How I Met Your Mother Ending [MAJOR SPOILERS (*salutes*) WITHIN]

[AxlisOld]

"Dad, if you're gonna fuck her, can you stop calling her 'Aunt Robin?'"

[ZoSoRose]

Sorry for you folks that liked it, but it just wasn't good. It just didn't fit with the series' tone and messages. Combine that with the horrible execution and rushed nature and it was a catastrophe. Its sad, but that is how I see it.

Some people like it because "that's how life is," but this "real" and sad ending is just as hollywoodized as a typical happy ending. Robin and Barney don't work, Ted gets to have kids with someone he loves but she dies, Robin gets to have her career, then it all conveniently falls into place and they wind up together? That is not real life and the episode had well acted scenes to tug at your heart strings, but that doesn't make a good ending.

As I said, death by sickness, divorce, bitter loss of friendships, and grief weren't themes of the show. Fans endured an entire season of a wedding that was nullified in 10 minutes, had to endure episodes upon episodes of Barney, Ted, Robin bullshit for it all to be worthless, and were then given a depressing finale that shits on the themes and lessons of the show. Ted spent seasons getting over Robin. They shamelessly brought it back this season. Barney spent seasons growing and maturing, again its thrown out completely in this finale, then the mother's character is tossed aside as a plot device so Ted can be with Robin- a relationship we were told (beaten over) for years wouldn't work

Its a shame they couldn't come up with anything besides this. Not saying it should have been devoid of hardship and emotion, but it defiantly should have been more light-hearted and should have tried to keep with the series' themes.

[Johnny Drama]

Can we change the thread title to "How I Met Robin"? I mean really.

[Daedalus]

Advice: stop watching at 40:00, because the last 3 minutes are the worst in the entire show.

[Lithium]

I stopped watching this during season 5. So Robin was the mother?

[luciusfunk]

I liked it. Most of the season sucked though.

My wife called the ending four seasons ago. She said Robin wasn't the mother, but she'd be their stepmother.

[estrangedtwat]

I liked that the Mom's name was actually kinda sorta revealed way back around season two.

He's talking about his night at a strip club with Barney, and a girl comes up and says her name is Destiny or some stupid stripper name....then she leans in and says, "Actually...I'm Tracey."

So Bob Saget goes "And that kids, is how I met your mother." And the kids go "Whaaaat?"

They'd only react that way if their mom was actually named Tracy. Clever easter egg.

Does not make up for the pile of dogshit ending though.

[Thin White Duke]

One word: cheesy.

I said the end would be him saying the kids: and that's how I realized I was gay. And honestly, it would have been more fun.

[Tater Totts]

I stopped watching this during season 5. So Robin was the mother?

Nope.

Robin and Barney got married, something they have been building to for 2+ seasons but they get divorced.

The Mother dies.

The kids give permission for Ted to date Robin again.

He turns up outside her door with the blue horn from the first episode to end it.

BULLSHIT!

[downzy]

Since Seinfeld and The Drew Carey Show, I have never been able to get into any comedy that's shot before a live studio audience (and has a laugh track). They all feel derivative, and in comparison to shot-on-location shows like Arrested Development, The Office, Modern Family, terribly unfunny.

I'm personally glad this show is over with so I don't have to hear about it anymore. I'm also happy that the finale sucked. Call me a sadist, but considering that Arrested Development got the hook because people were caught up watching terrible shows like this or Two and a Half Men, fans of this show deserve to be let down. Same goes with Dexter - a show I never got (and I suffered through the two first seasons).

It boggles my mind how this show found an audience while Arrested Development went unwatched while it was originally aired. It defies logic.

Edited April 1, 2014 by downzy

[Thin White Duke]

I'm just gonna post in this thread because I'm in a higher intellectual level, commoners, and that gives me the prerogative to laugh at you for watching this shit. How dare you! This is not a matter of taste, sense of humour is not debatable, it's a fact, and you're all doing it wrong.

I don't usually see this show but I'm gonna generalize and say it sucked because I have some preconceptions about sitcoms which make me look down on this shit.

[downzy]

I'm just gonna post in this thread because I'm in a higher intellectual level, commoners, and that gives me the prerogative to laugh at you for watching this shit. How dare you! This is not a matter of taste, sense of humour is not debatable, it's a fact, and you're all doing it wrong.

I don't usually see this show but I'm gonna generalize and say it sucked because I have some preconceptions about sitcoms which make me look down on this shit.

It's not a matter of taste, but a matter of whether something is derivative or not. I found it derivative while other shows that advanced the genre went unwatched.

It's called voicing an opinion.

[Bards]

Geez Downzy, I hated the finale but take the stick out of your ass.

[estrangedtwat]

It's actually a lot more similar to AD than you might think. There was a real continuity throughout the whole series...flashbacks, flashforwards, callbacks to old gags. It rewarded attentive viewers the same way AD did. And other than Lily, most of the characters were likeable.

The Bluth family is funny...but not exactly likeable. There's a difference between laughing at detestable people that get themselves into bad situations through their own stupidity or greed and actually caring about the characters. I mean...GOB is fucking amazing but he's an asshole with zero redeemable qualities so I don't really CARE what happens to him. I honestly wanted things to work out for Ted and the Mother.

[downzy]

It's actually a lot more similar to AD than you might think. There was a real continuity throughout the whole series...flashbacks, flashforwards, callbacks to old gags. It rewarded attentive viewers the same way AD did. And other than Lily, most of the characters were likeable.

The Bluth family is funny...but not exactly likeable. There's a difference between laughing at detestable people that get themselves into bad situations through their own stupidity or greed and actually caring about the characters. I mean...GOB is fucking amazing but he's an asshole with zero redeemable qualities so I don't really CARE what happens to him. I honestly wanted things to work out for Ted and the Mother.

Wow, never would I imagine someone trying to find similarities between Arrested Development and HIMYM. I have to disagree that simply because both shows used flashbacks and callbacks that they're in anyway similar. Family Guy uses those devices and its connection with AD or HIMYM is pretty weak (or at least how I see it).

And I don't know if a comedy requires good people to care about. There were very few redeeming qualities about the cast of characters in Seinfeld but people still tuned in because it offered a unique brand or style of comedy. It had an existential, simplified tone and feel to it. The Drew Carey Show was the natural evolution from the Bob Newhart comedies - it's foundation was based on self-deprecating humour that almost nobody was doing at the time or had done so effectively. My problem with shows like HIMYM, Two and a Half Men, and The Big Bang Theory is that the jokes employed and the topics addressed are the same ones we've seen in better shows. There's nothing new or innovative about the brand of humour employed. Had they come before shows like Cheers, Seinfeld or Friends they would be deserving of praise - but it's the same basic setups and viewer manipulations that we have seen for decades.

Even a show like Friends became derivative after a few seasons. And as much as I like Seinfeld, the last two seasons simply played off who the characters were rather than offering anything new or innovative.

Once the format moved away from the laugh track, that's when we finally started to see some innovation in television comedy. When writers and show creators took the risk and no longer relied on inserted laugh tracks to tell viewers when to laugh is when they upped their game. And once the new standard was set, I can't go back to watching forced jokes and canned laughter. Unless the tone or structure of the comedy employed is something we haven't seen before or it's highly innovative, I can't get into anything with a laugh track. Not now, having seen shows like Curb Your Enthusiasm, The Office, Louie, and Arrested Development.

Edited April 1, 2014 by downzy

[Bards]

Then why are you in this thread? You joined a discussion about the finale of a show just to say "i don't like it, i'm better than that?"

You're one of my favourite posters here, but you're coming off incredibly douchetastic right now.

On topic, I thought Lost had a better finale. LOST. If I wanted something long, depressing and a total letdown....I have my life.

[downzy]

Then why are you in this thread? You joined a discussion about the finale of a show just to say "i don't like it, i'm better than that?"

Because I have strong feelings about television comedy and I wanted to talk about it.

If my posts are saying that because I don't like HIMYM that I'm better than everyone who does, then I apologize for not expressing myself properly. As someone who loves the movie Cabin Boy, I'm not in any position to judge what others find funny.

My gripe has to do with why some comedies succeed despite, and this is my opinion, not being that great when other shows that I thought were much better and more innovative failed to garner an audience. Now that HIMYM is over (btw, I have never posted about this show before), I thought I'd provide my two cents as to why I didn't like it. There are threads about G-N-R (connecting those letters results in PJ) certain songs where people express their dissatisfaction and nobody (well, almost nobody) objects. I don't see a difference to what I'm posting about here.

Edited April 1, 2014 by downzy

[estrangedtwat]

Dude, I LOVE AD. It was brilliant. Too brilliant for the general public unfortunately.

But the continuity I was referring to in HIMYM is nothing like the random cutaways in Family Guy. There is a definite timeline and continuity that occurs and for the most part, the writers really did a great job of making it all work. There was an episode this year that showed the last 8 years from the mother's perspective and how she just missed Ted several times and it all fit pretty neatly into stuff they did YEARS ago. Very similar to how the 4th season of AD all tied together by the end.

It's unfortunate that the show had a laugh track, and the creators went on record saying they hated having to use it, but it really is a step up from crap like Big Bang Theory.

It's in a middle ground....nowhere near the likes of Louie, Always Sunny, or Curb....but miles better than shit like 2 and a Half Men. It was basically "Friends" for the next generation but a lot of care really did go in to making it a cohesive story that rewarded faithful viewers. Too bad they shit the bed in the last stretch.

[downzy]

Dude, I LOVE AD. It was brilliant. Too brilliant for the general public unfortunately.

But the continuity I was referring to in HIMYM is nothing like the random cutaways in Family Guy. There is a definite timeline and continuity that occurs and for the most part, the writers really did a great job of making it all work. There was an episode this year that showed the last 8 years from the mother's perspective and how she just missed Ted several times and it all fit pretty neatly into stuff they did YEARS ago. Very similar to how the 4th season of AD all tied together by the end.

It's unfortunate that the show had a laugh track, and the creators went on record saying they hated having to use it, but it really is a step up from crap like Big Bang Theory.

It's in a middle ground....nowhere near the likes of Louie, Always Sunny, or Curb....but miles better than shit like 2 and a Half Men. It was basically "Friends" for the next generation but a lot of care really did go in to making it a cohesive story that rewarded faithful viewers. Too bad they shit the bed in the last stretch.

Fair enough. I remember watching the first half of the season - what was it, nine or ten years ago? - and thinking it just didn't compare to what was being offered by other shows at that time (Curb, I think Always Sunny in Philadelphia launched around the same time, The Office, Arrested Development). Maybe it got better, but for me, the old sitcom paradigm was passé - new and better forms of television comedy had come along. So listening to someone lament about a weak series finale for a show like HIMYM is akin to others expressing disappointment that the last album by their favourite doo-wopp artist is subpar. Or that the latest Sony Walkman didn't meet their expectations.

And for those complaining that I'm being an asshole with my posts, it's not as though this thread is a hotbed of positivity. If everyone here was posting about how happy they were with the series finale, I would have kept to myself. But since most people seem unhappy with how the show ended, it's not as though my posts that criticize the entire show is really bringing the mood down.

Edited April 1, 2014 by downzy

[Streetchild]

I loved the first five seasons of this show.

After that it went a little downhill, but still had some cool episodes during the years.

Season 9 started pretty weak, but the last few episodes were pretty cool.

I Always liked Ted and Robin as a couple, but the last few seasons it was clear they didn't belong together.

So I was happy the mother turned out to be a new character in season 8.

And then in the last few minutes of the show they had to break up Barney and Robin, let Barney have a kid, let the mother die and let Ted and Robin get back together...

The whole search for the mother and the love of his life seems kinda pointless now, since he met Robin in the first episode.

I did like some of the jokes to earlier episodes though, like the playbook, cockamouse, muder train or robots vs wrestlers.

But all in all a disapointing ending to a great show.

Edited April 1, 2014 by Streetchild

[Georgy Zhukov]

Breaking Bad had a better finale. And The Wire

[magisme]

Show was over when Barney and Robin got together.

[Streetchild]

Show was over when Barney and Robin got together.

Agreed. Barney being the single womaniser was the best part of the show.

This would have been a better ending to the show:

[username]

I feel sad and disappointed.

[gunsfanoldie]

I'd really want to bone that sister. She is bangin'.

Back on track though, this was one of the worst TV finales I've seen in a long time. I should know, I was a TV major in college (wanted to be film but got accepted for TV. Its a long story. Its not worth going into. But trust me, when I say this school was good, I mean it was ok).

But seriously back on track, what a horrible ending. My history with this show has always been mixed. I wasn't hate watching, but I had friends and family that really enjoyed the show (much more than I did) so through them I continued watching it. I agree with magisme that the show died when they got Robin and Barney together. And then whats laughable is they spent 3 or 4 years shoving that down everyone's throat, to the point where they finally accepted it, and then they get them divorced 10 minutes after the wedding. I mean, that sounds even more ridiculous when you write it out.

If this ended at season 5, this ending would have been cute and nowhere near as bad. Problem was they spent 40 minutes glossing over the rest of Ted's life (his entire time with the mother, her sickness, their kids) all for him to want to get back with Robin. And on top of that, they ruined her character and Barney's in the finale which also kind of sucks. I agree that Barney was the best thing about this show, and at a time Marshall was also pretty good. Overall, its a very LOST like finale where it seems so much didn't matter and thats kind of disrespectful to the audience. In a sick way, I was happy that after nearly 10 years of telling people how much I hated the show everyone was sort of in agreeance about that today, but its also sad because decent shows don't usually run for 9 years anymore and for it to end so poorly is really a taint to the legacy.

But what's done is done. Dead is dead and we have to accept that. Don't have any other words about this series other than that I'm very happy after 9 long years I don't have to worry about it being on Monday nights anymore.