I didn't like it. I'm just going to say that right up front. Oh, also, spoilers to follow. But who am I kidding, you all already know. Very briefly, let me tell you what happened...
So, the two part series finale takes us through the rest of the gang's lives up to the point where Ted tells the story to his kids. During this time, Marshall goes back to work as a corporate lawyer, but eventually gets his judgeship and then moves on to bigger and better things. He and Lily have yet another kid, and finally move out of the old apartment and into somewhere bigger.
Robin gets a dream job, traveling around the world as a newscaster, but unfortunately this job spells the end for her and Barney's relationship. They get divorced. Barney goes right back to his womanizing ways. However, at the end of a "perfect month," (31 girls in 31 nights), Barney finds out that he got a girl pregnant. Once his little girl is born, Barney becomes a changed man. Robin has drifted apart from the group, which upsets Lily especially, since she really wanted everyone to be there for all the important moments.
Ted and The Mother meet and fall in love in a very cute, adorable way, as they finally talk for the first time at the bus stop and remark upon the yellow umbrella that they have both claimed ownership of at one point in their lives. We learn, finally, that The Mother's name is Tracy McConnell. While the two of them are planning their wedding together, Tracy discovers that she's pregnant, so the wedding is delayed. In fact, both Penny and Luke were born before the two of them get married. But eventually, they do. Robin even shows up for the small intimate ceremony, fulfilling her promise that she'd always be there for the big moments.
But see, here's where the story gets unbearably stupid - I mean, unbearably sad or whatever. Tracy gets sick and dies, apparently six full years before these kids hear the story. And we get their reaction to it: apparently, this was never a story about how Ted met their mother at all! No, it was a story about Ted's love for Robin, and his way of seeing if his kids would be okay with Ted asking Robin out. The series ends as Ted brings Robin a blue french horn and Robin looks down on him from her window, echoing the pilot of so many seasons ago.
Okay. Ordinarily, I start with the bad things and then move to the good. In this particular case, I'm going to mention the few - few - things that I liked about this catastrophe, and then get into the nitty-gritty of why I think this was terrible.
So. Good things.
The actual conversation between Ted and Tracy when they first meet. It was one of the sweetest, most genuine moments in all nine seasons of this show. Their attraction was instantly obvious. Much more so than any connection between Ted and Robin - but I'll get to that in a second.
Barney's reaction to seeing his daughter for the first time. Some lovely acting from Neil Patrick Harris. It was kind of a neat idea to have him echo his words about her being "the love of his life" from earlier.
Alyson Hannigan's acting. I had lots of problems with Lily's role in this finale, but her performance felt very genuine. More so than anyone else in the gang, I really felt sad saying goodbye to her character. Even though the script didn't give her much to work with, Hannigan made me feel an emotional connection.
The fact that Ted and Tracy weren't married before they had kids. I don't know why, but I just think this is a lovely little inversion of what I would have expected. In fact, I can just make a blanket statement and say that every scene between Ted and Tracy was beautiful. It felt earned, and precious, and so full of true connection and deep respect and love.
Which is what makes it all the more stupid when they tossed that aside and made it all about Ted and Robin again. AGAIN! Why?!!! Let me begin my list of things I hated. I'll try not to go on too long.
Marshall and Lily are totally shafted. It's ridiculous. We spend nine seasons with these guys, and in this finale, they came across as barely important side characters. With Marshall, we got a couple of throwaway lines about how he became a judge and all that, but Lily's art career got absolutely no mention. How was their year in Rome? I guess we'll never know! Stupid, stupid, stupid.
Barney's character was totally ruined. I swear to you, what the BLOODY HELL was the point of the last nine years, of watching Barney turn from a womanizing douche into a man capable of real, long term feeling? Even if they wanted to go with the whole divorce thing (which is stupid), why did they have to revert all of Barney's character development? He was back to how he was before - worse, even! There's nothing funny about the idea of a "perfect month." It's disgusting. And then the only reason he's changed is that he accidentally has a daughter he never would have wanted in the first place.
You know what's disgusting? We never even know the name of the mother of Barney's kid. I cannot believe they did that. It's just... freaking... awful and cheap and what a way to ruin such a nuanced character.
So for that matter, why did we spend the entirety of Season Nine focusing on Barney and Robin's wedding, just to toss their marriage aside in a matter of minutes? Why on earth would they choose to do all of Season Nine focused around this one weekend, if the marriage ended up not sticking? Why wouldn't they just do the wedding first thing, and then just let Ted be with The Mother for a while? WHY?! Stupid decision making! So much anger! Argh!
You know what I think their biggest downfall was, though? It's that we all liked Tracy. She's a great character. I didn't think they'd be able to pull it off, but I really, really, liked her. She had good chemistry with Ted. And they threw. It. All. Away.
Her death was practically a footnote. Barely significant. This entire story, nine years worth, was one big disrespectful "who cares" about the titular "Mother." Back in Season One, if you had told me that Ted and Robin were endgame, I might have been glad. I cared about Robin back then. I cared about her with Ted. But here's the thing... this show has evolved. Barney and Robin probably weren't part of the original plan, but it happened. And this show has been going on for too long. We've addressed all of the problems with Ted and Robin's relationship. Nothing about this finale made me believe that anything was different this time around. Who's to say they won't just fall apart again, because of the same issues as before?
I can chart my emotions in this episode as follows: forty minutes of "this is just joyless and bad," then thirty seconds of "oh my God that twist! I'm so proud of myself for seeing that coming!" and then when it was over, just this intense feeling of dissatisfaction. And betrayal. I feel like the twist at the end, that it was all about Robin anyway, was used more for shock value than because it was appropriate for the story. And you know what, it might have been appropriate for the story at one point, but this story changed into something else.
I just keep thinking about other long-running sitcom finales. Friends comes to mind, of course. Their finale was gorgeous. It had that bittersweet quality to it, but it was full of hope, and happy tears. In this finale of How I Met Your Mother, there really isn't any hope. We're not left wondering if Barney and Robin will work it out, we're told that they don't. We're not left hoping that they all stay close friends against the odds, we're told that they don't.
In short, Tracy was a stroke of genius in this show. Nine seasons of buildup to her, and the actual moment where Ted meets The Mother was lovely. It was sweet, without hitting you over the head with its sweetness, but you can just tell it's the beginning of something good. And then all of that mounting suspense... all of that chaos... undermined. Gone. An afterthought.
I could go on. Part of me wants to go on. And rant, and rant, and rage and scream and just be so very angry about how miserable this finale really was. But I'll stop here. I had a miserable time watching this finale. To me, it just seemed... joyless.
2/10
As is tradition, I must try and think about the show as a whole, and give it a score out of ten. The trouble is, this ending actually taints everything that came before it. It makes the entire story disingenuous. Even so, I'll try and think about the stuff that came before this ending. The character development, the jokes... and I must say this was a pretty creative sitcom. The show over all gets...
7.5/10
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