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[Goodstyle]

It was my fave sitcom that was airing at the time, and for seven seasons it was great. Season 8 and 9 had their moments, but were kinda buttcheeks (which makes sense, since the show was airing for so long), but that finale retroactively hurt the show so damn much. I remember thinking after it aired "I won't even watch re-runs" and 3 years later, that turned out to be the case.

However, one thing led to another, and today I started watching a lot of clips and was really reminded of why I loved the show so much. I just don't understand why they would wreck everything so badly in the ending.

I don't even hate the fact that the Mother died, that was sufficiently foreshadowed in a previous episode ("Time Travelers"), but the way they breezed through that death, the Ted x Robin twist, and the fact that Barney and Robin had to divorce was just too much for me. Completely killed the show. You can't spend half the series building up towards a Barney and Robin wedding, only to break them up in 10 minutes over an issue that isn't true to either character. Such shoddy writing. They had a plan in season 2, but the show was going in such a hugely different direction that it would have been way smarter to scrap it.

It was a show about the journey, rather than the destination. Ted twisted through all these different experiences and moments in his life that led to him finally meeting the mother of his children... but then it turns out that all of it was just his way of telling his kids that he wants to bone the ex who never loved him. It undermined the whole show and ended a great series on such a sour note. It's such a damn shame.

 

[Tagyhag]

I remember the first season and them clearly saying "Ted and Robin don't end up together, we don't want to jerk you guys around and keep going back to this red herring" and I really respected that from the writers.

POOF.

 

[FZZ]

Me too

Ted's last few relationships were absoultely worthless and they mishandled Barney and Robin

I am one of the few people who didn't mind Robin and Ted ending up together but it could have been handled soooooo much better

also they should have had two seasons for the Mother

 

[Dice//]

It was shit, it was annoying, and a terrible, TERRIBLE build-up as the smile leaves your face as you know which way they're heading with it.... but:

 

[Nictel]

I still believe it is totally accepted to give a happy ending to long running series. Because viewers bond with the cast and want them (in general) to have a happy future.

In the case of HIMYM it baffles me that they kill off the goal of the whole series. Not to mention turning back to a relationship that has crashed and burned multiple times.

In my opinion the show should simply have ended on Ted and the mother having their first kiss.

 

[Za-Neen-Jya]

The whole last season was garbage. The finale was just the icing on the shit cake. I loved that show, but the ending was so bad I can't even watch reruns any more. I remember thinking about how many plot holes the mother's death created. Like how there were many times where future Ted told his kids "Don't tell your mother I told you this". Why the fuck would he tell his kids that if their mother was dead? Such bullshit. The writers painted themselves into a corner with the premise and then weren't talented enough to resolve it properly.

 

[kobu]

I still have never actually seen the ending because the last season was so bad I couldn't finish it.

 

[aerts1js]

Yeah, it retroactively made the series terrible. Haven't had the will to rewatch a single episode since.

 

[sobaka770]

The mass effect 3 of TV series endings. I'm also mad, OP. I rewatched a few older episodes and it's still very funny but knowing what happens is retroactively ruining everything. I can't believe nobody said anything during filming or prescreenings. ( The alternate ending is the way to go even though it's only solving the last minutes)

 

[GiantBeagle]

I was so disappointed in this ending too. I'd been an advocate of Ted x Robin for years but not like this. When Robin and Barney finally got back together it was so perfect and so right and you see Ted eventually finally let her go and I feel like as a viewer I let go of my desire for them to be together.

The speech in the Time Travellers is one of my favourites from any TV show, it makes me tear up every time. I'm okay with the Mother dying too though I wish that they had shown more of her. Her part in the series was far too short for such a build up, we didn't get to bond with her the way we should have and that gave her death less of an impact I think.

The divorce made me audibly groan as I recall. I live in the UK and I'd stayed up late specially to stream the episode live that night and it was so disappointing. Robin and Barney had almost been built up as much as Ted and Robin by that point, so to see that relationship crumble only to be immediately replaced by the latter was just jarring.

I don't know how I'd have done it differently. Maybe the series just went on for too long and should have finished much earlier so that there wasn't such a loss of momentum towards the end. I don't know, I just know the ending was terrible and on par with Dexter for worst ways to end my favourite shows of all time.

 

[peanutbutterlatte]

The ridiculously abrupt nature in which they deconstruct Robin/Barney, kill off The Mother in a 20 SECOND SCENE, and ham-fistedly "Poochie returned to his home planet" get Ted together with Robin.

Sitcoms are meant to make you laugh. And Carter & Bays idea of a sentimental ending is fucking hilarious.

 

[vypek]

Yeah, it retroactively made the series terrible. Haven't had the will to rewatch a single episode since.

This show is the only thing where I've experienced this effect. The series was always pretty mediocre to me but I watched it and was entertained but the last season was just so awful. The final episode itself really did make me always want to change the channel when reruns came on.

 

[RedNalgene]

The mass effect 3 of TV series endings. I'm also mad, OP. I rewatched a few older episodes and it's still very funny but knowing what happens is retroactively ruining everything. I can't believe nobody said anything during filming or prescreenings. ( The alternate ending is the way to go even though it's only solving the last minutes)

Holy shit that's a perfect analogy

 

[Permanently A]

I think it might be the first series where every viewer hated the ending.

 

[bachikarn]

I think the included an alternate ending in the DVDs where they didn't do the Robin part. That's def my head cannon.

 

[peanutbutterlatte]

I think the included an alternate ending in the DVDs where they didn't do the Robin part. That's def my head cannon.

My head canon is Ted fell to his death during that episode where they lept between apartment rooftops.

 

[Thoraxes]

I just pretend the last 5 minutes didn't happen, and didn't totally undo the entire series' development. The whole show was him basically getting over her, he finally gets over her, then they say naw he's not really over her, also the mother is dead and he wasn't actually over Robin, peace.

I was even fine with the Robin/Barney breakup, cause him having a daughter and finally having a "number #1 woman" in his life was cool and I was never a huge fan of Robin anyways.

 

[Quick]

I thought the ending made sense within the grand scheme of the show. Ted's supposed to be telling this story of how he met their mother, instead it's about Robin and his friends.

The story kicks off right when he met Robin too.

I don't hate the ending, but I can't say it's a favourite ending of mine.

 

[Slayven]

You should be, horrible shit

 

[El_Chino]

I was one of the few people who saw it coming.

 

[half a moon]

You can't retroactively ruin a tv show

 

[Steeped in a Sea of Games]

I feel almost exactly the same way about Lost. I loved the show (longer than most even, all the way through season 5), and now it just makes me feel annoyed when I see even clips of it.

 

[jobrro]

In a short space of time we got finales for HIMYM, Dexter and Mass Effect 3. All terrible endings to long running stories.

I would have rathered they just left it with meeting the mother and ended the story.

The whole last season being the the wedding and then they divorce a few minutes later not to mention everything else after that.

Still have zero desire to ever revisit the show because of the ending.

 

[BronsonLee]

The ending would've been just fine if the show had ended like 2-3 seasons in, or if they had made the baker lady the mom

But after all that, nah

 

[caliph95]

It feels like it would have been better received if they didn't shove years of development that needed it's own episodes in the last 5 minutes

Even with the same plot points

 

[Wiped89]

I really like the ending. Fight me.

Like so much of HIMYM its ultimate message was that life isn't perfect, and things don't always work out the way you planned. It was SO much more refreshing than a candy coated happily every after. And although it was only an hour long, so it felt condensed, in actual fact that final episode covers the rest of Ted's life. Decades. People die, and widowers do tend to find love again in later life.

Honestly I thought it was great.

 

[Tagyhag]

I really like the ending. Fight me.

Like so much of HIMYM its ultimate message was that life isn't perfect, and things don't always work out the way you planned. It was SO much more refreshing than a candy coated happily every after. And although it was only an hour long, so it felt condensed, in actual fact that final episode covers the rest of Ted's life. Decades. People die, and widowers do tend to find love again in later life.

Honestly I thought it was great.

"Life doesn't always work out, unless you're Ted Mosby"

Dude was the ultimate jackass and still ended up having a happy ending.

 

[Slayven]

I wonder if it was in response to the how i met your father show getting passed on

 

[Mathieran]

Yep my wife and I have been rewatching and everything that happens in the last 2 seasons leaves a blemish on everything leading up to it. Not to mention the characters become ridiculous caricatures of themselves.

 

[SilentRob]

I never really loved the show, just kinda liked it as background entertainment. But even then I recognized how the quality fell off a cliff the longer it went on, repeating the same storylines over and over and over again.

That said, I absolutely could not believe how bad that last season and specifically the last episode were. The way the WHOLE SEASON built up one specific thing, only for the last episode to go "So, time went by and NAAAH FUCK IT EVERYTHING'S FUCKED GOOD BYE SHOW'S OVER".

I seriously was standing in my room, laughing my ass off because I could not believe how utterly bad and spiteful the finale was. I imagined how anyone who was really invested in the show and its characters must have felt with the showrunners pretty much punching them in the face repeatedly. It was amazing. I have never seen anything like it. Dexter came kinda close, but that felt more like imcompetence and less like actual malice.

 

[BronsonLee]

"Life doesn't always work out, unless you're Ted Mosby"

Dude was the ultimate jackass and still ended up having a happy ending.

He attacked someone with a chair after he got fired and still survived without committing career suicide

I wonder if it was in response to the how i met your father show getting passed on

Nah, they filmed that ending waaaaaaaaaay back in the beginning in case the kids aged out

 

[caliph95]

I wonder if it was in response to the how i met your father show getting passed on

I remember it was the original plan and they shot the ending a long time ago

Too bad the show got popular and several seasons passed since it's original plan

 

[Cjdamon042]

I was thinking about watching through it all again for the first time since it ended but that final season is such a letdown that, yeah, it makes me not want to even bother.

Having the entire final season take place over a weekend was horrible pacing, and all for a wedding that was later ended in a divorce 5 minutes later (in the episode) was just such a massive anticlimax.

I didn't really *mind* Ted and Robin ending up together - although Tracy was the far better match for him - but how it all happened was just ugh.

 

[KillGore]

Terrible ending. The Barney and Robin thing bothered me more than the Ted and Robin thing though.

 

[Gin-Shiio]

I can't be disappointed about the ending too much when the last few seasons were already shit. I couldn't see a satisfying ending coming as much as I wanted it to happen.

 

[HP_Wuvcraft]

"Life doesn't always work out, unless you're Ted Mosby"

Dude was the ultimate jackass and still ended up having a happy ending.

Well.... he is Bob Saget.

 

[spindashing]

Ending was doo doo. I also didn't mind the mom dying even if I thought Ted and her were perfect together.

Barney and Robin was the pair, man. I'm salty as hell that it didn't happen like that. From that, I know how internet shippers feel.

 

[terencecah]

Lost ending was pretty bad too

 

[victreeb3l]

Absolutely hated the ending. Robin sucks. So stupid how they killed off the mom so quickly.

 

[theWB27]

I've yet to have the guts to watch the last season. I don't think i ever could because of how it was handled.

So weird how they passed robin around between friends like that.

 

[UnknownSpirit]

I have not watched a single episode of this show since the finale.

It's a fucking bullshit ending, and is terrible.

Then again, I'm in the opinion they should of made Victoria the mother, the "Drumroll...please" episode is legitimately one of my favorites of TV ever.

 

[BronsonLee]

Then again, I'm in the opinion they should of made Victoria the mother, the "Drumroll...please" episode is legitimately one of my favorites of TV ever.

The first episode I ever saw of this show was Drumroll, and it was on a damn cruise

Still great TV though

 

[TimeEffect]

I really like the ending. Fight me.

Like so much of HIMYM its ultimate message was that life isn't perfect, and things don't always work out the way you planned. It was SO much more refreshing than a candy coated happily every after. And although it was only an hour long, so it felt condensed, in actual fact that final episode covers the rest of Ted's life. Decades. People die, and widowers do tend to find love again in later life.

Honestly I thought it was great.

Even if youre okay with it, how could you enjoy how hastily it was delivered?

"So guys, after all these years, THAT'S how I met your mother (god rest her soul)"
"Hey dad, u still obviously have the hots for aunt robin!"
"Oh my god, you're right! Okay brb, gonna woo her over"

 

[Ploid 3.0]

Well, I'm glad I never saw this show to the end. I forgot which season I stopped on, who was the mother? It sounds like the mother didn't matter, and it was all about Robin, which was the feeling from the start.

 

[Subpar Spatula]

My biggest take away is for how popular the show is I cannot for the life of me name who plays Ted.

 

[vypek]

My biggest take away is for how popular the show is I cannot for the life of me name who plays Ted.

Josh Radnor. And I only remember that because another show I saw recently joked about the character being unable to remember him too

 

[SomedayTheFire]

I liked it for a few seasons until I realised Ted Mosby is literally one of the worst people ever. Ending was suitably shit.

 

[Wiped89]

Even if youre okay with it, how could you enjoy how hastily it was delivered?

"So guys, after all these years, THAT'S how I met your mother (god rest her soul)"
"Hey dad, u still obviously have the hots for aunt robin!"
"Oh my god, you're right! Okay brb, gonna woo her over"

To the viewer, it's still a twist. It has to be delivered with some pace for it to maintain impact. In Ted's actual life, that was several years that passed there (as the kids make reference to).

 

[oti]

It was shit, it was annoying, and a terrible, TERRIBLE build-up as the smile leaves your face as you know which way they're heading with it.... but:

This is an amazing picture.

 

[Crimson_Echidna]

The ending sucked.

Of course, I was always of the belief that Barney should've stayed in a relationship with Nora, rather than Robin, so the divorce itself didn't bother me. It was the bullshit of the writers keep reiterating how Ted and Robin weren't a compatible over and over only to go with a "lol, jk they're totally getting back together" in the end.