After twenty hours of avoiding all social media and entertainment sites, I finally watched the series finale of How I Met Your Mother on Tuesday. Luckily, I was able to make it through the day without having the ending spoiled for me (I felt like I was reenacting the season two episode "Monday Night Football"). Having read the online reactions and taken time to figure out my thoughts, I'm ready to pitch in. Obviously SPOILERS follow, so if you haven't seen the finale, stop reading immediately.
Let me begin by saying that I fully understand the rage that many people are experiencing at the finale. We've spent nine years waiting for Ted to meet the mother of his children, expecting her to be his soulmate and them living happily ever after. Then we spent all of this last season learning about the mother, whose name we find out is Tracy, and seeing her and Ted together in flashforwards. I know I'm not alone in thinking that Tracy was perfect for Ted. But after all of that, Tracy dies from a terminal illness and six years later Ted goes after Robin one last time. It's hard not to feel cheated by this ending, so I understand why people are upset.
However, I'm okay with this ending, for the most part. When fans started speculating about the mother being dead when Ted tells the story, I didn't want to believe it. I was still holding onto the hope that they would have their happy ever after. But when it turned out to be true, I realized that it made sense, especially given the clues that the writers have been dropping since last season. What I didn't like was that Tracy's death came and went. I would have liked some sort of goodbye scene between Ted and the woman that he has been searching for for nine years, but instead we get a brief voiceover about her being sick and a shot of him reading to her in a hospital bed. I know that a scene like that would have been really heavy, but it would have made Ted's moving on at the end more powerful. That being said, I can look past this because how they handled Tracy's death was fine given the ultimate reveal that the story was really about Robin.
But that's where my main problem with the finale comes in. Actually, it's not even a problem with the finale but more with the series as a whole. I'm not angry that Ted went after Robin at the end, mostly because that is clearly what the creators had in mind from the beginning. The final scene with the kids was shot close to the beginning of the series because the actors needed to appear the same age. Plus, looking back, the pilot is all about how Ted meets Robin, so coming back to that in the finale makes perfect sense. My issue is that it has been made clear multiple times throughout the series that Ted and Robin are not right for each other, so that's what makes the ending unrealistic to me. Ted has also said on several occasions that he is over Robin. I know that I can't take Ted for his word on that because he's Ted, but I felt that this season's "Sunrise" provided closure in that regard. Even if Ted never did get over his feelings for Robin, that doesn't change the fact that she's always been focused on her career while he always wanted to settle down. Ted found someone who was able to give him everything that he wanted, and he clearly loved her, but now I'm supposed to believe that after being with Tracy for ten years he still thinks Robin is the one? I don't buy it. Maybe if Robin had shown some sort of change in character, I would be more inclined to believe it, but she still seemed very career-focused at the end. Like I said, the finale made sense logistically, but I wish they developed Robin's character a little more at the end so that I could more believably see them together.
Now on to the other characters. I'll start with Barney. Personally, I loved how Barney has grown so much over the course of the series. I thought his proposal to Robin was great and, although I may be alone in this, that they were good together because they each had their own issues with commitment. Then when he and Robin get divorced, he makes a complete reversal to the guy he was at the beginning of the series. I don't think that was the best choice, but giving him a daughter was a great touch. Seeing him as a devoted father was touching, even if it was the result of a one-night stand. I just wish that they could have gotten there a different way, but I don't know how else it could have happened.
Lily and Marshall have pretty much been the only constants in the series, except for when Lily went to San Francisco. But once they got married, the only issues they had were career-related. Their relationship never wavered, so there wasn't much for them to do in the finale because they had their biggest closure in "Daisy" when we found out Lily was pregnant. However, I will say that I'm glad Marshall got to be a judge and that they have a big happy family.
One more complaint that I've read that I must address is more about this final season as a whole. Many people have complained that this whole season was focused on a marriage that only lasted three years (and about fifteen minutes on screen). This comes on top of the complaints that this season dragged on and shouldn't have spanned a 72 hour period. I am in the small group of people who actually liked this season overall, but I agree that it seems weird that the divorce came so soon. Personally, I liked the idea of the season taking place within one weekend because it made for a more serialized season that led up to Ted meeting the mother. I always figured that that meeting wouldn't happen until the series finale anyway, and I never expected to get to know the mother as much as we did, which was a nice surprise. I agree that this season wasn't the greatest, but I didn't hate it nearly as much as a lot of other people did.
That said, I think that the finale could have been better served if the end of the wedding happened a few episodes previously and the divorce could have been announced more gradually. Then the finale could have spent some more time on Ted and Tracy's relationship and made her death more powerful as well as make us believe that Ted and Robin would work together.
I know that all of this sounds like I didn't like the episode, but that's not true. Although there was a lot that they tried to fit into one hour, as finales go, it was pretty good overall. It hit all the right notes: I laughed, I cried (not really, but I did get choked up a bit), and I was surprised. The writers did a great job of bringing back recurring gags, including my favorite running joke, the Private Joke (when someone says a phrase that includes a military rank, Ted and Robin repeat it and salute, e.g. "Major pleasure"). The emotional scenes were all great as well, especially the gang's goodbye to Ted before he supposedly leaves for Chicago and the titular meeting between Ted and Tracy.
Overall I did like the finale. It's just some of the plot choices that bothered me, but that's going to be the case with any show. After spending years getting emotionally invested with a cast of characters, you're never going to be completely satisfied when you have to say goodbye. I got to see Ted meet his soulmate and some of their life together, and that's more than I could've hoped for. I'm sure that when I watch the episode again, I'll feel differently than I do now and appreciate the ending more. But these are just my initial reactions. I may not agree with all of the decisions that the creators made, but I'm glad to have been witness to their legendary creation.
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