The ending of any TV series, especially one that people have spent years on, tends to be polarizing or disappointing. Rarely do fans watch a series finale and think “that was perfect, exactly the way it should have ended” and even if that is the case, should it be? We have seen a number of long running shows end lately (last year’s The Office and 30 Rock stand out as great comedies that lasted many seasons).
This past week brought the end of an era (or at least the end of almost a decade of TV) with How I Met Your Mother‘s swan song. To say that not everyone was happy with the ending might be something of an understatement. (SPOILER-PHOBES BEWARE!) A fan even created their own ending by editing the finale to allow for Ted and the Mother to walk off into the sunset together and live happily ever after.
After nine seasons spent listening to future Ted (inexplicably voiced by Bob Saget) tell his kids the story of how he met their mother—better known as the story of how he meandered through life looking for love in general and eventually their mother became a part of the story—we discover in the finale that not only did the Mother, finally revealed to be named Tracy, die, but the story was actually meant as an incredibly long-winded way for Ted to ask his kids if they would be okay with him pursuing their “Aunt” Robin. (I can tell you my roommate was thrilled, halfway through the finale she said she hoped Robin and Ted would end up together in just the way they did).
The first thought I had when the show hinted that the Mother would die some time in the future was “they wouldn’t!” After all, it is the sort of ending that is bound to anger a number of people and the network is trying to spin off the series next season. An ending like that might very well discourage viewers to sit through a similar version of this story, even if the characters are meant to be entirely different and unrelated.
But watching the finale, I can’t say I was all that unhappy about how things turned out. The finale turned out to be one of the saddest overall episodes of the series: Robin and Barney got divorced after only 3 years of marriage, Barney went back to his Playbook schemes, and the gang more or less broke up, with Robin fading from their lives. The Mother’s death was a little sad, but in truth we didn’t get to know her all that well so it didn’t have the impact that it might have. (I thought Cristin Milioti was fantastic whenever she was onscreen, her interactions with the other characters were some of my favorite of the season, but sadly there just weren’t that many.)
Many people felt cheated. They INVESTED in this relationship between Ted and the Mother. They knew it was all going to work out because he was going to meet the love of his life. Not Robin, but the woman who would totally get him, completely. Did this mean that the Mother was a placeholder for the day when the time would finally be right for Ted and Robin? Not to mention just how much time was spent at Barney and Robin’s stupid wedding. Maybe their divorce wouldn’t have hit so hard if 1- we hadn’t spent so much time making sure they got married, 2- saw more signs that they could never make it work in the end, 3- saw it last for more than 3 years and saw how they actually drifted, or 4- didn’t feel like all progress made by both Robin and Barney were negated in just a couple of minutes without any real background.
NEXT: Should we have been so surprised by the way things turned out?
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