How I Met Your Mother Finale
Yeah, yeah, I know, I haven’t posted anything in two weeks. I don’t like to be that out of touch and usually I post something on at least one of the blogs. The day job beckoned though and it took me away from…well…everything.
That includes TV and that would be why I just got around to watching the HIMYM finale.
Like any other successful show, the finale is likely to ignite strong opinions. Some people will hate it no matter how good it is and some will love it no matter how bad. Honestly, I felt myself conflicted. So did my wife. We spent a good hour talking about it, trying to wade through the story. I’d seen on Imgur that a lot of people weren’t happy, I even thought I knew why, then I saw it.
From here on, SPOILERS!
Okay, the ending sucked. Sucked bad. But I’ll get to that in a minute.
Because the 58 minutes leading up to that were beautiful.
A lot of people, I’m sure, have problems with many aspects of the show. Robin and Barney get divorced. Robin distances herself from the group. Barney knocked up some chick. Some people will continue to mistakenly complain the mother takes a backseat role in her own show (I’ll get to that in a minute). And of course, there’s the fact that she dies. The ending has a general bleak quality. The happy endings are lacking a bit, except of course with Lilly and Marshal who everyone knew would end up well.
But that’s kind of the point.
The show has always been about life. More than that, it has been about the phases of life, about how people grow together and apart through their journey. Horrible as it was that Robin and Barney get divorced (especially since it was such a HUGE focus for the last few seasons) it also happens.
People move on.
It’s horrible that the mother dies. It’s terrible. We spent ten years waiting to meet this character and then they’re together for less time than it took to meet her.
Welcome to life.
The way that was done was actually quite beautiful and they do a good job of pointing a lot of that out. I do wish Barney and Robin’s marriage had at least been pleasant for its brief existence but, considering everything we loved about those two characters, it’s easy to believe that wasn’t in the cards. That doesn’t negate the many beautiful moments.
Barney meeting his daughter for one, finally finding the one person in his life whom he will dedicate everything to. The simple, sublime joy of watching Ted and Tracy fall to fate. I don’t believe in fate, at least not in that way, but watching these two people as they meet and realize how they were connected, even if it was through a stupid, yellow umbrella, was beautiful.
Then the last two minutes comes along and shits all over that.
I simply don’t understand why this show insists upon Ted ending up with Robin. Their initial meeting and his courting of her was exceptionally well done. It’s what drew us into these character’s lives. But it came and it went and it was over. For this whole story just a lame attempt to bring these characters together seems distasteful, especially considering how eloquent at storytelling the show has been. The foreshadowing and dedication to continuity has always been on of this show’s greatest strengths, for him to show up at her door with that blue horn just felt so tacked on and cheap.
It felt like a cop out.
If I didn’t know better, and I guess I don’t, I’d say they did it at the last moment, though I don’t see how since it seems like they filmed the kid’s response way back in the beginning. Part of the weakness of the show was Ted’s on/off relationship with Robin. The story has always been wishy washy with this, and it drew in other parts of the story. Barney was good with Quin and even with Nora. It felt like they sabotaged those to build up the relationship with Robin. All of this was part of the show outliving its welcome. I think it’s fair to say the show could have ended two, even three seasons ago. It also felt like it was planned that way. Instead we see character get yanked all over the place.
The only context I can offer to make this better is the scenario my wife and I came up with. It would have been better had Robin and Ted never ended up dating in the beginning of the show. Ted would have tried to court her but it never would have worked out. She would have eventually returned his feelings just for Veronica or Stella or work or any number of other things to get in the way. Frankly, that’s what they did anyway so it’s not too far out of the realm of possibility. Then, after finding the love of his life and building a family, just to lose his wife tragically to disease, he asks his children for permission to move on, to seek out the woman who he’s always loved, never forgetting that first partner.
Instead of having two characters slide back into bad habits in an unnatural and contrived scenario we would have the culmination of years of friendship blossom into a late in life romance.
And as far as the mother, Tracey as we now know her, not being a big enough part of the show. Don’t do that. Don’t belittle that. If there is one thing this show did, it was building a character that was never seen, never heard of, only alluded to. No, we didn’t meet her until the last season, but we knew all about her. We knew the music she liked, the movies, the food, her hobbies and personality.
I don’t believe she was brought in too late, if anything, I think it was too early.
The best, the absolute best ending I could have imagined would have been for Ted to approach the woman on the station terminal. For the last thing we saw was that umbrella turning, the last word of dialogue being either him saying hello or her introducing herself.
But that’s life.
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