Yeah, that part was ridiculous, because he says "there's no one big happy ending where everyone is back together again" as if the finale wasn't almost entirely the group getting back together and hanging out over the years, right down to Ted getting back together with Robin.
...and then mentions the Friends finale, which, like, literally was about the characters moving on and away (except Rachel, who gets dragged back into the hell that is a relationship with Ross)
And ya, the guy seems like a person who really liked the idea of the finale more than the actual finale. You can talk about change, and time, and the way life gets in the way... but in terms of pure craft, HIMYM failed badly. It was just too much story and development for just 2 episodes. If the show wanted to go the route that it did, the wedding should have been an hour premiere where Ted meets the Mother at the end, and the rest of the season should have been what the finale was.
I wouldn't like it because I did like Barney and Robin together since they spent half the series building them up, but if they had a full season of time to develop what they were going for, it might have at least have been a well crafted story. Instead we got strained metaphors of Ted letting go of a Robin balloon, only for the finale to contrive it back into his hands in such an abrupt pace. What it comes down to was that it was way too messy.
Upon rewatching the first season I continue to believe Ted and Robin ending up together was not the original plan.
Knowing that the Mother is dead and that Ted had never told his kids the story, it makes his children's jokey and cavalier attitude towards him trying to tell them the story unfathomable ("are we being punished?").
I disagree, the season 7-8 sucked, but the final season is really really good and take lots of reference from key moments from the past seasons that made it really sweet.
Upon rewatching the first season I continue to believe Ted and Robin ending up together was not the original plan.
Knowing that the Mother is dead and that Ted had never told his kids the story, it makes his children's jokey and cavalier attitude towards him trying to tell them the story unfathomable ("are we being punished?").
I mean, the entire season was blech, then having it be "mom died of cancer" and then his kids are just like fuck aunt Robin and be happy, is some ol bullshit
Upon rewatching the first season I continue to believe Ted and Robin ending up together was not the original plan.
Knowing that the Mother is dead and that Ted had never told his kids the story, it makes his children's jokey and cavalier attitude towards him trying to tell them the story unfathomable ("are we being punished?").
They were planning on Victoria being the mother if it ended after 1 season, but I don't think they intended for the show to end after one season. They sort of locked in finally ending up with Robin somewhere around season 2-3 (maybe 4?), if I recall correctly. But they didn't know who the final mother was.
Well I loved Ted and Robin ending up together. They had all the best moments and I loved that couple far more than Barney and robin or any other relationship on the show. Made complete sense for the ending to really be about them. In fact I called the ending by about season 4 including the divorce as they were spending way too much time on robin
I can accept people ship Ted and Robin but I don't still don't think the show achieved what it sought out to do.
The problem is the show post Season 2 is about Ted letting go of Robin, right to the point (as it's been posted in this thread in GIF form) of Ted symbolically letting her float away. That was the series arc.
But apparently they reconnected, fell back in love, and became soulmates in the period between 201# and 2030. The central relationship of the show is pretty much forged off screen in a decade and a half we do not see.
That's why people feel such confusion at the finale because where the final few seasons leave us are completely at odds with where the final five minutes take us.
They spent the last season of a show revolved on the wedding for a marriage between two characters that was set to implode six months later, but didn't opt to show us almost anything of relevance to make the show's entire premise land.
Show was great until the last few seasons. The last season was a slap in the face to the audience with every episode but one taking place over the course of a weekend for a wedding that ends in divorce five minutes into the final episode. Than the ending was just an even bigger slap in the face. First few seasons were great but they've been tainted by how shit the ending was.
But apparently they reconnected, fell back in love, and became soulmates in the period between 201# and 2030. The central relationship of the show is pretty much forged off screen in a decade and a half we do not see.
I loved the first few seasons of HIMYM, but after the botched marriage (I think it was around Season 4?) I realized it had been going sort of downhill and after 9 Seasons it ended up being a "modern" retake of Friends, but not nearly as good.
I rewatched Friends with my girlfriend after watching HIMYM and realized that even though Friends often places its characters in ludicrous conditions to which no normal, functioning human could get (the episode where Ross gets stuck in his leather pants comes to mind), the series takes itself far less serious than HIMYM does, and the end product is a world where everyone is a lil' bit off their rocker. The main cast of HIMYM is just a bunch of assholes. I mean, don't get me wrong, everyone on the main cast of Friends is an asshole, but pretty much everyone in that world is an asshole.
Except Paul Rudd's character. Everything Paul Rudd touches is a national treasure.
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.
No, no it WASN'T, and this is such a bad argument. It amazes me how this is the ultimate argument that every HIMYM apologist uses to defend that shitty ending because it makes me think whoever came up with it didn't think very long before posting their thoughts online. Like, did y'all forget that just TWO episodes away from the Finale this series decided to give pretty much EVERY side-character a happy epilogue?
Seriously. Season 9. Episode 21. Ted closes the episode by giving a BUNCH of random, extremely minor side-characters some sort of grand happy ending that usually included having a kid, being happily married, getting their dream job or becoming rich. Like, c'mon.
Everyone who uses that argument then point out to the Friends series finale, which is ironic considering that it did almost everything that HIMYM's ending set out to do, only it did it well. The entirety of Season 10 was leading up to that ending: the fact that the characters had to move on from their "bachelor" lives was a constant reminder throughout the season. They were becoming REAL adults, and now had to focus on their adult lives, their responsabilities were bigger than ever and things were going to change. It felt like an extremely natural progression that came from an entire season of "build up". HIMYM just fell flat while trying to be smart, and what's worse, the people who defend it can't seem to remember what happened three episodes away from the finale.
That's not even going into stuff like how the creators blatantly lied to their audience ("lul ted and robin aren't ending up together trust us"), how the ending betrays pretty much everything that the they wrote about Ted and Robin, how much of an insufferable, unlikeable prick Robin had become and how much of an awful, shitty person Ted was.
This video is dick. The dude talks about the show being "unafraid to get serious with its audience" and completely ignores the fact that it ruined a great emotional moment when Marshal listens to his father's final message with a stupid joke, and I'm sure I'd find many similar moments if I had the patience to go through this series again, but the ending really managed to ruin even the first few Seasons, which I used to love.
He also makes an argument about "Ted moving on" after the mother's death, which is incredibly ironic considering the ending is about getting Ted and Robin together.
In the end, there's no defending this piece of shit ending and OP's right to be mad about it.
I hate the ending but I can still go back and watch the older episodes. At least up until the block of episodes that deal with Robin and Barneys wedding. Not going to waste time watching 8 hours about a wedding for a marriage that lasts 8 minutes.
Maybe it was cut to squeeze in another three episode arc about how Barney was worried the hors d'oeuvre at his wedding rehearsal dinner weren't totally awesome.
They were planning on Victoria being the mother if it ended after 1 season, but I don't think they intended for the show to end after one season. They sort of locked in finally ending up with Robin somewhere around season 2-3 (maybe 4?), if I recall correctly. But they didn't know who the final mother was.
they at least locked in the moms name pretty early on.
I rewatched the series recently and during it they make a joke about him marrying a stripper who happens to have the same name as the mother in like season 2 or 3.
It's hard to deal with a drama that ends poorly, but I've never trusted sitcoms to end well. I didn't think HIMYM was as awesome as some, but they wrote themselves into a corner day one on that show.
I lost all the respect I had for the show after that. I don't even think about it anymore nowadays, because the only thing I can visibly remember about it is the awful ending.
I thought it was genius to keep quiet about the fact that the mother was actually dead through all the seasons, it was a big reveal and I commended the writers for that, and I didn't mind Robin and Barney breaking up even if the last season was all about their wedding, their personalities made the break-up believable. Then they go and ruin the whole fucking thing by having Ted go for Robin again... they should've just left thing as such.
I didn't need a happy ending but I hated that robin and ted got back together. If I learned one thing from wasting my time watching this series it's that they are a bad match, it just seemed like a destructive choice to bring them together other than saying (it worked for episode 1).
I watched 8.5 seasons before I gave up on the show. I gave it hundreds of hours of my life, but it was just too fucking terrible at the end. Obviously, I had the ending spoiled for me shortly after and I do not regret my decision at all. It wasn't just the Robin twist, the show was just lacking in quality and ideas starting in season 8. Marshall and Lily's story ended half-way through the series and it was clear they had no way idea what to do with them. Barney was neutered with no real payoff.
But ya, I would never insult the Mass Effect 3 ending by comparing it to what happened here. You can't spend 9.99 seasons saying Robin and Ted are awful for each other only to pull a SIKE in the last minute. Lumberjack Dexter made more sense than this.
Completely ruined the entire show for me. I fucking hated it that much. Such garbage. The Ted/Robin thing was horrible but the shit they did with Barney was a billion times worse. You build this character development up all fucking season and then waste it away because you just want Ted/Robin to get back together in the end. Fucking garbage. Tracy deserved better
If nothing else, the ending was at least worth seeing, as it might not even be in our lifetime that another ending will be so bad. It's the total eclipse of bad endings.
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.
They end up together after he finishes his story and his kids are like "we get it Dad, you're still in love with Robin. So go get her and shut up already, geeze."
We still find out how he met their mother and it's not Robin. She's just the "post credits" scene really.
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.
The whole point was that he was still in love with her. He was just in denial. Using the story as an excuse to remember all the good times he had with the girl he couldn't be with.
Personally I was satisfied with the ending. The last season wasn't that great, but I loved the finale. The gimmick of the last season was cute but not that big of a deal. Should have just been a normal season.
This is a lie. Dexter was terrible writing with no plan on how to get out. HIMYM feels like they planned it from the start no matter how it makes the viewer feel.
Put me in the "Didn't hate it" camp, I thought it actually made the whole concept of the show make more sense. The way I saw it, if the show ended when he got together with the mum, then Ted spent the whole time telling his kids how much he really liked this one girl but ended up with someone else.
I don't think the final season was very good, it was rarely funny, most of the storylines felt like they'd already ended and were being dragged over the finish line. But the actual main conceit of the ending and how it changed the whole show in hindsight was not something I minded at all.
a) We watched the whole series in like 3 or 4 weeks with the gf so I didn't feel that invested in the series (God bless you Netflix)
b) I knew Ted would (eventually) end with Robin by the 3rd or 4th season (with a brief moment of doom in the wedding when Barney gives to Robin the necklace/ring(?) and Robin still marries him)
c) The ending is perfect in displaying that human beings aren't perfect, and will make many mistakes, like Ted and Robin going back and forth, knowingly that Robin didn't want (later couldn't) to have kids or a family. Which was solved by Ted knowing the one, having kids and finally becoming a widow (this wouldn't be different if she just divorced Ted)
