-
Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.
I'm still sad/mad about the How I Met Your Mother Ending
- Thread starter Goodstyle
- Start date
Sounds like you liked it because it wasn't a happy ending which is fine, but at least accept that it was super badly executed.
They structured a whole season around a storyline about how Ted needed to move on from Robina and how Robin and Barney were meant for each other, but then they trashed it 10 min into the finale.
If they wanted to do this sort of ending right, they needed to do 2 things:
1) Focus more on the grieving of Ted losing the woman of his dreams. Don't turn it into a footnote about how Ted just really wants to hook up with Robin.
2) Make the Robin-Ted-Barney fallout feel more organic. Barney and Robin break up not because of any character reasons, but because Robin's work schedule literally allowed for no time for them to spend together. That isn't a good reason to shatter their marriage, that would wreck ANY relationship. And then they stick Robin with Ted, which is bad because the show spent so much time building up to the idea that they're not meant for each other. Also, frankly, NPH and Cobie Smulders had way more chemistry with each other than Radner and Smulders.
The show did the story equivalent of smoothly driving down a winding road, and then suddenly jerking in one direction off a cliff for no reason. If we aren't provided with a cohesive series of events that led to that car going over the cliff, that isn't a compelling conclusion. A badly done bittersweet ending like the one we got is just a flaming wreckage with no rhyme or reason for how it came about. Maybe it's interesting to look at, but it still sucks.
bitbydeath
Member
Barney and Robin getting back together was terrible in the first place, when they first got together he put on tons of weight and she becomes a complete mess which showed they were never right for each other.
Show clearly went on for too long if they had to ignore all that and do the relationship thing again.
Show clearly went on for too long if they had to ignore all that and do the relationship thing again.
I loved How I Met Your Mother, one of the few shows I tried to watch live. The last season or two were difficult, but I still liked it. I had the DVDs and would just randomly pop them in just for something to watch. That fucking ending ruined it all. I can't see an episode without thinking about the shit ending. It seriously retroactively made the entire series unwatchable. I don't know if the planned ending of a show has ever made me that angry.
FortuneFaded
Member
Ted was a dick who didn't deserve happiness.
The terrible ending really highlight how the writer try to hamfist the original ending that they had written from day one but failing to realised that the show has clearly grown beyond that ending thus the audience expectation has changed since.
Plus we, the viewers, were robbed of the mother interacting within the group and seeing how her and Ted relationship blossomed in favour of spending the entire final season on a wedding which the final episode declared null and void thus wasting the viewers' time while unfulfilling their expectation.
It's a terribly written ending and the show suffers from that and the other ending is the better ending and the one that should have aired rather than the garbage they chose.
Even my mother thought the original ending was crap as it left her disappointed.
Plus we, the viewers, were robbed of the mother interacting within the group and seeing how her and Ted relationship blossomed in favour of spending the entire final season on a wedding which the final episode declared null and void thus wasting the viewers' time while unfulfilling their expectation.
It's a terribly written ending and the show suffers from that and the other ending is the better ending and the one that should have aired rather than the garbage they chose.
Even my mother thought the original ending was crap as it left her disappointed.
BoogieWoogie
Banned
Yep, after the show had ended I watched a few rerun but I haven't tuned in to watch it nor do I think that the channel is still showing it.
Honestly I feel that Friends is the better show worth watching than the poor man version.
Neuromancer
Member
The Jason Segel ending would have been better.
"My other suggestion, which they never used, which I think would be so funny, is it's the future, right? I think in one of those scenes, they should open the window, and it should be, like, a postapocalyptic wasteland outside. It should be like I Am Legend. Horrible mutants."
"My other suggestion, which they never used, which I think would be so funny, is it's the future, right? I think in one of those scenes, they should open the window, and it should be, like, a postapocalyptic wasteland outside. It should be like I Am Legend. Horrible mutants."
cartographer
Member
Milioti was perfect for thst role, too. Sweet but not overly manic pixie dream girl.
Tell that to Bill Cosby.
TurnipFritters
Member
That's how sitcoms last.
Poodlestrike
Banned
Not gonna lie I tapped out around when the Nora relationship fell apart. I felt like it sorta showed that they weren't ever really going to grow any of the characters.
I really liked it at the time, but one thing I noticed revisiting it was that it has NOT aged well. At all. Stuff that seemed funny at the time feels borderline (at best) misogynistic now, and there's some weird racial overtones to some of the jokes.
Also Lily is fucking awful.
Jack has a fist fight with the monster.
A fucking FIST FIGHT. Last season of LOST totally ruined the tv show for me.
I hated the ending so much that it ruined the series for me. I used to be able to watch reruns and enjoy them but now I cringe everytime I see an episode. My ideal ending is the alternative one but it still doesnt help the series since I can't stomach an episode knowing what I know.
of course you can,
hey fans who have followed for 9 years, you know what? FUCK YOU
thats himym ending
Rodney McKay
Member
It took me a long time to ever try re-watching LOST after I hated its finale (and final season in general).
But eventually I watched it again and the series is still a favorite of mine, regardless of what I felt about the final season. And being able to binge through the final season finale is 100x better than having to watching an episode every week with gaps every once in a while.
But eventually I watched it again and the series is still a favorite of mine, regardless of what I felt about the final season. And being able to binge through the final season finale is 100x better than having to watching an episode every week with gaps every once in a while.
Lost did a good job at this.
Watch Da Birdie
I buy cakes for myself on my birthday it's not weird lots of people do it I bet
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:
For some reason I thought this was the Hawaii Five-O subway dude.
It isn't?
You should really watch that video OP Why The How I Met Your Mother Finale is Better than You Remember
TurnipFritters
Member
Gaslighting
Poodlestrike
Banned
See, normally I would agree with this, but HIMYM interspersed the ending through the entire show. Flubbing the landing also means flubbing every episode where the framing device came up, which is... all of them.
Roronoa Zoro
Gold Member
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
bigedole
Member
I originally felt like most of you after finishing HIMYM's original run, that I'd probably never watch it again because the ending was so bad. However, my wife and I decided to rewatch it a few months ago and it was still a really fun watch. Lots of funny moments, ending still sucked but knowing it was coming made it not bother me so much. It was never a show you watched to tell an interesting and dramatic story about how Ted met the mother of his kids. It was a comedy you watched to make you laugh, and it did that really well.
SolidChamp
Banned
Can someone explain this to me? Like, a summation of where the show started, narratively, where people thought it was going or building up to, and why the ending sucked so much?
I never liked what I saw of the show and always felt like it wasn't all that funny (but most sitcoms are like that for me). But I've got this morbid curiosity when it comes to what the fucking show was actually about.
Spoil away!
I never liked what I saw of the show and always felt like it wasn't all that funny (but most sitcoms are like that for me). But I've got this morbid curiosity when it comes to what the fucking show was actually about.
Spoil away!
My initial impression was that I couldn't believe that they killed off the mother after all of that, and that Barney/Robin wedding didn't even make to the end, and that he went after Robin.
After re-watching it, and thinking about it... I was alright with it.
I thought the last couple of seasons were pretty mediocre but it's still one of my favorite shows.
After re-watching it, and thinking about it... I was alright with it.
I thought the last couple of seasons were pretty mediocre but it's still one of my favorite shows.
LoserMakesGood
Member
Heres is the thing about this show that I don't get. I watched the pilot episode when it orignally aired, and the "ending" seemed very obvious to me. I didn't care for the show and never watched it until the last episode with all the hoopla. All I could think was "didn't you see this coming?"
"Hey kids, let me tell you about your mother all in past tense"
why would any dad feel the need to tell his kids all about thier mother unless she was already gone.
I guess I wasn't completely right though, I guessed the mother was in a coma and the dad was telling the kids the life story before they pulled the plug.
If your mad about where they took the characters...I guess, but IMO non of them were good. I mean the show managed to make me dislike NPH, I didn't even think that was possible.
"Hey kids, let me tell you about your mother all in past tense"
why would any dad feel the need to tell his kids all about thier mother unless she was already gone.
I guess I wasn't completely right though, I guessed the mother was in a coma and the dad was telling the kids the life story before they pulled the plug.
If your mad about where they took the characters...I guess, but IMO non of them were good. I mean the show managed to make me dislike NPH, I didn't even think that was possible.
Roronoa Zoro
Gold Member
Basically the whole show starts with a guy sitting his kids down to tell them about how he met their mother. The next few seasons get closer to that moment and then when he finally gets to the part where they meet it kinda breezes over it and he casually drops that she died. Throughout the whole show the dad telling the story has been telling stories about dating and having romantic moments with their "aunt robin". Robin is shown marrying a character named Barney who had been a filanderer The Whole show but it is revealed at the end that they got a divorce and the whole story was so the dad could ask his kids to go date aunt robin. He does so and they presumably end up together
JustSurvive
Member
It was yet another show that was ready to close out, but was so successful they kept it going longer than it should have at the cost of quality. I didn't mind the ending, but the final season sucked.
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.
I found it brilliant. And didnt the kids not age? Their final dialogue was filmed from the very beginning??
Edit: oh, OP is mad about other stuff that i didnt even care about.
There is something to be said about how you connect to a show over 8-9 years versus binge watching on Netflix over 5-6 months.
Edit: oh, OP is mad about other stuff that i didnt even care about.
There is something to be said about how you connect to a show over 8-9 years versus binge watching on Netflix over 5-6 months.
Ted starts telling his kids about his life as a young adult on a couch. Ted meets this guy Barney in a bar. He's kind of a sleaze bag, but he's funny. Ted already knew Marshall and Lily from college, and Marshall and Lily are sweethearts. Ted meets Robin, and he really think she's the one, but he blows it. Ted dates a lot of hot women, none of which he particularly deserves, some of which are crazy. Several times he ends up screwing up his current relationship by backtracking and wanting to bang Robin. Eventually Robin and Ted date, but he screws that up too.
Meanwhile, we find out Barney's warped personality is largely a byproduct of his mom being promiscuous and the fact he never really knew who his dad was (his dad pretended to be his uncle). Over time, Barney slowly comes to terms with his awful upbringing and starts to become a half decent person. He meets Nora, an amazing woman. Instead of meeting her parents after largely cleaning up his life, he walks away from it. He ends up with Robin, which seems to be because he loves her. Somehow Ted meets the Mother, and she's amazing and he doesn't screw it up for once despite having very little character progression, ever.
But then Barney knocks up some random chick off screen, he divorces Robin, and Ted wants to swoop in after his wife dies of cancer and get together with Robin. Keep in mind, this narrated in over the course of about a minute. Ted's kids are like, we love Aunt Robin, go date her (although it has been several years since his wife died).
Also Ted pretends he's a romantic, when he spends most of his time just banging hot chicks. It gets really old.
The end.
But seriously, they wiped away like 4-5 seasons of Barney's character progression in about a minute of off screen stuff. Horrible, horrible writing. I could buy it if they spent more time on it, but ole Teddy did more stupid shit than Barney, there's no way he deserved not one but two amazing women.
Meanwhile, we find out Barney's warped personality is largely a byproduct of his mom being promiscuous and the fact he never really knew who his dad was (his dad pretended to be his uncle). Over time, Barney slowly comes to terms with his awful upbringing and starts to become a half decent person. He meets Nora, an amazing woman. Instead of meeting her parents after largely cleaning up his life, he walks away from it. He ends up with Robin, which seems to be because he loves her. Somehow Ted meets the Mother, and she's amazing and he doesn't screw it up for once despite having very little character progression, ever.
But then Barney knocks up some random chick off screen, he divorces Robin, and Ted wants to swoop in after his wife dies of cancer and get together with Robin. Keep in mind, this narrated in over the course of about a minute. Ted's kids are like, we love Aunt Robin, go date her (although it has been several years since his wife died).
Also Ted pretends he's a romantic, when he spends most of his time just banging hot chicks. It gets really old.
The end.
But seriously, they wiped away like 4-5 seasons of Barney's character progression in about a minute of off screen stuff. Horrible, horrible writing. I could buy it if they spent more time on it, but ole Teddy did more stupid shit than Barney, there's no way he deserved not one but two amazing women.
WrenchNinja
Member
I can't watch reruns or clips of this show without getting mad or wanting to change the channel. That's how awful that last season and finale was.
"People hated the ending because it doesn't conform to how you think a sitcom should end"
No, no, no, and no. We hated it, because it was a poorly paced mess. I explained it so many times, but I'll put it simply here:
The finale feels like a finale created for a different show. It went counter to the trajectory of the show, so even if you liked the ideas it presented, it was still terribly executed. If they wanted to break Barney and Robin and then kill Ted's wife and have Robin end up with Ted, don't do it after 22 episodes of Barney and Robin's wedding. Don't ram such a huge plot shift into 2 short episodes, that doesn't work, no matter how well it fits the "themes" (which it doesn't IMO, but that's a different argument).
TurnipFritters
Member
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)
Similar threads
- Poll