How I Met Your Mother - Part 5

[Nathan]

 

[Naked Shia]

I think they were trying to defy expectations. And in the process, they aleniated 4 seasons of character development and 9 seasons of narrative. They destroyed my chilhood, even if I wasn't a child when I first watch the show.

 

[Erzengel]

Really? Because the majority of the people I've heard from loved it.

Spoiler TV, E! Online, OK Magazine, Mashable, Buzzsugar, San Jose Mercury News pretty much have it 59%-60% who didn't like it.

I made the comment about outgrowing it's original concept but in hindsight, it is more about the execution.

They should have shown Robin being there for Ted, and like it was said earlier, taking the kids out, dressing up for Halloween etc. I think I could have gotten over the mother if the execution was done like that but I think that the ratings would have dipped if she died maybe halfway through the season and we showed how Ted dealt with it and Robin being reintroduced. I think the finale would have been a little better.

 

[Nathan]

I'm watching some reactions, and people bring up a good point. Barney runs a lifestyle blog, so he should be totally psyched that he keeps traveling with Robin. It's not like he's got anything better to do, after he got his boss arrested. Yet in the end, they split over a ****ing Wi-fi issue. They continuously showed us how they made a better pairing than Ted and Robin, and yet minor issues tear their marriage apart.

 

[Erzengel]

One good thing about the finale, I did download the cover of Tom Wait's Downtown Train.

 

[Teelie]

I'm watching some reactions, and people bring up a good point. Barney runs a lifestyle blog, so he should be totally psyched that he keeps traveling with Robin. It's not like he's got anything better to do, after he got his boss arrested. Yet in the end, they split over a ****ing Wi-fi issue. They continuously showed us how they made a better pairing than Ted and Robin, and yet minor issues tear their marriage apart.

I'm sure it was more than a wifi issue that caused the split (Barney may not have liked all that traveling was alluded to) but they left it on that superficial note indicating it was as simple as that.

A lot of mistakes got made in that last pair of episodes. If Alyson Hannigan was not April Fooling about an entire 18 minutes of material cut it might better explain what really happened.

 

[Fizicks]

There were a lot of things that were very hard to swallow in the finale, but I can still accept.

- After finally seeing Barney develop from a serial shagger to someone willing to commit, and then see all that cancelled in an instant was hard to swallow. But at least afterward we see his "redemption" upon having his baby. While inconsistent, it was still a satisfying arc. I can accept that.

- After spending several seasons convincing us Barney and Robin's relationship could work, and spending one whole season on their wedding, only to throw it away in an instant, was hard to swallow. But I can still accept it. They were never a convincing couple, and its common nowadays that couples divorce. Fine. At least they remained friends. I can accept that.

-After 9 seasons of alluding to the mother and spending 1 whole season having us invest in her and showing us how awesome she is, we find out that she was actually dead since the beginning of the story's narration. This was hard to swallow. But fine, I can accept a sad ending.

But what I absolutely CANNOT accept AT ALL is the premise of Ted going back to Robin after the death of Tracy. This is just so wrong on so many levels. First it makes Ted a manipulative dick, he basically used the story of the mother as a cover to ask the kids permission for him to date Robin again. Second, it just shows that despite all the happy years Ted had with Tracy, his heart was always still with Robin, and Tracy was merely a placeholder for 17 years. Third, the kids were so damn encouraging in telling Ted to go date Robin. That was borderline offensive. In short, the writers just basically took a massive dump on Tracy. She was utterly undermined and devalued, strung along by Ted for 17 years, led to believe she was the love of Ted's life until she died. Makes me sick to my stomach.

 

[Prison Mike]

I know they mentioned that Robin was there for the kids and Ted after Tracy died but I'm sure Lilly was like a second mother to Penny and Luke during that time too. She is a very motherly person after all.

 

[Pink Ranger]

I admit I do not watch this show religiously, but I don't understand why so many people dislike the ending so much. I think it is very good: Tracey does not get "thrown away," she gives Ted two wonderful children. Specifically, the daughter, who encourages Ted to move on with his life. It is as if Tracey is speaking through her daughter, telling Ted to seek out his true feelings for Robin, giving him the strength and insight to move on. That doesn't mean he didn't love Tracey, I think he loved her more than Robin or any other woman, but life is **** sometimes, and you make the best out of it and carry on.

 

[Erzengel]

I think that would be all well and good if that was told and played out over a longer period of time and we didn't get the whole, that's that's how I met your mother, death of the mother, moving on to Robin within the last 5 minutes.

 

[Orb]

Well at least we got that scene in "Daisy" where Tracy tells Ted to stop living in his stories and that life moves on.

 

[Sun_Down]

And the thing that I really like about the whole Ted/Robin thing is that it wasn't her falling into his arms, it wasn't the two of them standing at a wedding altar together or holding hands and walking off into the distance together. It wasn't a fairy tale ending for the two of them. Ted already got his fairy tale ending with Tracy. He got the girl he loved completely and who loved him completely in return. It was a fairy tale ending, but as the real world shows us all at some point... nothing lasts forever.

When he showed up at Robin's apartment with the blue french horn (which I still have issues with, but whatever), it wasn't a "We have everything we ever wanted now!" It's more like a new Chapter 1 between the two of them. A new beginning at a very different stage of their lives.

Yes x1000

It wasn't that Tracy was just a placeholder, it was that she was perfect. She was everything Ted always wanted, but real life is messy and rarely perfect.

Instead of being a show about Ted finding The One, this was a show about how life takes you unexpected places.

 

[divan]

For Barney, Robin was the thing he loved the most. For Robin, he wasn't. We've spent the entire season learning that Robin doesn't truly trust Barney (yeah, the surprises are fine, but Robin just can't handle them, and in "Gary Blauman" we hear future Robin saying Barney still doesn't listen to her).

Their relationship was doomed from the start.

And, for Barney, Robin was the only thing keeping him away from his usual lifestyle. He just stopped playing because he wanted to win (words of the Mother). He coulnd't. So he kept playing.

And Ted got the One. Yet, like the Mother before him, learned to move on, that after the One he could find the Next One... And Robin's been that next one from the start (literally, the series starts with the gang meeting Robin).

Ted let Robin go, yes, but that was respected as well. If hadn't been respected, Ted's relationship with Tracy wouldn't have worked (the same way his other relationships failed). But that doesn't mean they can't try again some time later (Robin and Ted even made a pact - if both of them were single in their forties and all thta stuff).

I agree the timing and execution could have been a lot better, but everyone who says this "destroys character development" has no idea what he/she's talking about, because the characters remained very consistent to what we know about them and the series has been paving the way for this conclusion for quite a time.

 

[Pink Ranger]

I know they mentioned that Robin was there for the kids and Ted after Tracy died but I'm sure Lilly was like a second mother to Penny and Luke during that time too. She is a very motherly person after all.

I imagine Lilly is the one that helps make sure the kids are eating properly and are doing well in school, but Robin is the one Penny would talk to about boys, sex and puberty.

 

[Teelie]

For Barney, Robin was the thing he loved the most. For Robin, he wasn't. We've spent the entire season learning that Robin doesn't truly trust Barney (yeah, the surprises are fine, but Robin just can't handle them, and in "Gary Blauman" we hear future Robin saying Barney still doesn't listen to her).

Their relationship was doomed from the start.

Barney's one true love is his daughter, Ellie. Otherwise that's all correct. Robin was as close to a female companion as Barney could get to monogamy before he had the daughter (which in 20+ years of one-night stands, is the only child he's had? Really?) and Ted said that when we saw him holding her.

Ellie is what made him settle down, Robin only made him sit down for a few years.

 

[Nathan]

Barney's one true love is his daughter, Ellie. Otherwise that's all correct. Robin was as close to a female companion as Barney could get to monogamy before he had the daughter (which in 20+ years of one-night stands, is the only child he's had? Really?) and Ted said that when we saw him holding her.

Robin wasn't even the best match for him. I still think Nora was a the best person that Barney dated. She was the one, who even though she barely knew him, still dated him despite all his lies he admitted to. Nora was the one that made him want to be a better man all by himself. She didn't nag him to change, like we occasionally saw Robin do. Even though Robin loved Barney, she got never used to his shenanigans.

But of course the writers had to burn that relationship, in order to give us a fake out with Robin marrying Barney.

Ellie is what made him settle down, Robin only made him sit down for a few years.

It's a love/hate thing for me. I hate that they tore the marriage apart within 20 minutes, but I love Barney devoting his life to his daughter, and making her the most important woman in his life. Wish he could have had that with Nora.

 

[Sawyer]

So melodramatic.

 

[Infinity9999x]

I admit I do not watch this show religiously, but I don't understand why so many people dislike the ending so much. I think it is very good: Tracey does not get "thrown away," she gives Ted two wonderful children. Specifically, the daughter, who encourages Ted to move on with his life. It is as if Tracey is speaking through her daughter, telling Ted to seek out his true feelings for Robin, giving him the strength and insight to move on. That doesn't mean he didn't love Tracey, I think he loved her more than Robin or any other woman, but life is **** sometimes, and you make the best out of it and carry on.

That concept in and of itself isn't bad. It was how it was handled. Tracey felt thrown away because we literally don't even get one scene of Ted grieving. We don't see any scenes of Robin being there for Ted. Heck, when Robin and Barney break up, we just went through an entire season building up their wedding to see them break up in ten minutes.

To give it some context, when Marshall's dad died (a much less influential character than the mother) we got an episode dedicated to his death and multiple episodes dedicated to Marshall dealing with said death. We got nothing for Ted grieving for the Mom. When Robin and Barney broke up before, we got an episode about the breakup and multiple episodes about the fall-out. We got ten minutes.

It's like reading the first two Lord of the Rings books, and then half of the third, and then somebody giving you the spark notes for the remaining chapters and going "I don't know why you're mad, all the stuff there is a good idea." Well yeah, it is, but it doesn't matter how good the concept is if you don't execute it well.

I honestly think they should have just taken all the stuff they covered in the finale and made that the meat for the entire season, then all these major life events could have been given the proper time they needed to not feel cheap and rushed.

 

[Marvolo]

How I Met Your Mother Alternate Ending
[YT]0caCEG1nH3E[/MEDIA]

I didnt make this video, but its well done so I thought Id share it with yall. This is the ending we should have got or something close to it.

 

[BatLobster]

Every time someone posts that video (and it's only happened 3-4 times in this very thread already but hey who's counting?), I feel more and more relieved that it was NOT the ending we got.

 

[CapedCrusader14]

As someone who used to watch this show endlessly but stopped, seeing how the finale turned out makes me glad I didn't keep watching so much.

Yes yes there's all good concept work played around with in the finale but a lot of people seem to be missing the most important ingredient of all; execution. To put it simply, the finale was poorly executed on just about every level possible. They really shouldn't have devoted the whole season to the wedding.

 

[Infinity9999x]

As someone who used to watch this show endlessly but stopped, seeing how the finale turned out makes me glad I didn't keep watching so much.

Yes yes there's all good concept work played around with in the finale but a lot of people seem to be missing the most important ingredient of all; execution. To put it simply, the finale was poorly executed on just about every level possible. They really shouldn't have devoted the whole season to the wedding.

Yep. I've been saying this the entire time. The concept wasn't that bad, it was just very poorly executed.

 

[SpideyFan866]

Is it wrong that I've grown to really like the finale?

 

[Primal Slayer]

Just got around to watching the finale and I really liked it. This is how I wanted the final season to play out instead of wasting it on one day. If they had the wedding at the beginning of the season, wrap that up and give us the rest actually getting to know Tracy as both a person and as Teds wife, wouldve been great, seeing her connect with everyone, and having the last 5 or so episodes each take place in a different year culminating to the finale wouldve been heaven.

 

[Sawyer]

Is it wrong that I've grown to really like the finale?

Certain people around these parts will try to convince you it is, but no, it's not.