then thereâs
Barney and Robin. In a quick fix in
the finale episode, Barney and Robin break up
just one episode after being pronounced
man and wife âI know Iâm always traveling. We both hate it when Iâm gone, you hate it when I drink,
neither of us is happy. Is this just not
working anymore?â Sure, in their lives,
this uncoupling happens three years after their entry
into holy matrimony, but viewers had just
spent twenty-two episodes literally AT their wedding,
only for their pairing to be ripped away
like a cruel joke. âWe got divorced.â The casualness with which
show-runners threw away Barney and Robinâs marriage,
and the life of the titular mother were severe shocks
to long-time viewers. This harshness felt
out of step with nine seasons
centered around the importance of friendship
and the care we should give to those closest to
us in our lives. âThe friends, neighbors,
drinking buddies and partners in crime
you love so much when you're young,
as the years go by, you just lose touch." And beyond whether
viewers were happy with the narrative conclusions
for each individual character, thereâs the question of
what ultimate message the show sent with
its final choices. "When you love someone
you don't stop. Ever. Even when people
roll their eyes or call you crazy! Especially then!" You could interpret
this ending as stressing the importance of friendship. By having Ted end up with Robin instead of the Mother,
the writers make the case that youâre supposed
to end up with the person you
really know best, even though your relationship
is messy and not perfect âRobin Stinson.â âRobin Mosby.â âRobin Stinson.â Ted Scherbatzky.â âI'll take her name. I don't care." as opposed to looking for
that ideal stranger-soulmate who will magically
transform your life. Viewed through this lens,
Tedâs ending up with Robin could be seen as a rejection
of his perfectionist search for the over-the-top
fairy-tale romance. âHi, you probably
don't remember me, but..."Halloween,
ten years ago." On the other hand, this show --
whose creators reportedly rejected the inevitable
Friends comparisons -- decided to follow
in that showâs footsteps by forcing an ending
where two thirds of the original gang
finish coupled up. "You got off the plane..." The comparisons between
the two series were, of course, inevitable --
both sitcoms set in New York City follow
an insular group of friends who gather every day
at the same location, and never seem
to acquire any new pals. âCarl the bartender! Dude from my bodega! Steam cleaning coupon guy! Mom!"â The main thing that set
How I Met Your Mother apart from Friends
in a serious way was the titular question
at the heart of the show. The mysterious mother spoke
of an outside world, a stranger from the future --
someone our protagonist has not yet
had the chance to meet. There is something more
waiting out there, we were promised. âBut I did get
a little bit closer to meeting the woman
of my dreams. And your mom? Well,
she got her yellow umbrella back.â So when the series
abandoned this promise, it ended up reinforcing
Friendsâ implicit message of insularity --
that the only people who really matter
are the ones that we (and the audience)
already know. As Megan Garber wrote
for the Atlantic, because the mother
was a ârelative strangerâ while Robin was
well-known to us, the conclusion
sent the message that Tracy was, quote,
âultimately just as expendable as everyone else. She was, by sad circumstance but also by
the show's circular logic, a stepping stone on Ted's way,
ultimately, to Robin.â "The point of the story is that⌠Is that you totally, totally, totally have the hots
for Aunt Robin." Unlike Friends,
How I Met Your Mother has a central narrator. âI never thought I'd see
that girl again, But it turns out,
I was just too close to the puzzle to see
the picture that was formingâ This was conceived
as Tedâs story. Yet over time,
The success of HIMYM wasnât due to the strength
of Ted as a protagonist, but rather the dynamism of those
he surrounded himself with. The finale of
How I Met Your Mother reverts to putting
Tedâs happiness before all. He should be with Robin. Why? Because he wants to be. â8 years ago
I made an ass of myself chasing after you
and I made an ass of myself chasing after you
a bunch of times since thenâ The audience plays
an important role in the development
of television. Gaps between seasons
provide viewers with time to speculate,
form fan theories, and engage with creators online
and in other fan spaces. "I have to fangirl because
Neil Patrick Harris is awesome!" In Hillary Robsonâs â
Television and the Cult Audience,â she differentiates between
two types of TV viewers: the casual
and the ritual. The casual viewer
engages with the material on a semi-regular basis,
while the ritual viewer is a âdie hardâ fan
who dedicates time and energy to dissecting
major plot points and retaining
character details in order to
enrich their watching. Robsonâs âcultistsâ
are often associated with more stereotypical
âcult tvâ like Battlestar Galactica, Star Trek, Game of Thrones
or Star Wars âTed the only people
in the universe who havenât
seen Star Wars are the characters
in Star Wars --and thatâs cause
they LIVED them Ted. They LIVED the Star Wars.â but How I Met Your Motherâs
central mystery and serialized plot lines
also made this episodic sitcom ripe for fan theories
and cult viewership. "Now a lot of you guys
have requested a conspiracy theory
about How I Met Your Mother" In the weeks and months
after the finale aired, one way that viewers processed
the finaleâs unpopular decisions was by creating fan edits. One of the most popular online edits
was just three minutes long. Now removed from YouTube,
it ends moments after Ted and Tracey meet
on the train station platform, as Ted announces âAnd that kids, is how
I met your mother.â No matter where you stand
on the How I Met Your Mother finale, at the end of the day,
the show was never really about who turned out to be
the love of Tedâs life. How I Met Your Mother was
a show about friendship. âI love you guys so much
I canât even--â âJust move to the second part.â âOkay, okay.â As Garber wrote
in the Atlantic, â âThey were friends who
were more family than family.â Sometimes we fail
to appreciate these platonic relationships
because weâre fixating on the need for
a perfect romantic partner. âThere's millions
of people in this city. How in all this mess
is a guy supposed to find the love of his life?â How I Met Your Mother
reminded us that even when weâre looking
for our âsoulmate,â we shouldnât forget about
the people who are already there. So when we look back
at How I Met Your Mother, itâs not the final meeting
that weâll remember, but the âHowâ, and
all the moments in between. Because the âHowâ
is the real heart of any story. âBecause sometimes,
even if you know how something's going to end,
that doesn't mean you can't enjoy the ride.â If youâre new here,
be sure to subscribe and click the bell to get notified
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I really appreciated how they examined all the perspectives and showed no bias.
They're a great channel.