I agree that the writers shot themselves in the foot by :

1. Recording the ending so far in advance and sticking to it instead of being open to adapting as things progressed

2. Giving us too much Ted/Robin to the point where we all got sick of the storyline because we KNEW she wasn't the mother. So them ending up together, makes us understand why they kept that storyline going so long, but also is a bad ending because we had already gotten sick of the storyline.

Exactly. This wasn't a story about how he met the mother of his children, the supposed "love of his life."

It's the story how he was continually rejected by Robin, met the mother of his children, she dies, and he returns to loving Robin...

Given he waited 5 years to even marry her..one has to wonder if she hadn't gotten knocked up if he would have ever married her.

Well, I'll eat my crow about the mother dying, but I'll take some solace in the fact that it's only because this show is actually dumb enough to end it that way.

Things that ground my gears:
-Barney ultimately grows none as a person by the end of the series, and when you look at it from far away, he was basically just used in the last few seasons to deprive Ted of Robin for a little while. They take back every episode reaffirming Barney having changed, being capable of love, and that Robin actually has way more in common with Barney so they belong together.

-The show then makes their wedding the centerpiece of an entire season, reaffirms several times that Robin and Barney are TOTALLY the perfect couple, marries them ON THE SECOND-TO-LAST EPISODE, then divorces them the NEXT episode in a really lazy way. Even if you were rooting for Ted and Robin, you probably still feel pretty cheated getting there. Just so many pointless episodes...

-I guess it's common for finales, but there were a few too many of the inside jokes and callbacks to old episodes when I would have rather they spend time creating a better story for finishing the series.

-How is Ted going to be any better off with Robin's international lifestyle than Barney was? Based on their jobs, Barney should have been way more adaptive to moving around. Not to mention Ted's kids. Did I miss something about Robin settling down in NY?

Things I Liked:
-Since they destroyed Barney's character, I like that he at least had a happy ending by being--by all accounts-- a devoted dad. Unfortunately this will probably be negated in the HIMYM reunion show where they will turn him into an abusive dad or maybe just kill him off, either way ironically passing on daddy issues to his own daughter.

-Ted's daughter is hawt

-I enjoyed the continued scenes with the mother. They had a good moment with the train station, and any other scene with her just made you like her more, especially for Ted. Unfortunately that's what makes it so disappointing that they created such a good match, yet they make it about Robin in the end.

Overall, I mostly enjoyed the finale aside from the divorce and mother dying/getting back with Robin. It definitely had some moments, and I'm not going to put it in the same category as Dexter, but that's mainly because Dexter's finale is in a category all its own.

I think most of the shows in HIMYM had a good concept but the execution was flawed. Given the finale the same could be said about the entire series now. Oh well. Ted's daughter is hot.

Robin became anchor for a major network as opposed to just a reporter that travels. They showed her face on a bus when she ran into Ted.

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After time passes and the knee-jerk reactions and internet circle-jerking die off, I think the finale will be viewed for what it was - a respectable ending to a respectable show.

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Maybe...

But I don't see how I will be able to go back and watch a show where nothign that happened on it actually progressed the story, at all.

Telling a story about meeting the love of your life, is worth watching.

Telling a story about meeting a woman that gave you kids while you really wanted to be with your ex-girlfriend that rejected you multiple times, is not worth watching.

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Too bad that isn't what it's about.

Just call it like it is. The writers mailed in the entire last season because they knew people would watch because it's the last season.

Pathetic and predictable ending.

2K

Ted's daughter...












I hope Barney ends up banging her after he finds out Ted is nailing his ex-wife.







[This message has been edited by Sex Panther (edited 4/1/2014 11:38a).]

http://grantland.com/hollywood-prospectus/how-i-met-your-mother-series-finale/

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“Last Forever” comes so close to managing something genuinely moving and maybe even profound that it makes its ultimate inability to stick the landing all the more disappointing. It’s as if the series caught a whiff of its own embrace of failure and decided to find a way to abruptly veer away from what might have been an all-time classic finale at the last possible second. See, Ted’s story to his kids that framed the whole series hasn’t been a way to help them get to know his younger self, or even to understand how he became the person worthy of loving their deceased mother; it’s been a long story about how he’s secretly in love with Robin, something he may realize on some self-justifying level and something his kids definitely do. (The scene — filmed early in Season 2, revealing this was always the plan — in which his kids tell him to go after Robin immediately after he gets done recounting the story of his wife’s death is one of the most tonally inappropriate things ever seen in a sitcom of this caliber. It’s like a clown hitting a corpse in the face with a pie.) Never mind that the show got us incredibly invested in Tracy, or that it spent two entire seasons trying to convince viewers that Barney and Robin were a viable couple. The initial plan must never change.

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I never loved this show, but tuned in periodically and would catch re-runs. It never reached Friends status with me, but maybe that's because Friends came out when I was roughly the same age as the characters. For me, I just never liked Ted, so I couldn't get invested. But I tuned in last night and now I never want to see another re-run again.

THey should have had the courage to bag the pre-recorded bit with the kids.

The fact of the matter is they completely ignored the foundations of the characters in this finale, and that's what was frustrating. Robin made her decisions and focused on her career, and Ted didn't want that at all. And the Robin-Ted chemistry hasn't been there for a few seasons now. Why would he run back to her?

I just think they tried to have a twist in it and was completely against the nature of the show (light comedy that was supposed to be happy in nature. They made it way too serious. This show has never been about 'real life'...it's been about comedy and relationships. And they just completely threw it all away in 20 minutes. They made it too serious. This finale has completely ruined the replay value of the show.

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Telling a story about meeting a woman that gave you kids while you really wanted to be with your ex-girlfriend that rejected you multiple times, is not worth watching.

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Except that's not the case at all. He wanted to be with the mother. They were perfect for each other. But the tragedy of life didn't give them a complete lifetime together.

And so... six years after she passes... he is lonely, and Robin, the only other woman on the planet who understands him, is still there.

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Except that's not the case at all. He wanted to be with the mother. They were perfect for each other

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Why'd he wait 5+ years and 2 kids to marry her?

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This show has never been about 'real life'...it's been about comedy and relationships.

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Sure it has. There's been unexpected deaths, divorces, failed relationships, etc.

Even Tracy had to deal with the death of a spouse. They had a scene specifically showing her decision to move on, just like Ted had to do after her death.

Just because the finale was like real life doesn't make it good.

One thing I haven't seen mentioned by anyone but bothered me so much watching it was the production quality of the interaction of Ted and the kids. I know it was filmed a long time ago, but to me, the difference in visuals of the two scenes should have been enough to abandon it. It just didn't fit and I feel like they did a terrible job making Ted's scene and the kids scene mesh AT ALL. It came across to me as a lot less than a profound moment in a story and instead felt more like one of those beer commercials where the fans are asking fake questions and the footage from actual press conferences was used to answer them. IMO, that alone should have convinced them to deviate from their original plan if they had ANY intention of making the finale work.

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Why'd he wait 5+ years and 2 kids to marry her?

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Because they loved each other and that was enough? They weren't so worried about the actual ceremony.

It's not like Ted only married her because she had his kids - they were planning the wedding before she knew she was pregnant. It was at that time that life took a detour.

Who knows the exact reason? You can nitpick anything to shreds if you try hard enough. If people would just relax more and enjoy it for what it is rather than degrading it for what it's not, life would be a lot more pleasant. And that applies to a lot more than just HIMYM.

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Except that's not the case at all. He wanted to be with the mother. They were perfect for each other. But the tragedy of life didn't give them a complete lifetime together.

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True or False

This story could have been told exactly the same way if Ted had never met the mother.

[This message has been edited by SockAg (edited 4/1/2014 10:53a).]

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Why'd he wait 5+ years and 2 kids to marry her?

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That's the only part that irked me.

But again, seemed to be the case because Ted was a perfectionist. And what they shared made a ceremony sort of trivial in the grand scheme.

Ted Mosby: tells his kids about all the women he slept with when he promised a story about he met their sainted, dead mother.

Master troll.

For this, I say: RESPECT!!!

The finale's fatal flaw is that after the show spent 9 years telling 9 years of stories, it attempted to tell 6 years of development in one episode. Audiences just aren't going to be comfortable with that flurry of activity crammed into a few minutes of screen time.

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If people would just relax more and enjoy it for what it is rather than degrading it for what it's not, life would be a lot more pleasant.

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How can you enjoy a product that undoes everything that it put together in the previous 9 years, in less than an hour?

The premise of the entire show is undone by the finale. It wasn't about ted meeting the mother. It was about ted going after a woman that never really wanted him in the first place.

The only reason ted got up teh courage to go after robin again is because he knew that:

a.) nobody else wanted her because of her job
b.) she didn't have to have kids with him

He never had to meet the mother for those two pre-requisites to be met. Hence, the show is a waste of time and is forever spoiled.

This show was about:

Barney being awesome
Ted being a pvssy
Lily being a b*tch

I liked the overall idea of the ending, Ted meeting the mom having kids, she dies, ends up with Robin.


But they should have made some of that over the season. Barney and Robin getting married and divorced in the space of "one episode" was kind of a cop out, as well as Barney having a kid.

The wedding should have been two or three episodes, and then that final episode should have spanned the rest of the season.

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Just because the finale was like real life doesn't make it good.

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this

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It really makes the end scene in the episode "the time travelers" a lot sadder. Cause he told the mother he would meet her in 45 days but he came now cause he wants those extra 45 days, even an extra 45 seconds before her boyfriend shows up. At the same time though that last bit with Robin kinda invalidates that bit. I'm just mad that they went this direction. The mother was someone that was always meant for Ted and someone that he wouldn't be able to move past, at least that's what I thought of the Ted they were portraying. But those last 5 minutes completely invalidate the show for me. BOOOO

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Which goes to show they had this planned for a few seasons.

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I liked the overall idea of the ending, Ted meeting the mom having kids, she dies, ends up with Robin.


But they should have made some of that over the season. Barney and Robin getting married and divorced in the space of "one episode" was kind of a cop out, as well as Barney having a kid.

The wedding should have been two or three episodes, and then that final episode should have spanned the rest of the season.

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I think this would've been better for sure. Definitely would've been an even bigger downer when Tracy died though.

I don't get where people are thinking Ted really wanted Robin and settled for the mom. It seemed to me that he was very much crazy about this chick every second they were together, and if she hadn't gotten sick they would've been together forever. The focus of the overall story was just about Robin because he was finally ready to move on after losing the love of his life. They even made it clear that Tracy wanted him to do that and not be so hung up on his "stories" after she was gone.

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I liked the overall idea of the ending, Ted meeting the mom having kids, she dies, ends up with Robin.


But they should have made some of that over the season. Barney and Robin getting married and divorced in the space of "one episode" was kind of a cop out, as well as Barney having a kid.

The wedding should have been two or three episodes, and then that final episode should have spanned the rest of the season.

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Here's the problem with the execution you suggest. Marshall and Lily are in Italy. Barney and Robin are traveling all over the world. For most of the season, the main cast of characters would have been completely absent from the show. I'm not sure that the way they did it was the best way, but I'm not sure they could have done what you suggest and maintain interest over a whole season either.

Well this answers one question I had - in the Trilogy episode, when it flashes forward to 2016, it was very apparent that Barney's left hand was being hidden. By that point we already knew he was going to marry Robin, so it always made me wonder if they would actually go through with it. I'll have to go back and look at Ted's left hand though - guess I just assumed he had a ring on, but his hand may have been covered up.

I immediately hated the ending, but after thinking over it some more I'm okay with it. I really hated that it took them 7 years (5 of them already engaged) and 2 kids to get married. As others have pointed out, that is just not like Ted at all. It makes sense that the wedding would have been changed when Tracy finds out she's pregnant with their first, but I feel that Ted would have wanted to either 1. get married right away (before Tracy can no longer fit in the dress), or 2. at least get married before their daughter's first birthday.

I read on a different website today (can't remember what) - in the first Thanksgiving episode, when Ted, Robin, and Barney are volunteering at the shelter and get kicked out, Ted and Barney end up a strip club. Ted ends up getting a lap dance from a stripper, and then cuts to the kids to say, "And that's how I met your mother... Just kidding!" Anyways, that stripper introduces herself as Amber... and then leans in to tell Ted that her real name is Tracy. Thought that was pretty funny.

I think if right before knocking on Robin's door, Ted had looked up and said he was moving on, just like Tracy had done earlier in the season, the last scene would've gone down much better, imo.

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Except that's not the case at all. He wanted to be with the mother. They were perfect for each other. But the tragedy of life didn't give them a complete lifetime together.

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True or False

This story could have been told exactly the same way if Ted had never met the mother.

[This message has been edited by SockAg (edited 4/1/2014 10:53a).]

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False. Because he wouldn't have been telling the story because he wouldn't have had any kids. He loved the mother and it's not like he dumped her to be with Robin. She had been dead for 6 years and he decided to move on.

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Ted ends up getting a lap dance from a stripper, and then cuts to the kids to say, "And that's how I met your mother... Just kidding!" Anyways, that stripper introduces herself as Amber... and then leans in to tell Ted that her real name is Tracy. Thought that was pretty funny.

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Thought this was one of the best scenes in the show.

what they should have done with the series, from the very beginning is make Robin the mother, rather than referring to her as Aunt Robin. they should have gone through the entire trial and tribulations of their relationship as they did. they should've never introduced the idea robin couldn't get pregnant. they should've gone through the pre-wedding scenes but not have robin and barney get married, but rather have robin be the one walking up to the train station at the end when ted is talking to the random woman. because in the end, that could've been the entire story of how ted met robin and the point where they would've had their ever after.

I think if you go back and watch the entire show with the thought that he is telling a story to tell his kids that he's ready to move on it makes perfect sense.

Scenes from episodes like 'The Best Man' where Robin and Ted are on the balcony talking about timing and chemistry and telling each other that if they are 40 and still single that they will get married make sense. Also leads to why people should've known the mother was dead beyond the 45 days speech. No way he is telling his kids a story mainly about Robin with the mother in the other room.

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Bamatab
posted 9:00a, 03/11/14


I think Robin will end up being the step-mom. The biological mother with die (they have already set that up), and Robin & Barney's marriage won't last (this latest episode set this up with her mom's description of Robin's dad who is basically Barney). The story biological mother has only been part of Ted's story for one season, while Robin was the focal point throughout it. Heck the first time he ever met Robin was the very first part of the whole story. I think his story to his kids is going to be his way of trying to get their approval for marrying Robin. I'm not saying I like that idea, I'm just saying that's my theory.

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damn