And that kids, is how I met your mother.
It's the end of another one of my old favourite television shows. It reminds me that I'm getting old. I was in highschool when I watched my first episode of
How I Met Your Mother, although i didn't get into it until a few years later when I was in uni.
I loved this show. I did. But alas, over the later years the craze died down. I do remember that it was this craze, at it's hype that lead me onto a spiral of awesome night time drama marathon's across many genres over the course of the last five years. So thank you
HIMYM.
So after nine seasons the show has come to an end and as a long time fan I thought I'd express my thoughts on the final wrap. And well, it wasn't the ending I wanted to see. Not that I had an expectation of how I wanted it to all end. I never do because I like to be open to what ever the possiblilty when I watch the end come. All I hope for is that it's an ending that fits.
***spoiler alert***
The final episode shockingly unravels the build up of the entire season not to mention the entire series. What was the point of bringing Robin and Barney together with an entire season based on their wedding to just tear it all apart with the reveal of their divorce a few years down the track? All Barney's development and growth reversed leading him back to his sleazy ways for the years that elapsed after their divorce. Yeah sure the love of his life being his daughter is a poetic end, it is not the ending I wanted to see for the character. Truth be told, after all his hard work in becoming a better man I wanted to see him do the distance with his marriage with Robin. And Robin... how could they let her cave. Sure she has doubts and cold feet on her wedding day but having denied Ted time and time again, with the argument convincingly stronger each time, Robin wanting to be with Ted again, regretting that she didn't make it work with him, being jealous that he married someone else... this 180 degree about turn in character is not the Robin we know. Sure "years" past. Pffft! But cramming years into one episode after spanning the growth and development of characters over nine seasons is not how you reward your long time viewers. Sure the ending that came to be, Robin and Ted, is realistic. I can see that outcome in real life. People are emotional, irrational and we change. But this is a sitcom after all, a story, not real life.
The writers had known the ending from the start. They had filmed the kids reaction to the end of their dad's tale during the first season of the show. This was when the story was written for 13 episodes and the mother being Victoria. Remember Ted running into the bakery and the two embracing?
And that kids, is how I met your mother. Cut to the kids saying the point of the story isn't about their late mother hence why she's hardly it in and teasing their dad that he still has the hots for their aunt Robin.
Fits right? Given how short the run time was, 13 episodes. All characters at that point weren't as fully fleshed out. This ending with Ted and Robin rekindling their feelings, works. If the series had end on those first 13 episodes, this ending would have been perfect. But, the series didn't end there. It went on successfully to span nine seasons. The story by this point has simply out grown this initally planned ending. It is a shame that the writers couldn't let go of this old footage of the kids and go on to write a more suitable ending for the beautiful story they had spent so many years creating.
Even if they had just left the footage of the kids out it would have worked and ended it with Ted and the mother gazing at each other under the yellow umbrella. An elegant and simple ending would have sufficed.
