On Monday, March 31, the CBS comedy that many of us know and love came to an end. After nine spectacular seasons that took us through both heartbreaks and laughs, How I Met Your Mother came to a close.
If you haven’t seen it, read no further. If you have, perhaps you too experienced feelings of disappointment at the end of the one-hour finale.
The point of the entire show was leading up to a single moment when Ted Mosbey meets the love of his life. Not only is the magic ruined because the last season jumps around so much in time, but the mother’s character, whose name was revealed to be Tracy McConnell, was shown an alarming amount of disrespect.
Throughout all nine seasons, Ted is searching for this perfect woman, his yellow umbrella, the mother of his children. Once he finds her, however, they are not pictured together for that long. They don’t even get married until after five years of being engaged – very unlike Ted’s character, who was always so eager to tie the knot.
The show was built around the mother’s character and her enigma until the viewers were finally able to see her face and get to know her throughout this final season. In the final episode though, when it is revealed that the mother has died six years before Ted began to tell his kids the story of how he met her, the show barely acknowledges her death. She dies off screen and viewers are left with virtually no clue as to how it really happened, other than a vague illness. To make matters worse, there is absolutely no mourning from any of the characters, even Ted, shown onscreen – there isn’t even a funeral.
At the end of Ted’s story, his daughter Penny asks him why he went through such a long story about how he met their mother when their mother was barely in the story, which is a fair point. It is then that we learn Tracy has been dead for six years, and Ted realizes he once again needs to attempt to win back Robin. By the end, almost every viewer was most likely wishing it had all been some horrible April Fool’s prank. It wasn’t, sadly, and the finale ended with Ted outside Robin’s window holding that famous blue French horn.
Perhaps the real name for this show should have been “How I Met Your Mother but Then She Died So Instead I Convinced the Woman I’m Obsessed with to Pity Marry Me.”
The final pairing of Ted and Robin is upsetting because it forced the implosion of Barney and Robin’s relationship, one of the most realistic and fulfilling fictional romances on television. Neither of them claimed to be perfect people, but the way they worked together was inspiring and heartwarming. Their divorce—which happens only three years into their marriage—felt rushed, and directly afterwards Barney seems to revert back to his old sex-crazed ways without so much as a thought. It feels unauthentic after all he learned through his relationship with Robin, and it was disappointing after we’ve witness him grow so much.
Not only did the final episode break up a beloved couple, but it also put together two people who have tried countless times to make it work and it never has. Watching the final episode was true “final slap” from the writers.
How I Met Your Mother has had some great moments on the air. Any loyal fans can point out a moment in any given season where this show has made them laugh, cry or just feel genuine happiness. A 24-episode season only covering a single weekend and a finale that rushed through years of events was not the best way to end such a legendary show. However, there’s no doubt that Ted, Robin, Lily, Marshall and Barney have each taught us something during their years on TV.
In the words of Lily to Ted, “I’m glad that goodbye was so creepy because now I won’t miss you.”
Photo via CBS.com
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