I think the worst part of it all is the final season being entirely about Barney and Robin's love for each other and then they get divorced 10 seconds later. It felt like a gut punch.
The thing that I really hate about movies / shows is when there's missing chunks and things happen off-screen. I've never ever ever liked that and I don't know why writers keep doing that. Are writers oblivious about the audience's distaste for that technique?
The weird part is that Tracy dying isn't even a bad ending. It makes sense and would make for a lovely bitter sweet ending. They could have removed the last few minutes of the show, kept Robin and Barney together, have a final speech by Ted about her dying and then shown them meeting and ended the show with the umbrella scene.
I second this. I binged watched the show a couple of years ago so my experience is obviously different than the people's who watched it over the course of 9 years, one episode per week, but I realized very early on that the mother was most likely dead. The way Ted was talking about her (for example, I remember a scene in s8 I think where he said that if he could change anything he'd go back and meet her sooner so they could have more time together or something like that) is a dead (no pun intended) giveaway about her fate when you watch the episodes close together. This could have been a poignant, bittersweet ending that'd have aged well if they hadn't shoved Ted amd Robin back together last minute and ruined her relationship with Barney (that we spent the majority of the show watching flourish) in the process.
@nagiach.102 I remember when that episode aired, and I remember saying wait is she gonna die? But watching it in real time, you don't have each episode fresh in your mind like you would if you binged it, so back then us the audience didn't know that scene was the first real giveaway.
EXACTLY! EXACTLY! people say the ending is bad... i agree, but in their vision, the perfect ending also meaning she lives is... ive been thinking this for so long
Exactly!!! It would have given some context as to why Ted was telling this story and really hammer home how that special someone will come if you keep searching with optimism and learn lessons along the way.
I don’t know how you can build up expectations for a character like the Mother, actually get her to live up to them and then just kill her off to rehash the same tumultuous love story that the audience has been forced to sit through for 9 seasons.
It's insane to me that they nailed the hardest thing of all, which is to create a character that lives up to the hype...and then they fucked up everything else. Like.
I came to the conclusion that the show was never about Ted meeting the mother, but about Ted never getting over Robin and still finding a way to be with her in the end even though they wanted different things from life
@@KamalianCiranoush which is sooo creepy and problematic 😂 like, forget what Robin has wanted all this time. Ted wants to have kids and a wife and he's gonna get it *no matter what*
@@KamalianCiranoush literally 😭 it actually cheapens the sweetness of the story knowing he was only telling it to get permission from his kids to bang Robin
They really made Robin’s character dirty, instead of letting her be happy with Barney or just picturing her happy with her career ! …they pictured her like a lonely woman, alone with her dogs in her small apartment, ready to finally settle for Ted… after everything went wrong… it’s like both of them are each others consolation prize, not a love story
Maybe they pictured her that way because that's what being independent gets you. Robin was one of the most damaged characters imo. The way her father raised her and wanting a son instead. I feel she wants to portray independence because of how she was raised and won't let anyone change or choose her path again, but also wants human companionship because shes human. That's what she battles with the entire show. Ted didn't save her and she didn't settle, the timing was just finally right.
Tracy honestly deserved much better. Cristin Miloti really lived up to all of our expectations, and she was everything that we wanted for Ted. However, it might have been better had they introduced Tracy earlier, and we could have seen her and Ted's relationship develop. Instead, it seems that she was just a way to give Ted children, since Robin was unable to.
And marshall, was underutilized, he had such interesting side things, family, that went nowhere. And worse lily over that much sitcom time, she becomes from a bit mean, to the worst. And i like the actress. But him running off with shirley from community last season, would have made sense.
Yeah tracy did deserve better, but hey she lived a great life and met the one who unfortunately passed away and years later moved on. Kind of like Ted. She deserved better as in she deserved to not die but her dying hits the core of the show that it is about life, not a fairy tale where they live happily ever after. In the same breath i'd say most people who die from cancer before the age of 70 deserved better. Like no shit
Yeah, I think the show felt like it was running out of steam and then they tied it up in a rushed way. They could have introduced Tracy much earlier and given it a bit of new material to work with.
the thing I'll never get over is the assassination of Barney x Robin. Their build up was so well done only to be completely erased for the forced finale that we got
Agreed. I thought they built a really interesting relationship and while yeah, sometimes shit happens in real life, it just didn’t work with the story they had written for them.
not really they spent episodes in final season explaining why Robin and Barney didn’t work. A potent blend of true love fixes all, and Barney Robins immaturity. Their divorce was essentially a micro of Ted and Robins break up. But Ted saw the issue with his relationship with Robin, he saw their expiration date. Robin and Barney just saw the love they had.
About three episodes away from the finale, my dad asked me, "so why is he telling them this story, did the mother die?" And that's when I realized. My dad spoiled the HIMYM finale before it even aired
It was a popular theory at the time especially for Ted and Robin shippers, so unfortunately they were all right. I think it was in season 8 when he runs back to her apartment because he says if he could change something he'd have more time with her and my parents said "oh, is she dead?".
Honestly would have been fine if she had died and he's just reminiscing the past. I just hate the whole "it was Robin this whole time" message after building up to Tracy 9 seasons ans showing why they don't work
@@LeapThroughTheSky i said it in my own comment, but if i could go back to 11 years ago me, there was a time when my wife and i were both single. i'd have run right to her then because i want more time. my wife is very much alive. when you have a phenomenal love, there is never enough. ted's always potrayed himself as a hopeless romantic and i'm that way too, when he said that i never once thought "dead wife", i legit thought he was just spelling out how much he loved her, that he'd want 45 more days if he could get them.
@@Iggybart05 I mean I'm married and agree. At the time I really hoped that was what it was going for and unfortunately argued what you're saying now at that time (unfortunately because I was clearly wrong). There was the place for it to have been really sweet, but that wasn't the show runners intentions. On later rewatches I did see more patterns of how it was more likely to be Robin (i.e. Marshall always insisting he didn't lose the bet with Lily). And I think other viewers just picked up the writing on the wall. I like the version you and I thought more. I hoped like in the episode where he admitted it wasn't Stella and she walks in and talked to the kids, that Tracy got that moment instead.
I dont understand how people were shocked with her death. There was teds speech in 8x20 about going to her house and wanting extra days with her. Thats when I started preparing for it. And 9x19 kinda confirmed that she passed away.
The worse part is that Tracy‘s death works the same way as Marshall’s fantasies when he thinks of other women. He meets a hot chick, makes Lilly sick, tries to save her but fails. And after an appropriate time he meets that chick again and has a great time with her. They did the same thing with Tracy. The only difference is that they basically just changed the roles of the main woman to the chick.
How hard would it have been to just reshoot them on the couch and make a joke about being on this couch forever 😭. Nobody would have cared that they were old. Its a damn sitcom
The trailer for S9 actually made that joke, with the kids being older and telling Ted that they’ve been on the same couch for 8 years. Imagine that and combine the scene with the fictional scenario with Stella (where Stella came into the room to ask their kids if Ted was still yapping)
The editing of the final episode was just a nightmare, this could have been done different in so many ways, even if I was to assume that Tracy dies, the show should have spent more time on Ted actually struggling with the death of her. We know how TV works, we know we can spin the opinion of the viewer to hate a person on a TVshow just with editing, but they just completly missed the tone. They also easily could have reedited it in a way to pretend the kids in the end are happy with the alternate tracy ending, Ted never shares the screen with them I think? They also could have recast them.
I literally would have rather seen the adult actors come back and pretend to be kids than have this ending. I'll suspend my disbelief, please. In retrospect, they definitely should have shot more possibilities/some more ambiguous endings so they could let the show evolve. Hindsight is 20/20 and all that but yeah. Anything but this.
@@corneliahanimann2173 If they had just edit in a way that Ted is done grieving for Tracey and is ready to start dating again to find "The One" again, I think it would have been a good ending. It would hit the theme that the journey for love is never ending and they wouldn't need to revert Robin's and Barney's character growth to force the ending
I think the basic idea of "a man telling kids about their mother and end up realizing he has a second chance at love" is a solid one. The problem was the fact that this idea works for a mini series or even a movie. You can't drag your story an entire decade and use this ending. Somewhere along the way the creators should have realized that the ending they had in mind was not going to work any more and should have changed it.
Exactly, don’t make your 1 day script into a nine season comedy series it isn’t smart to keep a show going without much change but secretly have the changes but then not go with that. The movie was done in the Pilot it is literally a movie or a short film or tv series you see nowadays.
it genuinely confuses me... why in the shit would the writers ever choose to write the story in the direction it went over the 9 seasons, knowing how it was going to end. It makes absolutely no sense.
@@KS-xk2so I think this shows that compared to movies, TV show creators must be much more flexible and try to make changes during the years as their show gets extended. In this instance I think they had the ending before even thinking in their wildest dreams that they were going to get 9 seasons. That's fine. It's OK to have a ending to your story before even starting it. The problem was when they got more and more seasons they stuck to their guns and didn't change it. Even though they added things that they had no idea was going to happen before getting more seasons. For example the whole plot around Barney and Robin dating. It's obvious that this plot was not going to happen if this was a mini series. This plot happened just because they got more seasons and they needed drama. But now that it did happen they should have accounted for it. Instead the ending completely ignored this plot because well they hadn't thought of it when they came up with the ending. I even remember the show creators proudly saying "we always knew how it was going to end". As if that is a definite mark of success. Ultimately, the most unfortunate things is that the ending negatively impacted the rewatchiblity of the series. I know a ton of people who either don't rewatch the show at all. Or just ignore the last season. It has also made the show hard to recommend to new comers since any fan of the show knows that the investment in the show is not going to be paid off.
It’s just… they spend 9 seasons showing us why Ted and Robin do not work as a couple, all while developing the relationship between Barney and Robin and making Barney go through a huge character development, only to throw it all away in the two last episodes
And they just never demonstrated WHY they were endgame. All they did was just show Ted being super creepy about his feelings for Robin over and over even when they would never want the same things. People want to demonstrate this false narrative of the wrong person wrong time when in reality if that title went to anyone it was Victoria and not Robin.
Barney is one of the saddest character assassinations I have ever seen. They took time and effort to craft the character growth of his character from a shitty fuck boy to a loyal man ready to commit for love and happiness only to kill it and circle back to a depressed Barney that lost capability of love
Or just make Ted the villain: He hears about Robins and Barneys divorce and her fallout with Lily so he sets about getting rid of his wife and finally has his obsession fulfilled with a sad depressed and lonely Robin 🤷♀️
They really *didn't* spend nine seasons doing that, though. I have no idea why everyone says that. Ted and Robin DID work as a couple (minus the sitcom-level disagreements, which...yeah, you need, otherwise there wouldn't be a show). They just wanted different things for their futures. Pretty much every time they threaten to break up or get back together, it's not ever because of a lack of feelings or respect or love, it's the fact that they want different things. Why, after circumstances in their lives change drastically, when they grow and shift and reevaluate their priorities but never stop loving and respecting each other, is it suddenly completely unacceptable that they decide to take things in a romantic direction? I have some real issues with the finale (mostly with how rushed everything is) but this specific point keeps being brought up and has literally never once made any fucking sense.
@@GypsyScot1 In my opinion, it wasn't just that they wanted different things. There were fundamental differences in their personalities that made them just not work, or at least nok work as good as Robin and Barney did. The finale treated it as if the only problem was that Ted wanted kids and Robin didn't, so if Ted just had his kids with another woman, THEN they would work out! Right? But Robin were still putting her career over everything else - that was the reason her and Barney broke up in the first place. She was always fiercly independant, and Ted never liked that because he wanted to feel needed. Meanwhile, Barney loved that about her. I admit that I may be biased because I love Barney and Robin as a couple, but I just don't understand why Robin's career would get in the way of their relationship but magically work out with Ted.
Honestly, having an actual good ending with that tiny bit of inconsistency where the kids look older because of a reshoot would have been SO MUCH BETTER. I genuinely think that i wouldn't even have noticed it after 8 entire seasons of not seeing them. The showrunners prioritizing the look of the kids over an ending that actually makes sense blows my mind.
as many, many, many people pointed out, it'd have been even a setup for an amazing joke where Ted's children say that the story went on for so long they felt like years have passed.
I would have been fine with Tracy passing away IF and only IF the series was just Ted giving a fond look back of their life together and all the wonderful things she gave him. Instead, they made it seem like she was a placeholder surrogate for Robin who would give Ted kids and once she was gone, then could Ted pursue Robin and it is really gross.
After the series ended I read Love in the Time of Cholera because it's Ted's favorite book and so some fans said the ending was obvious. And after reading that I thought...ok, but the book did it better. It did not shit on the lives the characters did live. It cherished the lives they had and that maybe they had to have them. And I've seen a lot of works since that have similar things and have done it better. But exactly as you said, they made Tracy the back up so he could have everything wanted. I see some people say the ending was realistic and I'll fight them on that. Because getting everything and everyone you want is not realistic, and Ted is a creep. It was unfair to Robin.
I mean, that would be true if ted did that as soon as Tracy died, but he mourned, took his time and try to find his kids blessing. While we didn't see a lot of Tracy, she did had an impact on Tef ad did more that just give him kids.
@@valordelink the thing is we didn't get to see that and that's the point. she did have a major impact on ted, and if they had left the mother dead and done a follow up show to let us see that then it's fine. even seeing ted and robin getting closer and closer to end where this did would have been fine. the reason she seems like a placeholder is because they spent 9 seasons building this up with ted talking to his kids only to rug pull it at the end and say "lol it was just about your aunt robin the whole time". that's why she gets viewed as a place holder, the writers were so focused on getting to "ted and robin" that they rushed through ted and tracy, leaving us with only her kids as the big take away from that relationship.
@@valordelink you must not have watched the entirety of the video because FSN outlines exactly why the way they handled this was all wrong. It's not like you can't move on after being widowed. But the execution of this storyline made it feel like the writers themselves didn't care enough to treat all the characters with respect. Not Ted, not Barney and *especially* not Robin, who ended up being another woman for Ted to win after he met The Mother of his kids.
"Hey guys why don't we tediously stretch two narrative days over an entire season, culminating in a wedding that will be undone off-screen with a voiceover. Then we'll kill off the mother in 5 seconds so we can peddle a relationship that we said was "definitively" ended about six times already. Man, everyone is gonna love it".
Imagine the wedding being say a 3 parter at the start of the season, and then the finale episode being the rest of the final season. We spend time with the Mother and Ted. You could even keep most of the same plot points but instead give us time to breathe with it. I prefer the alternative ending where the final shot is Ted meeting the Mother, but hey what they had could theoretically work.
@@neodigremoI basically said this right away, it was necessarily the finale, it was all of season 9 waisted on that wedding and the craming all this information into the finale. I agree with the guy who made this video that it be better if Robin and Barney stay together and Ted doesn't go after Robin. We spent 9 years waiting to meet the mother and they kill her off right after we meet her, they spend an entire year on that wedding and it's over 15 minutes later. Way too much information in the finale. Season 9 was a turd because of the wedding. Season 8 should of ended with Ted and Tracy meeting, season 9 their story. I like the idea of Ted telling the story to his kids just reminiscing the love of his life. Ted going after Robin feels like he never truly got over Robin and it undermines the love for Tracy.
"not just that boss have one of the two major people in that ending have their whole arc about how much they don't match with that ending cause they love the person they're marrying and then the other major person is going to have their whole arc about moving on from the other major person in this ending" "awesome idea random writers room staff member you get a promotion" which side not as somebody who actually likes season 9 a decent amount it's so much worse if you actually like that season
The show spent 9 seasons explaining why Ted and Robin are bad for each other, it spent 1 season explaining why Barney and Robin are PERFECT for each other and it tried to justify backtracking on all of that with half an episode.
The worst part is that Ted meeting Tracy at Barney and Robin's wedding retroactively makes the begining of the show (and Ted's story) make so much sense because had Ted not fallen for Robing, he would've never brought her into the group, she never would've fallen for Barney, they never would've married and Ted never would've met his children's mother.
If there was ever conclusive proof Ted and Robin were NEVER meant to be together, it would be this. It was actually clever on the writer's part nixing Robin early on as a possible candidate for being the mother of Ted's future children, yet keep her around as part of Ted's friend group eventually culminating in her and Barney getting together, getting married, and then, when Ted least expected it, he finally met the woman of his dreams with everything that transpired leading up to that iconic moment HIMYM serving as an effective representation of the saying "a blessing in disguise" with Robin serving as the personification of said saying. But noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo...they just HAD to subvert viewer's expectations at the last minute by having Ted still pine for Robin in the final few minutes of the series finale when the entire nine season run of HIMYM did everything possible to torpedo the idea of them ever becoming an official couple after their break-up early on.
It also could have served as a lesson to his kids who are still grieving Tracy: he met their mother the day he finally got over Robin. As painful as it is to move on, that's how the best thing in your life can happen to you.
There would have been absolutely nothing wrong with the show just having an incredibly straightforward ending where Ted meets Tracy and says "and that kids, is how I met your mother." The end. The writers were desperate to add in one final twist and it just wasn't necessary
Yeah my favorite fan-idea for the ending was to have the story end straightforwardly and then cut back to the present and have the kids aged up so they are adults now, possibly with their own partners and young kids. It would have perfect, you get one last joke, it solves the issue of the actors who play the kids aging, and it's perfectly in line with Ted's character to literally spend years telling the story of how he met Tracy.
my only guess as to why is that it had just become like a studio mandate that that ending must be used cause they had been banking on it for so long cause like season 9 seems like it's going out of it's way to prove the ending stupid Barney's arc in season 9 is being the reliable person that robin needs in a partner Robin's arc is realising how very deeply she loves Barney and how she does want to spend the rest of her life with him and Ted's is about learning to let Robin go by sunrise Ted had completed his character arc and no it was just time for him to move onto better things being the mother
The thing is, I don’t even know WHY they were so obsessed with Ted and Robin, they make NO sense at all. If you took their characters at face value, they never would’ve gotten past a one night stand
What really gets me is the way the narrative almost acts like it's fine that Ted has kids because they're OLDER KIDS, as if teenagers and young adults don't still deeply impact their parents' lives. Ted is still a dad and Robin is still stepping into a FAMILY UNIT here, and her character would be frustrated by the parameters of that, which she would likely see as limitations while Ted would see it as the ideal. I hate the implication that older kids don't count or something--Robin aggressively did not want kids, then apparently goes and marries a guy with two kids whose mom DIED. This is not an easy role to take on, even if the kids are on board. Like you said, they just do not fit.
@@Vi_Vi_1 it'S SUCH a weird narrative choice. Up until the end the story we get told is " Ted wants Robin, but she doesn't want a family, but Ted ultimately wants his family and will love his future wife much more. The obstacle he needs to overcome is his false idea that Robin is what he wants, so he can move onto what he actually wants and needs" and then at the end, it just flips that on his head. So we get a feel good montage about a happy life, but the entire point of the series is that what Ted wanted was NOT what he kept talking about for nine years, his family actually is the obstacle to his happiness! It's like watching a sportsmatch and you know the objective, and then in the end the commentators say "Oh by the way, the team that scored more points loses" and you sit there like... wait what It's like the worst case of subverting expectations... in a way it's as insulting as the BBC Sherlock show mocking people for trying to crack the case along with Sherlock as if that's a crazy thing to do when watchign a mystery show, the writers of HIMYM went " Why were you expecting a romcom feel good ending when we've been giving you a feelgood romcom/sitcom show? That's not how reality works! People die!"
@@ginster458 yeah exactly!! It was just so deeply confusing, frustrating, and unsatisfying. They made no sense as a couple and shoving them back together at the very end like that was probably the most disappointing thing they could have done. I wish they'd had the guts to scrap their original plan and acknowledge that the show had grown well beyond that, and the characters had taken paths that made it so that ending no longer made any sense. Barney and Robin were great together and Ted got what he wanted, so making it seem like it all led back to Robin kinda nullified that and treated his family like a secondary priority to what really mattered to him, which was so gross
Robin already has a relationship with Ted’s kids, they call her aunt Robin. She’s not walking into something brand new. It’s ridiculous how you weirdos throw the kids card at Robin when people are allowed to change their minds. Robin isn’t raising little toddlers, she would just be the cool aunt who’s dating their dad. Y’all making it more deep than it needs to be to justify your anger. Get some help and grow up
This, I always perceived the ending as, Ted and Robin always loved each other (that's why the show starts years before we meet the mom nor is knowing the mom as important as the kids know that story) it's the story of how he wants his last chance at love, by that age all the other things matter less. @NightRises234
Why didn't they just reshoot Ted's kids grown up and make a joke of how long he has been telling the story? Their hands wouldn't have been tied to the original ending.
I wondered this too. Or they could’ve just not showed the clips where they’re talking about Ted going after Robin and scrapped the whole thing. The fact that this was all pre planned makes it feel so much worse. 🤷♀️ I thought it would’ve been so much more meaningful if the mother had lived, and maybe they could’ve made some sort of family montage where his kids bring over his grandkids and they’re retelling the story or something.
@@Lina-ed2cr I think most of us would be okay if they just get the original actors to come back and dub over the preshot finale. Sure, the new conversation won't match the lips, but at least then they won't be quite as tied to the original ending.
Tracy was done DIIIIRTY!! You do not cast someone as adorable and perfect to play the Mother as Cristin Milioti just to kill her in the spam of half an episode like that. TRACY DESERVED FUCKING BETTER!!
That's the thing, living up to the expectations is almost an impossible task, and Tracy exceeded everyone's expectations. They struck gold with her and they didn't use it.
@@One.Zero.One101 Not only that, but the character Tracy deserved so much better. She was the sweetest, kindest soul in the whole cast and yet not only did her fiancé die a tragic death, no, she has to die young, too, and ultimately serve as a baby machine for Ted and Robin to finally have their happily ever after once Robin seemingly doesn't have to lift a finger anymore to raise Ted's kids. THAT'S dirty
I don't know if i'm just jaded but i feel Tracy was used as a tool to help Ted achieve his dream life. Everything we know about her is in relation to Ted : how well she completes him, how well she integrated in Ted's group, how they had the same goals. After Ted got his kids and Robin travelled the world and achieved professional success they are finally compatible enough for their relationship to work long term so how nice of Tracy to get out of the way.
Oh absolutely! For me the worst part of that is how the show began to explore Robin's infertility and how it affected her although she initially didn't want to have kids. At the time it seemed like a nicely executed and deep storyline, but after seeing the ending I couldn't help but feel it was brought up just to highlight how Tracy is nothing more but Robin's replacement in Ted's vision of ideal life.
But that's the thing, Ted and Robin were never actually compatible. Ted was a hopeless romantic and Robin found that stuff cheesy. Robin was fiercely independent and could even physically defend herself in most dangerous situations, a fact that Ted even mentions in the show makes him insecure. I could go on, but the point is, opposites may attract but they do not always make a good couple
AND HIS MIND BLATANTLY REFUSED TO ACCEPT THE FACT THAT HE HAS TO MOVE ON. He was in love with the same woman for 20 frickin years?? Despite being married and being in relationships many times over ?? Oh so convenient Tracy died for both of em.
@@slaaaphas a woman who can’t have kids I totally understand her. Even if you didn’t want it, there’s still a possibility for me to start wanting them (in 5-10 years, why not?). Also having a kid is one of the unique experiences in life. But infertility just takes away all relatively “cheap and simple” options to live that experience. And not having any options is always super sad.
Absolutely. The HIMYM finale should taught on a media/literature course showing how NOT to ruin your entire story. It’s amazing how I can’t get invested with the show after seeing the ending, when I LOVED the first 5-6 seasons. Now, I’ll go back and watch key episodes or story arcs, but I’ve never rewatched the whole thing and never plan on it for that reason. The ending/final season kills all the joy and mystery of the first 8 seasons and makes everyone outside of Lilly & Marshall’s development null and void.
I've always considered it a perfect example of how you need to be flexible when crafting a long-running episodic narrative like that. Because you have no idea how long your story will go on for, you can't really plan for how your characters will develop outside of a general direction you want them to go. Add to that world events and actors lives and you find yourself in a really tricky situation.
GoT, and himym... show how important it is for your legacy to have a good ending. If the ending's trash, nothing matters what happened before, and your media franchise will just stop having any cultural relevance. Huge shows whose popularity and public interest just absolutely fucking *cratered* overnight with going from juggernauts to no one caring about that show anymore except talking about how much the ending sucked.
People who try to defend the ending would say "well but then why did show start with Ted meeting Robin?" BECAUSE HE MET THE MOTHER AT ROBIN'S WEDDING, IT WAS A TALE OF ROBIN AND BARNEY GROWING INTO A COUPLE THAT BROUGHT THE MOTHER TO TEDS LIFE AAAAAAA TED WAS JUST THE NARRATOR THEY WERE THE MAIN COUPLE
EXACTLY! Also, Robin complaining about how Ted was the one who got away after he met Tracy at her own wedding was a terrible move development-wise. 😔 the show is all about fate and friendship and supporting people you love. It’s almost like Barney was also her placeholder.
I took the meeting of robin more as the way to kickstart the version of their friendship group and his life that made being with the mother possible, Robin taught him a lot (whether he actually was written to have learnt it very well...well let's ignore that) and was one of his most important friends. Another thing that frustrates me about that is it's more than suggesting that nothing is more important than romance, friends are not as important according to this, and that's such a sucky take, they work SO much better as friends and they're better for it, they were soulmates as friends, not romantically. Some people are compatible as both and some people are the complete opposite, they are the complete opposite, working well as friends but so incompatible romantically Also down with amatonormativity At least that's one thing Barney's canon ending got right with his daughter, he didn't need a romantic or sexual relationship to be happy
To which I say why? Because Ted needed to meet and fall in love with Robin in order to grow as a person, realize that love is more than what is perceived as destiny and that above all, you can't force love on someone who doesn't share your vision. The lesson is never beg anyone to love you because with the right person, you can find someone you don't have to beg or force anything with. It will just be. Which is exactly how it was with Tracy upon their first meeting. The conversation with her was natural. It was easy. She shared his sense of humor. Ted wasted many years on so many different women because of his obsession with the one when in reality the woman he married was the one he didn't force this ideal onto and it showed how much he grew as a person when he met Tracy. That's why we meet Robin first. Because the person and mentality Ted had of forcing love needed to be unlearned.
It never made sense to me that Barney would ever have a problem with traveling around the world with Robin. In between her work he'd be finding his own adventures around her, whether with her or not especially since the final season spends SO MUCH TIME solidifying the two of them as a team despite them both being "lone wolves". The life they could have had after the wedding would have allowed room for both of their adventurous sides to flourish whilst maintaining the bond they built during season 9.
Exactly, bc Barney explicitly states in one episode where he talks about how much he loves robin bc she’s INDEPENDENT! they both are!!! That’s why they work together smh I see no reason they wouldn’t have fun and spend time while flying around the world together?!??
It makes so much sense that he would be unhappy in that relationship. His job was a big part of who he was and he lost that very close to the wedding. He never god anything of his own while traveling the world with Robin as she built her career. He never truly worked on himself, he just entered a relationship that fit his current state, but than it changed completely. The fact that they lasted 3 years shows how much they loved each other.
@@amirampeled His Job was NOT a big part of who he was. Besides the PLEASE joke (which shows that he didn't lose his job), its the fact alone, that he switched the job without great fuzz (from AltruCell to GNB). That Barney wasn't invested in his job was shown in the episode milk, where he talks about the things he does on the job (like pranking Clark Butterfield), instead of doing his job. It's simply ludicrous to think that Barney, who commit to everything he does 100%, would quit the woman he married because he could not post the dick joke of the day. If I were the writer, I had Barney and Tracey die in a plane accident or something on the way to Ted and Robin (for a vaccation or whatever), to enable Robin and Ted as a couple, because letting Barney just walk away from the woman he finally commited to is a disgrace for the best charachter arc in HIMYM.
@@Charon10-kb1bs he was running his blog remotely while they traveled the world. not sure how that was somehow an impossibility he mentions his blog repeatedly. no one even knows what Barney's job was because he always replied with "please." his main function turned out to be signing off on fraudulent documents by the executives so they had plausible deniability. but it turns out it was a long con because he was reporting on them to the feds the whole time because that one executive dude slept with his coffee shop girlfriend. the only thing that would possibly bother Barney is being cut off from his network of New York "guys". But then, Barney has a "guy guy" to help him find a new "guys" when he needed one. His "guy guy" could easily help him find a suit "guy" in Italy? or a car "guy" in Japan?
For me, one of the worst scenes is when Tracy, on her wedding day, took a photo of the group. It gave the impression she would never be apart of them, even after marring Ted! It annoyed me so much.
It was really SUCH A LET DOWN how after all the seasons, we didn't get to know Tracy at all!!! Like I get why there wouldnmt be a full season about her, as it was about how they met.. But you'd expect to at least get to know her character enough as in scenes to what she was up to right before meeting Ted and why he was her perfect match too.. As to get emotionally attached to the character. But she was literally just put in there to push out two babies so Ted could again have Robin 🥴
I think that was literally Tracy's decision. Like she said "lemme take a picture" she knew these 5 had a bond that was from way before she came in the group. And I also think because rhe gang met again after a long time.
Idk I kind of took that scene as a metaphor for the whole show. Like, the show was never about the mother. Tracy was always just a framing device so we can experience the group and their friendship through its many highs and lows
Minor correction for what you said about Robin, she chose love once when she turned down the job in Chicago for Don. For me the last episode is Season 9 Episode 22
I honestly don’t think it’s that bad, the show is was never about the mother it was about Ted and his friends. The real disrespect was to the established characters like Robin and Barney who they completely disregarded to show horn in this ending that they’d grown past.
@@oriandthesleepytime The show isn’t about her though, she’s essentially a MacGuffin. I don’t think what they did to her was anywhere near as bad as how they destroyed the development of most of the characters we had watched for 9 seasons
@@Name-fd2co What's the title of the show? That's like watching Forrest Gump and Tom Hanks was only in the last scene taking his son to the bus stop. People can defend it all they want, but the truth is the show is about Ted telling his children about his sexcapades.
She's a fictitious character. Just as I understand how you could reach that conclusion based on your life experience and what you knew of her, I guess I also could see how perhaps the show's writers know more about her than you and maybe the totality of her backstory was covered in the alternate universe series, "It's Tracy McConnell!" So they did not feel the need to delve too deeply into her tale beyond the thumbnail sketch of how she intersected with Ted. Plus, she may feel different emotions than you because, and I really cannot emphasize this enough, SHE'S A FICTITIOUS CHARACTER!"😆
It should have ended by Cristin Miloti as Tracy comming into the scene where ted ends his tale to his children and happily announce it was time for their children to hear how she met their father and implying her version was longer. Would have been so funny and perfectly displayed how great they fit together. I imagine they could have easily reused a clip for the childrens reaction as well.
I agree! But I also don't really agree with his take that just because Robin was super career focused and didn't want kids means she could never change her mind. There are a TON of people, in fact the majority of people who are workaholics in their twenties and even 30s, change their minds and decide to settle down and have families. Because at the end of the day your career is meaningless. When you are on your deathbed do you think your company is going to care? Do you really think you are going to regret not working more? When people are on their deathbeds they regret the relationships they didn't have, or the families they didn't start. Hopefully you will be surrounded by your children and your spouse and grandchildren when you are dying. People who spend their whole lives never having a partner or children almost always regret it when they are elderly. So even tho I actually don't like how they ended up together (i never really liked Robin LMAO 😂) I don't think it's unrealistic or unreasonable for her to change her mind. I actually work as a hospice nurse. And the saddest deaths are the ones where they are alone. They have no one but nurses they are paying to be there. They regret the family they didn't have.
The only redeeming quality of the finale was Barney meeting his daughter Ellie for the first time. Neil Patrick Harris' acting in that scene honestly made me feel emotional, I wish that Barney suddenly having a daughter had been explored more. It felt lazy that Barney reverted to his womanising lifestyle, after his love for Robin made him a better person.
The thing that irked me about that was it took Barney havin' a daughter to reform his womanizer lifestyle. It happens plenty in life but it's very sad. Men shouldn't need a lil girl to help them start to treat women better. Greetings btw @trinaq
Especially as barey getting betting there, is pretty much ruined retroactive. The better part of the looong seasons is barney growing as person, and robin is always great, but his growth too.@@rahbeeuh
@@rahbeeuhAgreed, it just felt redundant, especially since Barney became a better man through his love for Robin, but that was almost instantly thrown out of the window.
@@trinaq that's the frustrating part. We'd seen Barney become a somewhat better person but then to have him reverse that progress, get a woman pregnant and have a daughter who changes him again?! Oh my wow, the whiplash 😭
Barney going 360 didn't ruin him. He fell. He was abandoned again by who he thought he could be vulnerable with. Once his daughter is born he finally had someone he can love unconditionally and that would I'm theory love him back
The ending is so bonkers to me because it was the same showrunners for the entire series. They wrote and filmed that ending back in season 2, and then spend the next seven seasons practically going out of their way to make sure it wouldn't make sense. How do you fuck up that badly?
That’s the most frustrating part to me. They knew this was their endgame. So, why did they go on to evolve the characters in a way that made them so incompatible as the show went on? The further into the seasons they got, they just seemed to make Ted obsessed with the idea of Robin. I felt like by the time they got to the end, Barney and Robin were a much better fit.
@@NoPowerintheVerseare you blind or have bias? The entire last season was going back and forth with how both Barney and Ted were fit for Robin. Plus again the story didn’t mess up. It ended with how they met their mother, their second mother Robin. It was always about Robin disguised in a story about their first mom.
@@NoPowerintheVerseI disagree with Barney and Robin being a good fit, Barney is an awful human being and he did not have enough character development to have earned a healthy relationship. I hate it.
@@introusas Barney was a by product of his upbringing. He showed time and time again he would do anything for the people he loved and had a strong moral code it was just a weird one. Barney and Robin both didn’t need people but it didn’t mean they had to be single. At the end of the day Barney got exactly what he wanted: not a normal relationship but somebody he could out all his love into. What he desperately wanted his life to happen to him.
Every time I think about Ted and Robin, all I can think about is that scene where Ted tells her that Robin being self sufficient made him feel emasculated and inadequate... immediately contrasted with Barney saying that he liked that Robin was strong and independent and did not need him to fix all her problems. So I fucking hate the finale on multiple reasons. And I thought I had forgotten how much I hated it and now I remembering all over again... (And also Barney's total character assassination).
@@robrick9361 isn't it kind of cruel that the one and only thing the finale did well, and knocked out of the park at that, was finding and portraying the perfect "mother" character? but literally everything else was done wrong?
I believe that the story is one of the most well written pieces of media EVER and the building up to Tracy’s reveal made her such a likable character,seeing how she made Ted so happy, as well as the others involvement with her so perfect that the alternate ending along with a picture collection of all the moments in their life at the end would have made it, in my opinion one of the best TV series of all time
I'm only accepting the alternative ending, no way they butchered Robin, Barney and Tracy to deliver a finale that would only fit s2. And it's wildly misogynistic to reduce a character to their reproductive abilities, then kill her and replace her with the woman who clearly and repeatedly said No.
Said everything I was thinking, they built up Tracy as a great character giving her one of the best episodes of the entire series in an overall mediocre season only to reduce her to just “the mother” killing her off screen
Exactly. HIMYM was a show about how what you get is going to be 1000 times better than what you thought you wanted at 25. It made me able to hope for joy in my future even when I felt like nothing ever went my way. Giving Ted Robin at the last second destroys all of that and instead says “don’t worry, you’ll get what you wanted when you were 25! Just keep waiting, and waiting, and waiting, and waiting, and never move on, and don’t expect anything else to ever make you happy.”
They didn't do that though, the audience after the fact are the ones reducing Tracy to "just being there to give Ted kids" that isn't how the show treated her at all, they didn't butcher Robin nor Barney, everything that happened was set up in multiple ways. Robin was never not in love with Ted, their only issue was timing, the one time she said "no" to him that everyone brings up she didn't even want to say it.
This is my favorite sitcom, and the ending is just so awful that I just refuse to believe it exists. Ted meets the mom under the umbrella. Roll credits.
The final episode was just *so* awkward. It felt like they had one really fleshed out and wonderful ending - and then rememberd "oh wait! we were supposed to do *the twist* that we planned at the start! So had to rush in a Robin-Barney break up and Robin falling in love with Ted again plotline. So they literally had to undo *all* of Barney, Robin and Ted's character development to get it to work. And *thank you* for your comments about Barney - you 100% nailed it.
It’s still a great watch. Till the last season. It’s like game of thrones lol. You just need to accept that a better ending is canon in ur mind and blot out this one.
The scene of Ted hearing Tracy sing La Vie En Rose with her ukulele never fails to make tear up. She's so charming and she slots perfectly into the friend group, it really feels like she'd been there all along. She's an amazing character in her own right and they just tossed her aside in the finale. It's baffling!
I still hate this shows ending 😭. Every time I think it's not that bad I get upset 1. A whole season of Barney/Robin wedding is so cruel when one of his last lines on the show is how he will never probably love again. 2. The fact that they just fell apart as friends 😭 3. That Ted was so venominant that Barney betrayed him and a shit friend and to turn around get his ex wife seems like character assassination for him and Robin. 4. Telling a story about how you been in love with an ex girlfriend the whole time 😭 5. A lot of people felt like Tracy was just used to give Ted kids 😭
The fact the entire last season is about Robin and Barney’s wedding only for the final episode to just have them get divorced still pisses me off more than Ted thinking he had a chance with Robin afterwards
I remember a comment from another video about the ending. Basically Robin is unable to bear kids so Tracy came and gave Ted two children just so Ted and Robin can solve the no kid problem. The whole show turns from “How I Met Your Mother” to “How I Still Want to Bang Aunt Robin”
To me, killing the mother and having Ted tell this story as a way to cope with her loss and as a memoir to their kids, it works for me. The ending with Robin and the blue horn is what messes all that up for me
Here is my take. As a middle aged woman, they could have made the ending work, but…they would have had to show Robin supporting Ted through the death of his wife. Showing Robin being close to the kids. Showing Robin having lived the life she wanted to live, but now wanting to live that life with someone quieter like Ted. It wouldn’t negate anything. It would follow the show’s natural premise of watching these characters grow and change. Hitting middle age sometimes your needs and wants change. Flying around the world constantly was fun in your twenties but in your late forties it might feel like a lot. Also as you age one can get downsized or passed over for a younger version of themselves so there just be more alone time because a 24 hour job can turn into a 9-5. Like I said, change is a fundamental part of life. Seeing the world differently doesn’t negate who you were, it just defines who you are now. Like I said this progression should have been shown, because a shift like this takes 20 years and this one happens in less than 12 hours of real time. You can’t show the minutiae that creates these kinds of evolution. On the Barney thing he could have changed through therapy with Robin trying to save their marriage. Instead of returning to asshole Barney he would return to a bit of a middle ground. He would remarry, become a dad, but would still say some dumb shit. My point is that they had so many simple ways to make it all make sense. Edit: I’m not saying Robin now magically wants to be the mom (like the trope). It’s more of: she is uniting with people she loves. She’s still “Aunt Robin”.
That would've make a great ending! They could've spent less time on the wedding, and more on the aftermath of Tracy's death. After a while it would've made sense to reunite Ted and Robyn. They didn't play their cards right and it's a shame!
after becoming a film student, i understood how timing is CRUCIAL with himym: we got 8 seasons with the same formula and episode format with arcs beggining and completing through them, then suddenly we got a whole season passing in a weekend, and the last episode flying through 10 years, it's weird and it wasnt necessary
The final season taking place over a weekend was itself not a bad idea as they still did flashbacks and flash forwards a lot. It was an interesting way to change things up for the final season. But agreed the pacing of the finale is awful and makes GOT final seasons pacing look masterful. Why didn’t they have the 200th episode be the wedding and then pace our what happens in the finale? That would’ve worked much better and we probably would’ve accepted what happened more
I actually didn't mind the last season's pacing. It was different, but it was an absurd way for the gang to go on a few more little adventures and tie up a bunch of loose ends. But the final episode rushing through 10 years of development that completely undid Robin, Barney, and later Ted's character arcs retroactively ruins that, because why the hell did we spend so much time on fun little adventures and loose ends instead of building up any of these massive changes in the main characters?
I don't think the wedding over a whole season was a bad decision. It was the wedding where he met the mother, it should be intricate. Well ofc the season was too long, but hey. The absolute idiotic decision was reversing the wedding in 15 minutes, have everyone's character regress 7 seasons and torpedo everything for the ending shot back in season 2.
20:41 what is so frustrating is they could have pulled off an ending where the “kids” were now adults, and just made a joke out of it, and written a better conclusion.
I agree completely with you, with ONE exception: I think killing the mother off was not a mistake. Yes, they could and maybe should have dealt with it more exhaustively, but that's execution and beside my point. The mother's death is the final one in a long row of moments (Lily leaves Marshall, Robin can't have kids, Barney's whole character arc that you mentioned, Ted gets left at the altar, Marshall's Dad dies, etc. I'm sure I'm forgetting some because I haven't watched the show in too long) where HIMYM dives into a deep emotional concept - hurt and grief. And yes, you can argue that Marshall's dad dieing "dealt with that topic", but it's not the same imho. Ted recounts his journey, all his failed relationships that made him ready, that honed his character for Tracy, only for their happily ever after to be cut short, because LIFE ISN'T FAIR, and that's a reason to go out there and LIVE IT WHILE YOU CAN. That's the message. Cherish every moment that you have because you don't know how many you have left. Having him tell his kids that story to relay to them how incredibly much he loves their mother is a life lesson. The show is full of life lessons. And if Barney & Robin had been left happily ever after like Lily & Marshall, and Ted got his "all alone" moment again, only this time he knows he had perfection, and he still has his kids, that would have been heartbreaking, but bittersweet, and it would have felt *real*. The alternate ending cheapens, no destroys, that hurt and that lesson by giving in to the happily ever after trope.
there has NEVER been a character that was so assassinated like how barney was in that finale it was genuinely PAINFUL to witness. barney and robin are my favourite on screen couple so the fact that it was revealed that they DIVORCED after having one of the greatest relationship arcs in sitcom history was CRIMINAL. like they genuinely couldn't have ruined that finale more if they tried. watching it for the first time was like watching the worst thing that could possibly happen continuously happen for the entire runtime
The actual sin was centering the entire final season around the wedding, because Barney and Robin ending in divorce made perfect sense for both characters. He was a serial womanizer with abandonment issues. She was on the path to becoming a globetrotting reporter who would be away from her husband for extended periods of time. And we already saw their relationship fail once before in the series. They weren't the perfect match everyone wants them to be.
Honestly the thing that pissed me off the most about it was the whole "Barney learned to respect women because he has a daughter now" of it all. Like it just felt like the writers trying to compensate for essentially ruining Barney's character. Especially when it wasn't foreshadowed at all, and we don't see his daughter's mother or even *learn her name*.
@@user74027nhBarney is practically irredeemable. He has abused and harassed women from the very first episode to the end. He’s a shit human being and doesn’t deserve any redemption. A lot of the things he did to women were bordering on rape, if not literal rape.
In my opinion they could've just shot several possible endings with children. And never reveal which is the "canon". It would've also helped if show ended early in my opinion
And the thing is (no offense to the kid actors) but no one and I repeat no one in this entire world would have cared if the scene with them at the end was cut out.
I will NEVER understand how they couldn’t make season 9 all about Tracy and Ted’s relationship. It might have made us people that hated the Robin/Ted ending willing to maybe accept it. This idiotic ending made Tracy seem like a surrogate for his kids. We got duped! Tracy was perfect and they pulled the rug from under us! Also, by Ted running back to Robin it looked like he never grew up and the cycle of Ted/Robin started all over again.
Seriously, I would have loved more time with Tracy, and getting to see their life together. We didn't need twists and drama and Ted getting back with Robin, we just needed that cute happy ending we wanted.
@@TheSuperappelflap firmly disagree: life is hard, and very rarely has happy endings. Maybe you don't enjoy them, but plenty of us do. Plus, they could still have written a sad ending if they wanted to. I'm not upset with it because it wasn't happy, I'm upset with it because it was poorly written and deeply unsatisfying. And I'm not going to explain that because the video we're commenting on does a great job explaining it lol
Good point! The ending ruined Ted, too! It’s like he never learned to let go, and the show said he’s right to keep pining over Robin. “Keep trying and the girl will be with you” is a terrible message. 🤦♀️
I was so disappointed and upset they did that to Robin. Like, i was so happy when she got with barney, two career driven people just ugh like I watched solely watched for Marshall and lily alone like that was my favorite couple and became my favorite characters I loved the alternate ending so much more
The biggest problem with the finale for me is that Ted and Robin were never that interesting of a couple. Even if the show had ended in season 2 or 3 when their relationship was at the forefront of the show it still would’ve been a lame ending. In the first episode Ted sees Robin from across the room at McLaren’s and just instantly falls in love with her. The show is obviously aware of how cliched and silly that is and pokes fun at it constantly, but it still makes for a weak starting point for their relationship. From then on, Ted is just unhealthily obsessed with Robin. We’re never really given a reason why Ted is in love with her. He just is. Not to mention their relationship always felt very one sided. Robin was never anywhere near as into Ted as he was into her. This is fine though, because by the end of the episode we are told that she isn’t the mother. So even at the end of the first episode we are told that aren’t going to work out.
If anything Ted was really awful to Robin during their relationship. He shamed her for the amount of men she’s slept with. Tried to get rid of her dogs and send them upstate. That incident with the t-shirt. Constantly pressuring her. And then of course the whole thing with the last episode of season 2 where he keeps pressuring her about marriage even though she’s made it clear she doesn’t want marriage or children.
The thing about the alternate ending is that it was clearly thrown together at the last minute due to backlash, and it's still way more satisfying than the one they actually put effort into.
I’m as baffled as FSN. If they did put any effort into it, they wouldn’t have tried to force a decade-long show fit a predetermined ending in less than 30 minutes. Build up to it, man 🤦♀️
Exactly. I mean I don’t know how the creators thought their planned ending would go well. Either they were that stupid not to know or they didn’t care. Good writers and producers acknowledge that shows by their nature change. They evolve and grow. And HIMYM had completely outgrown the ending they had planned. It could’ve worked if the show ended in s3-5, but s9? NOPE. It’s just awful. And I’m so glad everyone is on the same page here. I can’t understand how ANYONE can justify or defend this awful finale. I see people defend GOT finale (myself included) but THIS? No
@@jessedellross3245this ending sure never worked passed season 1. Cause Ted and Robin were never meant to be. It is about the mother who ever she was at that season.
I can forgive letting the mother die, it's sad, but not necessarily a bad thing, but the destruction of Barney and Robin's characters and then forcing Robin and Ted together out of nowhere is truly devastating
Not gonna lie, upon rewatching this show about a year ago, I realized that Ted is actually the *worst* sex pest. Man thinks he’s “owed” a perfect partner, and destroys his life and others’ in pursuit of an unfair and unrealistic ideal. At least Barney is obvious about his goals; Ted is just a self- centered toxic asshole.
I feel the same. By the 3rd season, I'd had enough of him. He's such an awful person and treats women terribly, and never learns. In real life, guys like him and Barney, do they even have actual friendships with women?
@@sonyakinsey4376no, and honestly the show taught men that women saying no didn’t matter- just pester them long enough until they say yes! (Also separate note- Barney and Robin deserved better 😂😂😂)
Well, the question was rhetorical, but no, I certainly wouldn't be friends with any guys like Ted or Barney. I've successfully avoided dating guys a lot like Ted.
Ted was honestly worse. Because he would convince them he wanted something deeper, then break up with them on their birthdays. Ted is my least favorite character on the show, I actively hate him. My entire neutrality died for him when he screamed at Marshall for not being over Lily (an 8 year relationship) and that he should move on, while we had to sit through a season or two of him whining about Robin for one date.
Well - there's always the line Barney said "I'm pretty sure I sold a woman... There was a man who gave me the keys to a Mercedes and I left her there" I know it's a comedy show - but I was like "yeah that's not funny"
That's what gets me. They could've spent 10 minutes shooting a very basic "that's the story of how I met your mother" "oh thank good, that took forever. Feels like years" ending.
Yeah, I mean they could have even dedicated an entire day of just shooting the ending, with the added benefit of nobody actually being sure which would be the final version, thereby not having the risk of somebody leaking the ending beforehand.
They could have filmed some shots of the kids, and make them talk off-screen so they can record dialogue later. It's stupid to limit yourself like that.
Tracy was so perfectly cast and the actress had such good chemistry with the cast that it actually made it hurt EXTRA BAD when that ending hit. Because they managed to pull off the impossible and then stumbled on what should have been the easiest part.
As someone who just finished the show for the first time and no outside biases or knowledge of the show, I really enjoyed the ending. Sure the last season was kinda drawn out but the final ending felt like it fit in a certain way. I mean seeing the subtle hints in the show foreshadowing that maybe the mother isn’t actually around and the way overall it’s told, the ending really does kinda make sense. Ted told the entire story in the eyes of him being drawn to Robin, and then out of nowhere we finally meet Tracy and every part she was in just felt so distant, as if he really didn’t have much to say because he didn’t get a chance to know her that long before she inevitably passed. I think the ending did a justice at finally completing the promise that Ted and Robin made to one another so long ago. While being 2 completely situations, it’s nice to see that 2 people who genuinely did love each other but always at the wrong time, finally have the 1 time that’s right.
Well the ending would have been fine if it was only 3 seasons long. Not 9... The characters evolve the writing changes the ending however didn't chance at all. And that is a huge problem.
"Tracy and every part she was in just felt so distant, as if he really didn’t have much to say because he didn’t get a chance to know her that long before she inevitably passed." - they were married for many years, what do you mean he didn't have much to say about her? Sorry, but your comment makes it seem even worse, how in the earth Ted couldn't say much about the woman he married and supposed to love.
They couldn't very well make a character introduced at the very end outshine the established characters. The problem wasn't a lack of planning. The problem was they'd planned this ending from the very start. But the show ran a long time, and the original idea of how it ended, which they'd gone to such pains to set up, didn't work anymore. Overall, I liked the final season. I certainly saw them hinting Ted and Robin weren't entirely over each other. But Ted and Robin no longer interested me as a couple. I loved Tracy at first sight. They also suggested there was some doom hanging over her. But that just made her more compelling. It was not that they rushed the ending. It was that they had used the framing device of the kids to lead up to the ending they'd always intended to do. But they had to keep developing the characters, to fill all the time between the pilot and the finale. Ted and Robin no longer made any sense. Barney and Robin breaking up was of course quite imaginable, but to do it so abruptly after spending a whole season building up to the wedding did not work. Neither did Ted's own children telling him the story he'd been telling, about his endless affairs with a variety of women, leading up to his finally finding Tracy, achieving his dream of a happy marriage--the kids' mother!--was all about Robin. No kids who lost their mom young would ever say that. They might want their dad to date again, be happy--they would not be literally matchmaking for him. And should we believe Ted has Robin for the asking, simply by stealing a blue French Horn and waving it at her from the street? It was too forced. Well, endings usually are, because sitcoms aren't a form designed to have endings. All sitcom finales feel forced, to some extent, but because this one was so serialized for a sitcom, it was more obvious. The show I watched was not about Ted and Robin after the second season. They had their try, and they broke up without any real regrets. They were not meant for each other, except as friends. And yes, it does make it seem like Tracy's only purpose in life was to bear Ted children. When in fact Robin was made infertile very late in the show, just to make sure we know she's not The Mother. So again--not underplanning--overplanning. Not accepting that the show's whole ethos is that Life is what happens when you're making other plans. They should have just let the final twist go, and that is basically how the show ends now. Still feels forced. Maybe you don't need to tell us everything that happened to everyone on a damn half hour comedy? Just leave it open-ended.
@@christopherlyons5900 I agree with you, but at the same time I would prefer that they killed Marshall since he didn't want to be there and made one more season with the mother. This way the ending wouldn't be so scuffed. Could show us a bit more of her, even getting sick (it was not what I wanted, but I feel like I would accept it better) and grief that had only been seen by Marshall's dad, but it still could be a fun thing to explore. About Robbin and Barney they could show us the struggle but still make it work, I just feel that they got lazy and wanted to use what they already had in “stock”.
@@martins2677 I don't see how making Lily a grieving widow is helping anything. No, the only real mistake they made was to get so committed to the ending they dreamed up before they shot the pilot, they couldn't adjust to the reality that it didn't work anymore.
I don’t know what’s more misogynistic. The mother being reduced down to “the mother that dies because plot” and to set Ted up with someone else or Robin basically throwing away everything to get back with a guy who is not even compatible with her
Don´t forget the misogynistic trope of a man only learning to respect women and see them as humans after they contribute to make one; with the adding bonus that the mother of the girl doesn´t even have a name, just a number.🤮🤢🤮🤢
I dont know that Robin would have to throw everything away, but it is stupid and forced. It never sat right with me that Tracy was basically the r63 of Ted. Like what is the message here? That someone needs to be your exact doppelganger in terms of personality in order for you to be compatible.
Because the show is not about a happily ever after, It's about life and changes. Ted wanted a "perfect girl" that doesn't exist and he only accepts life when he finally move on from his wife's death.
@@owenleal no need to be a doppelganger, but you need to at least have common future goals, which Ted and Robin didn't have. Pining for your ex girlfriend, who is also the ex wife of your friend, for decades is also not a good message :)) I'm sure Ted and Tracy were not perfect copies of each other, we just saw very little of her.
@@JakeSmith-zk3ho But they made Tracy perfect :)) and then they killed her If she was not dead, would Ted still go back to Robin?? Would the "perfect girl" still not exist? And even taking that all aside, season 9 was terribly planned. You don't spend the last seasons saying how done were Ted and Robin, plan her wedding with Barney for the whole final season, present the Mother as perfect..... and then undo everything in the last ten minutes. To this day, those final 10 minutes are some the most ridiculous character assassination I've ever witnessed.
The only thing I like with either ending is Barney meeting his daughter and being brought to tears. Like, he falls in love at that moment and realizes just how much he wants to protect and love her.
As much as the alternate ending does fix Tracy and Ted’s story, it still doesn’t change the assassination of Barney and Robin’s character arcs. Robin still wishes she was with Ted and is alone now, and Barney still goes back to his old ways, only with a baby now. That’s how bad these writers screwed this finale up so much.
My headcannon is that when he says "things fall apart, things get put back together" and t shows barney and robin, its left unsaid that they get back together again.
Barney and Robin are together in the real ending which is the one set at their wedding. There was no breakup which makes no sense to who they are and all the developments that went on during the last few seasons and not just the final season.
@@Sharzzz12 no that’s not it at all, like he said: everything from the finale stays the same except for the death of the mother. Everything alluding to her death is wiped out of existence, and it ends at the train. Barney and Robin still get divorce
@@brenegade7 in the alternate Barney and Robin remain married, if they had issues which were already resolved during the series and season they would get through it. They had grown enough to make their relationship work there was no need to break them up. Yes Tracy’s death is sad but shouldn’t have happened. So the alternate has her alive and Barney and Robin together. I don’t really care what happened with them but divorcing them for a plot that didn’t work for the entirety of the series was wrong. You can kill off Tracy just leave BR in tact they were fine with each other. Making the whole show about Robin was the incorrect ending the right ending is at Barney and Robin’s wedding.
It took me 10 years to rewatch any episode after the finale. I followed this week by week from the very beginning episode one. Love the show during the run. The Russian doll nest of storytelling was very unique. Also these characters were exactly my age and my son was born just 2 months before Marvin was on the show. Marshall's dad dying was huge gut punch. I cry every time. I even loved the final season despite its quirks and Marshall not being around. All the characters had grown and moved on..... Then the end..... I can accept that the mother died, because it made episodes like Time Travellers hit that much more... After the finale, I felt so betrayed that I couldn't bring myself to watch it again for 10 years, then short kept popping up on my TH-cam feed. I fondly remembered the journey my wife and I went on with these characters. So rewatched the whole series recently... It's a masterpiece sitcom gold. I still can't abide the character assassination of Barney and Robyn and the missed bittersweet opportunity for Ted to tell this story to his kids bc the mother died. The show should have ended with Ted learning that he doesn't need to be in a relationship to have a fulfilling life, that his life is full because of his friends and the memories of his wife..... Nevertheless this is a great show that I'll revisit regularly
I wonder if they hadn't dropped the ball so hard on the ending if HIMYM would've had the same cult status as Friends. People rewatch Friends all the time and remember it fondly decades later. HIMYM kind of fell into obscurity after being one of the biggest shows out there because you can't rewatch it without remembering it's all leading up to this disaster of an ending
You can kind of see a pattern here, the mega popular shows sort of fade into obscurity, if their finale is that bad. Think about "Lost" or "Game Of Thrones". The biggest shows of their time, losing a huge bunch of fans because of their final episodes and being semi-forgotten afterwards. HIMYM fits this mold too well.
They would have had so many reruns and it would still be on the air on many networks. But because of the ending and how terrible it is nothing came of the show after it ended. It’s only talked about now when people talk about the ending. The ending killed anything that the show tried to have.
All the clues, the yellow umbrella, the ''I guess I'll take the train'', the reveal of the mother, the scene where they meet. It was all so beautifully written and executed. They put together a beautiful puzzle picture and when they put in the final piece, they shoved the whole thing off the table.
You can't change my mind that the writers had no idea how to write a female character that was career driven. And same with lily they made lily so bitchy and ruined here too.
@@OpqHMg not really. Sure barney's character was exaggerated for satire but the character development of the characters barney ted and marshall was great(don't count s9) whereas most women character dev was around career or family even with lily like srsly couldnt think of any other problem? marshall could have both without it being a noise.
Robin was written pretty well imo. If they had to break up Robin and Barney (terrible decision all around but whatever) that could’ve worked IF she remained a career focused woman. That would’ve been an ending that fit her character and arc. But that DAMN scene where she whines about Ted RUINED her. Lily………awful. Worst sitcom character ever imo. Just terrible and pointless
13:50 “but ultimately, every theory about the mother’s identity ended up being wrong” hmm….. I caught the Tracy hint in like 2012 and my family didn’t believe me and the internet didn’t believe me but I was RIGHT and I will never be prouder of myself
21:05 american show runners should learn with brazilian telenovela, you don't just shot one ending, you shot multiple so you can choose from them (also to avoid leaks and/or spoilers)
The core of the problem is definitely that they betrayed the premise of the show with the twist. The very first episode set up a subversion of expectations. It looks like the classic sitcom meet cute but it ends with "that's how I met your Aunt Robin." Thus the premise of the show was that it was a "will they, won't they" show in which the original core couple WON'T get together. A Ross and Rachel where the breakup was definitive. That was fresh and new. That was the bedrock of the show. But then the finale betrays that by saying "actually psych, they WILL after all!" which just sucks. Even ignoring all the character reversions, especially with Barney, it sucks.
The last season is not about Barney and Robin’s love for each other, it’s about all the reasons they don’t work together, but they still push through, and eventually it came back and bit them in the ass. Ultimately, I prefer the original ending, but I dislike the pacing of season 9
I loved this show and the finale ruined it for me. I think they were more focused on doing the finale they had planned than thinking what would have been a satisfying ending with how the show had evolved. So excited to see your take on it!
It ruined the only thing worth keeping up, barney growing as person and him and robin, robin was always great. But it makes all th eprogress the character with most shown, it retroactively ruins it by characterassasinating. And like there could have been ways they could have grown apart, without regressing him as character. or robin, and robins. like had they given a way longer time and epilogue or story how they lived together, they had a rough time with something that isnt character assasinating. And they move on and agree as healthy people apart, not the wtf. Also him and robin, are not compatible, they tried, it didnt work out, the show hammered that down so much. let barney and robin be happy, ok,
One thing that annoys me more than Robin and Ted getting together (which trust me, it does) is the undoing of Robin and Barney’s relationship. They set up an entire season revolving around THEIR wedding, Barney went through such a lovely, realistic and plausible character arc to get to that very point. And within a matter of minutes they undid all his progress. It wasn’t even that Barney and Robin didn’t end up together but the fact that Barney reverted back to his old ways almost completely (I do like the storyline about his daughter and that was some development, I suppose). It was like the entirety of the 9th season and Barney’s growth was just for the sake of him getting to the altar. I was so invested in their romance and the breakup being that rushed left the viewers with no closure whatsoever. The finale, duration wise, was incredibly rushed as well. I watched it on streaming and I could see while scrubbing through it that the episode only had 5 minutes left when Ted left his house to stand underneath Robin’s window. It bugs me more that they didn’t even fully commit to the last scene. 9 seasons of carefully crafted stories and interpersonal dynamics leading upto a sloppy, rushed and frankly implausible ending was such a let down. I do love HIMYM with all my heart, it was one of the first sitcoms I fell in love with it but the ending just upsets me so much. Edit: commented this before I finished the video, and I’m glad you touch on Barney’s arc as well
That made me so mad. The arc of their relationship was done amazingly well, and then to just throw it away was such a huge betrayal. Barney and Robin felt RIGHT together and the stupid reason the show broke them up, just to throw Ted and Robin together, felt so cheap. Absolutely terrible writing after some amazing writing. Like....why did they do that to us.
Right? I loved them so much. And after many many rewatches i actually believe that Barney fancied Robin from the first moment he saw her. He compliments her, sometimes gets flirty and he's exaggeratedly against Ted's and Robin's relationship, like he's hurt to see them together. If it is the case, it's such a sophisticated writing. And they killed that.
On paper I totally get the elevator pitch for this finale: you build up to a faceless character for the entire show, all the while building up this relationship we want to work out but are told it won’t. The problem, as covered in the video, is that they really tied up the Ted/Robin story in a way that gave the audience closure that they simply weren’t compatible. And additionally, the mother was revealed to be a wonderful character that we all fell in love with before she even met Ted. They either needed to make Tracy another generic girlfriend that just happened to work out, or else keep a lot more fuel on the Robin fire for the conclusion we got to remotely work.
yep, WE are the ones that don't buy robin and ted back together. showrunners needed to show and don't tell on how Robin and Ted reconnected and the spark is back because timing is right. showrunners missed their timing, lol
I remember there were a couple of ppl defending the ending by calling it "realistic" that is SO stupid. Its bad writing, nobody cares about realism in a comedy show where unrealistic things already happened
It was never realistic it was putting two people together that never belonged together at all. It does ruins the show. But you can ignore it and just leave it at the train station when Ted meets Tracy because technically that is the actual ending of the show.
When I was a kid my mom would talk about how she watched that 70s show and how she hated the last season and the finale for breaking up Jackie/Hyde and pairing her with Fez. It would not be until the finale of HIMYM that I finally understood the rage my mom felt about your comfort show going to shit at the end.
@@trinaq indeed it did! It was the first time I recall that a TV show that was a huge success became essentially nothin' over night. Game of Thrones was like, "challenge accepted" and as far as TV goes I've not been the same since
@@trinaq it’s the only show and finale where I legit got pissed off after watching. Got, and even tbbt (which I personally don’t like but see the pros in) got better finales that fit what the shows became. HIMYM spends AN ENTIRE SEASON building up a wedding only to divorce them 10 MINUTES LATER!!!!!!!!!!!
I love that he brought up Sunrise cause it is imo the best episode of the final season. Seeing Ted FINALLY let go of Robin and move on was amazing. Seeing Barney pass down his legacy and let go of the bachelor life and accept his new role as robins husband was INCREDIBLE. Fuck this finale so hard!!!!!!!!!!!!
I kind of saw the ending coming more near the end. I watched the whole series with my ex after she got the whole DVD collection for christmas. I was HEAVILY invested. I still enjoyed seeing Barney and Robin's relationship grow, I mean my favorite/saddest part is when Barney had those rose pedals on the bed but Robin goes with the other dude, Ted goes back to the apartment and sees Barney just completely broken. Literally broke me. I was thrown off that Robin and Ted got back at the end but Robin and him were going to be the end story for sure.
Honestly, I don't even think Tracy's death was necessarily a bad idea, I remember seeing theories about it on the internet literally a few weeks before the series final, it kinda makes sense that the story of their encounter would focus exclusively on Ted's perspective if she wasn't around to tell her part, and that Ted would want to tell this story to their kids as part of a mourning process for both him and them. The fact that this whole thing was just so he could have their benediction to go back with Robin however is just insanely distateful and dirty. It makes Ted a terrible husband and father, which isn't necessarily out of character but makes me regret following his story even more, and it's also a dick move toward the public who had followed this story for years and just had encountered and possibly fallen in love with the character to hear that she actually didn't matter and could/would be replaced at the first occasion. Robin and Barney's divorce was just as terrible.
I can’t remember the episode, but there is some pretty heavy foreshadowing in retrospect to Tracy’s death. If that had been handled better it could have been extremely meaningful. If they had left the end scene out, it still would have been moving.
The show also has a need to constantly punish Robin for choosing her career and not wanting kids. After she gets divorced from Barney, Barney has a kid and he's happier than ever, it almost feels like splitting with Robin got him his dream. This also makes no sense at all, since Barney and Robin truly were the perfect couple. The same thing happens with Ted, where Robin inexplicably feels jealous of Tracy for having this dream life with a man she KNOWS wanted kids. On that same note, it's depressing that the mom was a prop to give Ted the suburban life, kids, etc. that he wanted, and after she fulfilled his dreams, THEN they kill her off, which means Ted is free to pursue Robin again. Ted gets exactly what he wants, without compromising or learning anything on his journey, removing all agency from the women he meets and debasing them into objects to complete Ted's fantasy. It still pisses me off to this day. Also also, can we talk about the fact that Ted ALWAYS has to be the hero in Robin's story? I fucking hate that Ted found the locket, that they made it seem like Barney was just a douchebag who didn't care about Robin throughout the whole wedding week and their marriage got "saved" by Ted's willingness to hand him the locket. It's such an exhausting trope to have them constantly doubt whether or not they should get married. It feels forced and is just a way for Ted to be the hero once again.
Yes to all of this. Also you’re so right another flaw of the last season as a whole was centering TED(??!) on Barney and Robin’s wedding!!! Why ruin both of their characters in favor of him?!
Just commenting on the last part. Ted is telling the story, so naturally he is going to make himself the hero. I agree with your comments though and don’t think the writers intended ted to skew reality. A cool spinoff would be “how Ted met your mother “ told by Barney or the other characters.
Dude I have seen women in real life, and not just one, that thought they wanted the career and then they realize that they screwed up and either have completely changed their life and have kids or it was too late and now they have a huge regret in their life. You are acting like people never change and if there is something unrealistic here it is your stance not that a person changed their mind and has regrets.
Thank you for saying what I’ve said for years. This locket story doesn’t belong in the story, Robin’s character isn’t fairytale that’s Ted’s idolization fantasy of her. This was not who Robin is, and all the things after they get engaged is so over the top obsessive that we the audience immediately called it out. Ted is the worst character ever, people like to praise his actions but all that does is make his actions worse by doing the exact same stuff over and over again. Ted and Robin were never meant to be. That ending isn’t canon nobody believes in that ending or all the character assassination that happened. The alternate is the real canon ending.
I like the idea behind HIMYM ending, starting again, not really being compatible on their 30 but in their 50, healing, loving again, etc. However the problem is the execution. First being the mess of Ted and Robin relationship post break-up, the amount of build up that Robin and Barney' s weeding had and the abrupt conclusion of the mother's arc.
At the time, there were theories about this ending because Ted says his favorite book is Love in the Time of Cholera, which does that. But infinitely better. Daisy Jones and The Six as well. But both really respect the lives that they live, even settle with in some cases. And for Love, it really deals with how worthy that life is even if it's maybe not with your soulmate. I actually enjoy the trope, but I really hated it in HIMYM. I think the biggest issue really is that it felt like it was just what Ted wanted. It didn't really value the life that Tracy and Ted had lived together and didn't value who Robin was. It had to make Robin resent her choices and give Ted what he wanted so he wouldn't have been bitter. Instead of maybe just letting Robin like him again at a later time period without having to be resentful.
I agree, every single thing presented in the ending works in theory i.e. Tracy dying, Barney and Robin divorcing and even Ted and Robin getting back together - The problem is that the final season doesn't take place over the course of normal life like the other seasons do, so we don't get that natural build up that other events throughout the show have gotten. The only thing that does get at least *some* level of build up is Tracy's death, there is a slight implication of her fate way back in the time travellers episode and her death is hinted during season 9 during one of her scenes - Even then, the shoddy and rushed way it's just thrown at the audience during the final episode is just lazy. The season takes place over a single weekend so we don't get that progression of Tracy's "mystery illness" that we would probably see over the course of a normal season. It pains me to think about the season that we could have gotten instead - It could have been a normally structured season where we would actually see Ted and Tracy's relationship develop over time. We could see how she fits into the group dynamic with the others, how she works well with Ted compared to past girlfriends, what they argue about and how they resolve those arguments, and of course the big moments in more detail. One could easily argue that a single season may not have been enough to properly depict all of that to the usual standard, and that it may have needed a 10th season to truly work, but it would have been a million times more compelling than what we eventually got.
At least Game of Thrones had a final season to go off the rails. HIMYM only had three minutes. The kids don't even seem upset Ted going after Robin. It's basically "It's been six years, now go get with Aunt Robin!"
I binged all of GoT before the last season aired and you can really feel a huge drop in quality after season 4. Season 5 is kinda boring with not much happening (plus it introduced the sand snakes). Season 6 has many terrible scene, but also some great one so ii's just kinda mid. Season 7 is when the show start getting terrible and the story fall appart. The entire season is bad but to me the show jumped the shark when John, the new king of a really unstable region, decide he will go himself capture a white walker instead of sending a few of the thousands of soldiers working for him. Nothing can ever be the same again after something so unbeliably stupid happen on sceen. Season 8 well I don't even have to argue, I've never seen a single person who liked it.
@@Dext3rM0rg4n This is because season 5 is when the story starts diverging sharply from the books. They left out Lady Stoneheart and fAegon, butchered the Dorne and Northern conspiracy plots, ignored Bran's creepy fantasy plot and the Riverlands politicking, ruined Tyrion, Sansa, Littlefinger and Varys by taking away their stories (especially removing Tyrion villain arc) and so on. Stannis, Tyrion, Doran and Bran were especially done dirty. The world expands so much after s4 creates a power vacuum, but GoT starts cutting out characters and storylines and turning smart characters stupid, even though they were under no pressure to wrap up the story. HBO would've happily funded many more seasons. (So yeah, HIMYM finale bad but it's not half as close to the GoT quality drop-off.)
@@Dext3rM0rg4nI stopped watching halfway through season 3 when they started changing the story and making up dialogue. Yes I read all the books before the show was announced. I am the OG hater of that show. Fight me.
To me, that ending was the biggest slap in the face. The writing was so great and so convincing that making that kind of ending only felt like a cruel joke and an insulting decision. Like, I loved this show. It was my favorite for a long time, but because of how it ended I can't watch it again. Especially when you considered the premise is that the kids want to know how their dad met mom, but he's like nah lets just talk about your aunt Robin who I am in love with and can't stop obsessing over. Like, it just feels like he never loved their mom. It was always about Robin. And making Robin and Barney into such great characters that grew and strengthened each other only to split and revert back to their old ways was just cheap.
In the first episode of the series is ended by Ted saying: "And that is how I met... your Aunt Robin" just to the his kids suprise and they said "I thought it was about how I met mom".
I watched HIMYM just a month ago and I thought from around Season 3 that the mother was dead just because of how Ted was telling the story to his kids. When it got to Season 8/9 I was convinced Ted started telling the story where he did because Robin's wedding is where he met his children's wife. The ending where Ted does get w/ Robin can be fixed easily by having the kids recognize how depressed Ted is over the passing of his wife even 6 years later and giving him the idea to go after Robin. Have it be a conclusion the kids lead Ted to because as per the original ending it was apparently Ted leading his kids to this conclusion and it doesn't feel right there would need to be 3-4 extra seasons to make that the right ending for the show narratively.
Core memory unlocked: I'll never forget my sister called me the second the HIMYM finale ended and yelled "What the f*** was that?" Anyway, excited to watch this and be retraumatized in the best way possible
When my gf now wife saw the finale on Netflix (I had watched it live whereas she binged it on NF) we finished part one of the finale. She looked at me with shock and horror on her face. To which I responded “and that’s just part one”.
I will always say, the problem wasn't with Tracy dying. The show was never above making things sad, that's why I extremely prefer it over most sitcoms; and it would have been a very interesting character point for Ted: he needs to learn to live alone, without the one. Which, as we all know, is something he's struggled immensely with throughout the series, it would have concluded his character arc well; and there were hints to it, I would have been very happy with a finale that killed Tracy but didn't commit any of the other pitfalls I'm about to say. The problem wasn't even with Barney and Robin breaking up. I'm not gonna say it was good, it felt like an extreme regression of Barney's character afterwards, not to mention the more meta sticking point of "the whole last season was about their wedding". But rewrite Barney's behaviour afterwards, have his daughter be with someone he knocked up before and he precisely fights to take responsability and be a parent once he finds out, trying not to be like his dad was to him; and I think it works. You could even have that be the reason Barney and Robin break up, Barney wants to be a parent now that he feels he has no choice, and Robin still doesn't. However, even if you don't make them breaking up about thatm Barney and Robin always had compatibility issues, and I can believe they would break up and it works in world, even if it's a bit of a spit in the face to the entirety of season 9. The actual problem was that they did both of these things, so that Ted could end up with Robin. It shits on Ted's character development for most of the show but specially seasons 8 and 9, for starters. We know they aren't compatible with what they want and the finale doesn't help that just because Ted's kids are older, he still needs to raise them and Robin still doesn't want kids. And finally, it just doesn't leave anything but a sour taste in everyone's mouths because, while Tracy dying could have worked, while Barney and Robin breaking up could have worked, it forces these things into happening in a way that simply does not work. On a side note, what is the trend with sitcoms and making finales very sad? I mean, come on, it's season 9, the only people that are watching are those that have been watching for years, why leave them with that lmao.
Amen to all of this! Tracy dying? I could get behind. Barney & Robin splitting? Also could get behind. Ted & Robin (and especially Robin) suddenly falling back in love after God knows how many years and multiple failed attempts of working? Absolutely not
Completely agree with this. I am okay with Tracy dying. I'm even okay with Ted looking for love after he grieved for his wife. That is very realistic and fit with the show's theme of everyone looking for love. It definitely fit with Ted's character who is always looking for the One. Just don't put him back together with Robin. They have both changed in the 15 years since they years, and it make more sense for Ted to go out to look for someone that is compatible with the him of the finale. Now, whether it would still be a good idea to break up Barney and Robin after spending a season on their wedding, I couldn't say.
My own mother passed a few months before this catastrophe of an ending. That, in addition to the character and plot assassination of the finale, absolutely CRUSHED me.
I unfortunately, have to say that it is incredibly realistic that Barney would have returned to his shallow lifestyle again. If immediately after completely resolving your abandonment issues, the person who you believe would be the one exception to the rule ends up choosing her work over you and abandoning what should be your happily ever after, it just makes sense that you would believe that you are undeserving of your previous expectations and growth you've experienced. As a therapist in training, it's quite common for people to often revert back to their self-sabotaging defence mechanism when something like this happens. Although I would have liked to see it handled with better skill and nuance.
@@GlennWolfschoon I agree and I hated that Barney reverted to his old ways. But if that had to happen, handling it with more nuance was the least they could've done.
I always thought their divorce made perfect sense specifically for the reasons cited. Robin's job was always going to take her away from Barney for long stretches of time. It's perfectly logical that this would wear on a serial womanizer with abandonment issues. And people always seem to forget that their relationship had already failed once before. They were not the perfect match that everyone wanted them to be.
Barney evolved a lot and learnt to love and be open and actually get married, but so did Robin. After Don Robin was back to "work first", no time for a love-life, but with Barney she took the risk. It's just terrible to see them finally working out the kinks and getting married (and loving them as a couple), to have it all ruined in a matter of minutes. Robin and Barney were such a great couple, because they were both unique characters that worked together so well. But the show goes ahead and rips that apart to fulfill Ted's ultimate fantasy :(
As someone who casually watched the first seasons on and off more then the later ones i guess thats why the ending made more sense to me. It kinda always felt like how it should end
I think the worst part of it all is the final season being entirely about Barney and Robin's love for each other and then they get divorced 10 seconds later. It felt like a gut punch.
And an insult to people more invested in them than Ted.
I knew marriages like this 🥲
The thing that I really hate about movies / shows is when there's missing chunks and things happen off-screen. I've never ever ever liked that and I don't know why writers keep doing that. Are writers oblivious about the audience's distaste for that technique?
@@One.Zero.One101 agree, even the deleted scene gave some context
Yup!
The weird part is that Tracy dying isn't even a bad ending. It makes sense and would make for a lovely bitter sweet ending. They could have removed the last few minutes of the show, kept Robin and Barney together, have a final speech by Ted about her dying and then shown them meeting and ended the show with the umbrella scene.
I wish it had been this.
I second this. I binged watched the show a couple of years ago so my experience is obviously different than the people's who watched it over the course of 9 years, one episode per week, but I realized very early on that the mother was most likely dead.
The way Ted was talking about her (for example, I remember a scene in s8 I think where he said that if he could change anything he'd go back and meet her sooner so they could have more time together or something like that) is a dead (no pun intended) giveaway about her fate when you watch the episodes close together.
This could have been a poignant, bittersweet ending that'd have aged well if they hadn't shoved Ted amd Robin back together last minute and ruined her relationship with Barney (that we spent the majority of the show watching flourish) in the process.
@nagiach.102 I remember when that episode aired, and I remember saying wait is she gonna die? But watching it in real time, you don't have each episode fresh in your mind like you would if you binged it, so back then us the audience didn't know that scene was the first real giveaway.
EXACTLY! EXACTLY! people say the ending is bad... i agree, but in their vision, the perfect ending also meaning she lives is... ive been thinking this for so long
Exactly!!! It would have given some context as to why Ted was telling this story and really hammer home how that special someone will come if you keep searching with optimism and learn lessons along the way.
I don’t know how you can build up expectations for a character like the Mother, actually get her to live up to them and then just kill her off to rehash the same tumultuous love story that the audience has been forced to sit through for 9 seasons.
It's insane to me that they nailed the hardest thing of all, which is to create a character that lives up to the hype...and then they fucked up everything else. Like.
I came to the conclusion that the show was never about Ted meeting the mother, but about Ted never getting over Robin and still finding a way to be with her in the end even though they wanted different things from life
@@KamalianCiranoush which is sooo creepy and problematic 😂 like, forget what Robin has wanted all this time. Ted wants to have kids and a wife and he's gonna get it *no matter what*
@@KamalianCiranoush Ted was kept in the “hook” and even tho he’s, you know Ted, I’m pissed off about it.
@@KamalianCiranoush literally 😭 it actually cheapens the sweetness of the story knowing he was only telling it to get permission from his kids to bang Robin
They really made Robin’s character dirty, instead of letting her be happy with Barney or just picturing her happy with her career ! …they pictured her like a lonely woman, alone with her dogs in her small apartment, ready to finally settle for Ted… after everything went wrong… it’s like both of them are each others consolation prize, not a love story
becosu she was not settleing for ted HE was the love of her LIFE.
Let’s be honest. Robin was never going to be happy with anyone.
Maybe they pictured her that way because that's what being independent gets you. Robin was one of the most damaged characters imo. The way her father raised her and wanting a son instead. I feel she wants to portray independence because of how she was raised and won't let anyone change or choose her path again, but also wants human companionship because shes human. That's what she battles with the entire show. Ted didn't save her and she didn't settle, the timing was just finally right.
Tracy honestly deserved much better. Cristin Miloti really lived up to all of our expectations, and she was everything that we wanted for Ted. However, it might have been better had they introduced Tracy earlier, and we could have seen her and Ted's relationship develop. Instead, it seems that she was just a way to give Ted children, since Robin was unable to.
And marshall, was underutilized, he had such interesting side things, family, that went nowhere. And worse lily over that much sitcom time, she becomes from a bit mean, to the worst.
And i like the actress. But him running off with shirley from community last season, would have made sense.
I think it would be better if they did at least one episode from her pov. I feel like We never actually met the mother 😃
They, did? It's how your mother met me in season 9 one of the best episodes in the show.@@mandolen3317
Yeah tracy did deserve better, but hey she lived a great life and met the one who unfortunately passed away and years later moved on. Kind of like Ted.
She deserved better as in she deserved to not die but her dying hits the core of the show that it is about life, not a fairy tale where they live happily ever after. In the same breath i'd say most people who die from cancer before the age of 70 deserved better. Like no shit
Yeah, I think the show felt like it was running out of steam and then they tied it up in a rushed way. They could have introduced Tracy much earlier and given it a bit of new material to work with.
the thing I'll never get over is the assassination of Barney x Robin. Their build up was so well done only to be completely erased for the forced finale that we got
Agreed. I thought they built a really interesting relationship and while yeah, sometimes shit happens in real life, it just didn’t work with the story they had written for them.
That’s my biggest gripe with the ending tbh
I always felt they would never work because they were too familiar in characteristics so it didn't bother me.
not really they spent episodes in final season explaining why Robin and Barney didn’t work. A potent blend of true love fixes all, and Barney Robins immaturity. Their divorce was essentially a micro of Ted and Robins break up. But Ted saw the issue with his relationship with Robin, he saw their expiration date. Robin and Barney just saw the love they had.
And they spent nine season explaining why Ted and Robin didn't work but we're somehow supposed to accept it? @@sECUREij
About three episodes away from the finale, my dad asked me, "so why is he telling them this story, did the mother die?" And that's when I realized. My dad spoiled the HIMYM finale before it even aired
It was a popular theory at the time especially for Ted and Robin shippers, so unfortunately they were all right. I think it was in season 8 when he runs back to her apartment because he says if he could change something he'd have more time with her and my parents said "oh, is she dead?".
Honestly would have been fine if she had died and he's just reminiscing the past. I just hate the whole "it was Robin this whole time" message after building up to Tracy 9 seasons ans showing why they don't work
@@LeapThroughTheSky i said it in my own comment, but if i could go back to 11 years ago me, there was a time when my wife and i were both single. i'd have run right to her then because i want more time. my wife is very much alive. when you have a phenomenal love, there is never enough.
ted's always potrayed himself as a hopeless romantic and i'm that way too, when he said that i never once thought "dead wife", i legit thought he was just spelling out how much he loved her, that he'd want 45 more days if he could get them.
@@Iggybart05 I mean I'm married and agree. At the time I really hoped that was what it was going for and unfortunately argued what you're saying now at that time (unfortunately because I was clearly wrong). There was the place for it to have been really sweet, but that wasn't the show runners intentions. On later rewatches I did see more patterns of how it was more likely to be Robin (i.e. Marshall always insisting he didn't lose the bet with Lily). And I think other viewers just picked up the writing on the wall.
I like the version you and I thought more. I hoped like in the episode where he admitted it wasn't Stella and she walks in and talked to the kids, that Tracy got that moment instead.
I dont understand how people were shocked with her death. There was teds speech in 8x20 about going to her house and wanting extra days with her. Thats when I started preparing for it. And 9x19 kinda confirmed that she passed away.
The worse part is that Tracy‘s death works the same way as Marshall’s fantasies when he thinks of other women.
He meets a hot chick, makes Lilly sick, tries to save her but fails. And after an appropriate time he meets that chick again and has a great time with her.
They did the same thing with Tracy. The only difference is that they basically just changed the roles of the main woman to the chick.
And instead of the hiccups it’s some unknown disease
Wow you right 😮😮
Omg, you're right!
And it makes me really mad. It is as if they just created the mother so Ted could have his dream life and get with Robin together after that
omg i never realized that! gosh thats weird.
How hard would it have been to just reshoot them on the couch and make a joke about being on this couch forever 😭. Nobody would have cared that they were old. Its a damn sitcom
I think that would have been hilarious! “How many times do we have to hear this?” OR! it was him telling the grandkids!
The trailer for S9 actually made that joke, with the kids being older and telling Ted that they’ve been on the same couch for 8 years. Imagine that and combine the scene with the fictional scenario with Stella (where Stella came into the room to ask their kids if Ted was still yapping)
The editing of the final episode was just a nightmare, this could have been done different in so many ways, even if I was to assume that Tracy dies, the show should have spent more time on Ted actually struggling with the death of her. We know how TV works, we know we can spin the opinion of the viewer to hate a person on a TVshow just with editing, but they just completly missed the tone. They also easily could have reedited it in a way to pretend the kids in the end are happy with the alternate tracy ending, Ted never shares the screen with them I think? They also could have recast them.
I literally would have rather seen the adult actors come back and pretend to be kids than have this ending. I'll suspend my disbelief, please.
In retrospect, they definitely should have shot more possibilities/some more ambiguous endings so they could let the show evolve. Hindsight is 20/20 and all that but yeah.
Anything but this.
@@corneliahanimann2173 If they had just edit in a way that Ted is done grieving for Tracey and is ready to start dating again to find "The One" again, I think it would have been a good ending. It would hit the theme that the journey for love is never ending and they wouldn't need to revert Robin's and Barney's character growth to force the ending
I think the basic idea of "a man telling kids about their mother and end up realizing he has a second chance at love" is a solid one. The problem was the fact that this idea works for a mini series or even a movie. You can't drag your story an entire decade and use this ending. Somewhere along the way the creators should have realized that the ending they had in mind was not going to work any more and should have changed it.
Exactly, don’t make your 1 day script into a nine season comedy series it isn’t smart to keep a show going without much change but secretly have the changes but then not go with that. The movie was done in the Pilot it is literally a movie or a short film or tv series you see nowadays.
it genuinely confuses me... why in the shit would the writers ever choose to write the story in the direction it went over the 9 seasons, knowing how it was going to end. It makes absolutely no sense.
@@KS-xk2so I think this shows that compared to movies, TV show creators must be much more flexible and try to make changes during the years as their show gets extended. In this instance I think they had the ending before even thinking in their wildest dreams that they were going to get 9 seasons. That's fine. It's OK to have a ending to your story before even starting it. The problem was when they got more and more seasons they stuck to their guns and didn't change it. Even though they added things that they had no idea was going to happen before getting more seasons.
For example the whole plot around Barney and Robin dating. It's obvious that this plot was not going to happen if this was a mini series. This plot happened just because they got more seasons and they needed drama. But now that it did happen they should have accounted for it. Instead the ending completely ignored this plot because well they hadn't thought of it when they came up with the ending.
I even remember the show creators proudly saying "we always knew how it was going to end". As if that is a definite mark of success.
Ultimately, the most unfortunate things is that the ending negatively impacted the rewatchiblity of the series. I know a ton of people who either don't rewatch the show at all. Or just ignore the last season. It has also made the show hard to recommend to new comers since any fan of the show knows that the investment in the show is not going to be paid off.
It would’ve worked if they alluded to them coming together like if they all met at Tracy’s grave for a memorial.
It’s just… they spend 9 seasons showing us why Ted and Robin do not work as a couple, all while developing the relationship between Barney and Robin and making Barney go through a huge character development, only to throw it all away in the two last episodes
And they just never demonstrated WHY they were endgame. All they did was just show Ted being super creepy about his feelings for Robin over and over even when they would never want the same things. People want to demonstrate this false narrative of the wrong person wrong time when in reality if that title went to anyone it was Victoria and not Robin.
Barney is one of the saddest character assassinations I have ever seen. They took time and effort to craft the character growth of his character from a shitty fuck boy to a loyal man ready to commit for love and happiness only to kill it and circle back to a depressed Barney that lost capability of love
Or just make Ted the villain: He hears about Robins and Barneys divorce and her fallout with Lily so he sets about getting rid of his wife and finally has his obsession fulfilled with a sad depressed and lonely Robin 🤷♀️
They really *didn't* spend nine seasons doing that, though. I have no idea why everyone says that.
Ted and Robin DID work as a couple (minus the sitcom-level disagreements, which...yeah, you need, otherwise there wouldn't be a show). They just wanted different things for their futures. Pretty much every time they threaten to break up or get back together, it's not ever because of a lack of feelings or respect or love, it's the fact that they want different things.
Why, after circumstances in their lives change drastically, when they grow and shift and reevaluate their priorities but never stop loving and respecting each other, is it suddenly completely unacceptable that they decide to take things in a romantic direction?
I have some real issues with the finale (mostly with how rushed everything is) but this specific point keeps being brought up and has literally never once made any fucking sense.
@@GypsyScot1 In my opinion, it wasn't just that they wanted different things. There were fundamental differences in their personalities that made them just not work, or at least nok work as good as Robin and Barney did. The finale treated it as if the only problem was that Ted wanted kids and Robin didn't, so if Ted just had his kids with another woman, THEN they would work out! Right? But Robin were still putting her career over everything else - that was the reason her and Barney broke up in the first place. She was always fiercly independant, and Ted never liked that because he wanted to feel needed. Meanwhile, Barney loved that about her. I admit that I may be biased because I love Barney and Robin as a couple, but I just don't understand why Robin's career would get in the way of their relationship but magically work out with Ted.
Honestly, having an actual good ending with that tiny bit of inconsistency where the kids look older because of a reshoot would have been SO MUCH BETTER. I genuinely think that i wouldn't even have noticed it after 8 entire seasons of not seeing them. The showrunners prioritizing the look of the kids over an ending that actually makes sense blows my mind.
as many, many, many people pointed out, it'd have been even a setup for an amazing joke where Ted's children say that the story went on for so long they felt like years have passed.
I feel personally victimized by the title of this video. I can't believe it's been 10 years since How I Met Your Mother ended💀
I know right? I remember I was watchin that horrible ending for the first time like it was just yesterday
Really make me depressed as I have not graduated college yet
Tracey dies this year. In 2024..
I adamantly have to believe FSN did that as clickbait and NOT because it’s true
It's crazy
I would have been fine with Tracy passing away IF and only IF the series was just Ted giving a fond look back of their life together and all the wonderful things she gave him.
Instead, they made it seem like she was a placeholder surrogate for Robin who would give Ted kids and once she was gone, then could Ted pursue Robin and it is really gross.
After the series ended I read Love in the Time of Cholera because it's Ted's favorite book and so some fans said the ending was obvious. And after reading that I thought...ok, but the book did it better. It did not shit on the lives the characters did live. It cherished the lives they had and that maybe they had to have them. And I've seen a lot of works since that have similar things and have done it better.
But exactly as you said, they made Tracy the back up so he could have everything wanted. I see some people say the ending was realistic and I'll fight them on that. Because getting everything and everyone you want is not realistic, and Ted is a creep. It was unfair to Robin.
Truly. That would've been completely fine
I mean, that would be true if ted did that as soon as Tracy died, but he mourned, took his time and try to find his kids blessing. While we didn't see a lot of Tracy, she did had an impact on Tef ad did more that just give him kids.
@@valordelink the thing is we didn't get to see that and that's the point. she did have a major impact on ted, and if they had left the mother dead and done a follow up show to let us see that then it's fine. even seeing ted and robin getting closer and closer to end where this did would have been fine.
the reason she seems like a placeholder is because they spent 9 seasons building this up with ted talking to his kids only to rug pull it at the end and say "lol it was just about your aunt robin the whole time". that's why she gets viewed as a place holder, the writers were so focused on getting to "ted and robin" that they rushed through ted and tracy, leaving us with only her kids as the big take away from that relationship.
@@valordelink you must not have watched the entirety of the video because FSN outlines exactly why the way they handled this was all wrong. It's not like you can't move on after being widowed. But the execution of this storyline made it feel like the writers themselves didn't care enough to treat all the characters with respect. Not Ted, not Barney and *especially* not Robin, who ended up being another woman for Ted to win after he met The Mother of his kids.
"Hey guys why don't we tediously stretch two narrative days over an entire season, culminating in a wedding that will be undone off-screen with a voiceover. Then we'll kill off the mother in 5 seconds so we can peddle a relationship that we said was "definitively" ended about six times already. Man, everyone is gonna love it".
Fr
Imagine the wedding being say a 3 parter at the start of the season, and then the finale episode being the rest of the final season. We spend time with the Mother and Ted. You could even keep most of the same plot points but instead give us time to breathe with it.
I prefer the alternative ending where the final shot is Ted meeting the Mother, but hey what they had could theoretically work.
@@neodigremoI basically said this right away, it was necessarily the finale, it was all of season 9 waisted on that wedding and the craming all this information into the finale.
I agree with the guy who made this video that it be better if Robin and Barney stay together and Ted doesn't go after Robin.
We spent 9 years waiting to meet the mother and they kill her off right after we meet her, they spend an entire year on that wedding and it's over 15 minutes later.
Way too much information in the finale.
Season 9 was a turd because of the wedding. Season 8 should of ended with Ted and Tracy meeting, season 9 their story. I like the idea of Ted telling the story to his kids just reminiscing the love of his life.
Ted going after Robin feels like he never truly got over Robin and it undermines the love for Tracy.
Tediously...
Man, you're killing me! 😄
"not just that boss have one of the two major people in that ending have their whole arc about how much they don't match with that ending cause they love the person they're marrying and then the other major person is going to have their whole arc about moving on from the other major person in this ending" "awesome idea random writers room staff member you get a promotion" which side not as somebody who actually likes season 9 a decent amount it's so much worse if you actually like that season
The show spent 9 seasons explaining why Ted and Robin are bad for each other, it spent 1 season explaining why Barney and Robin are PERFECT for each other and it tried to justify backtracking on all of that with half an episode.
Barney and robin’s relationship was the exact same as his and Quinn’s only he and Quinn had wayyyyy better chemistry
The worst part is that Ted meeting Tracy at Barney and Robin's wedding retroactively makes the begining of the show (and Ted's story) make so much sense because had Ted not fallen for Robing, he would've never brought her into the group, she never would've fallen for Barney, they never would've married and Ted never would've met his children's mother.
Oh I love this theory, butterfly effect.
If there was ever conclusive proof Ted and Robin were NEVER meant to be together, it would be this.
It was actually clever on the writer's part nixing Robin early on as a possible candidate for being the mother of Ted's future children, yet keep her around as part of Ted's friend group eventually culminating in her and Barney getting together, getting married, and then, when Ted least expected it, he finally met the woman of his dreams with everything that transpired leading up to that iconic moment HIMYM serving as an effective representation of the saying "a blessing in disguise" with Robin serving as the personification of said saying.
But noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo...they just HAD to subvert viewer's expectations at the last minute by having Ted still pine for Robin in the final few minutes of the series finale when the entire nine season run of HIMYM did everything possible to torpedo the idea of them ever becoming an official couple after their break-up early on.
It also could have served as a lesson to his kids who are still grieving Tracy: he met their mother the day he finally got over Robin. As painful as it is to move on, that's how the best thing in your life can happen to you.
@@disgruntledcashier503 that is so good!
And if he didnt love robin he wouldnt leave her marriage shortly after ending and meet Tracy in station
There would have been absolutely nothing wrong with the show just having an incredibly straightforward ending where Ted meets Tracy and says "and that kids, is how I met your mother." The end.
The writers were desperate to add in one final twist and it just wasn't necessary
Yup. Then the audience can imagine whatever they wanted to happen to happen.
Yeah my favorite fan-idea for the ending was to have the story end straightforwardly and then cut back to the present and have the kids aged up so they are adults now, possibly with their own partners and young kids. It would have perfect, you get one last joke, it solves the issue of the actors who play the kids aging, and it's perfectly in line with Ted's character to literally spend years telling the story of how he met Tracy.
@@connorsullivan1855 Honestly this! They always joked about it being a long story, play it for the joke!
my only guess as to why is that it had just become like a studio mandate that that ending must be used cause they had been banking on it for so long cause like season 9 seems like it's going out of it's way to prove the ending stupid Barney's arc in season 9 is being the reliable person that robin needs in a partner Robin's arc is realising how very deeply she loves Barney and how she does want to spend the rest of her life with him and Ted's is about learning to let Robin go by sunrise Ted had completed his character arc and no it was just time for him to move onto better things being the mother
i honestly thought that was what was going to happen. it is the name of the show after all
The thing is, I don’t even know WHY they were so obsessed with Ted and Robin, they make NO sense at all. If you took their characters at face value, they never would’ve gotten past a one night stand
What really gets me is the way the narrative almost acts like it's fine that Ted has kids because they're OLDER KIDS, as if teenagers and young adults don't still deeply impact their parents' lives. Ted is still a dad and Robin is still stepping into a FAMILY UNIT here, and her character would be frustrated by the parameters of that, which she would likely see as limitations while Ted would see it as the ideal. I hate the implication that older kids don't count or something--Robin aggressively did not want kids, then apparently goes and marries a guy with two kids whose mom DIED. This is not an easy role to take on, even if the kids are on board. Like you said, they just do not fit.
@@Vi_Vi_1 it'S SUCH a weird narrative choice. Up until the end the story we get told is " Ted wants Robin, but she doesn't want a family, but Ted ultimately wants his family and will love his future wife much more. The obstacle he needs to overcome is his false idea that Robin is what he wants, so he can move onto what he actually wants and needs" and then at the end, it just flips that on his head. So we get a feel good montage about a happy life, but the entire point of the series is that what Ted wanted was NOT what he kept talking about for nine years, his family actually is the obstacle to his happiness! It's like watching a sportsmatch and you know the objective, and then in the end the commentators say "Oh by the way, the team that scored more points loses" and you sit there like... wait what
It's like the worst case of subverting expectations... in a way it's as insulting as the BBC Sherlock show mocking people for trying to crack the case along with Sherlock as if that's a crazy thing to do when watchign a mystery show, the writers of HIMYM went " Why were you expecting a romcom feel good ending when we've been giving you a feelgood romcom/sitcom show? That's not how reality works! People die!"
@@ginster458 yeah exactly!! It was just so deeply confusing, frustrating, and unsatisfying. They made no sense as a couple and shoving them back together at the very end like that was probably the most disappointing thing they could have done. I wish they'd had the guts to scrap their original plan and acknowledge that the show had grown well beyond that, and the characters had taken paths that made it so that ending no longer made any sense. Barney and Robin were great together and Ted got what he wanted, so making it seem like it all led back to Robin kinda nullified that and treated his family like a secondary priority to what really mattered to him, which was so gross
Robin already has a relationship with Ted’s kids, they call her aunt Robin. She’s not walking into something brand new. It’s ridiculous how you weirdos throw the kids card at Robin when people are allowed to change their minds. Robin isn’t raising little toddlers, she would just be the cool aunt who’s dating their dad. Y’all making it more deep than it needs to be to justify your anger. Get some help and grow up
This, I always perceived the ending as, Ted and Robin always loved each other (that's why the show starts years before we meet the mom nor is knowing the mom as important as the kids know that story) it's the story of how he wants his last chance at love, by that age all the other things matter less. @NightRises234
This why you shoot several different scenes for the ending. One, you give yourself options. Two, you protect yourself against leaks.
Why didn't they just reshoot Ted's kids grown up and make a joke of how long he has been telling the story? Their hands wouldn't have been tied to the original ending.
I wondered this too. Or they could’ve just not showed the clips where they’re talking about Ted going after Robin and scrapped the whole thing. The fact that this was all pre planned makes it feel so much worse. 🤷♀️ I thought it would’ve been so much more meaningful if the mother had lived, and maybe they could’ve made some sort of family montage where his kids bring over his grandkids and they’re retelling the story or something.
@@Lina-ed2cr I think most of us would be okay if they just get the original actors to come back and dub over the preshot finale. Sure, the new conversation won't match the lips, but at least then they won't be quite as tied to the original ending.
The kids didn't even need to say anything. It could have just shown Ted's (or Bob sagets) face saying and that kids is how I met your mother.
There was a joke reel where actors made this exact premise it's on TH-cam 😂 And they use cuss words as well.
And with make up and special effects, they can do anything. I think they just lost their passion.
Tracy was done DIIIIRTY!! You do not cast someone as adorable and perfect to play the Mother as Cristin Milioti just to kill her in the spam of half an episode like that. TRACY DESERVED FUCKING BETTER!!
One good thing the final season did was making everyone mad about Milioti, because she is just so darn charismatic!
Bro I felt I was in love with her just after 5 mins.
That's the thing, living up to the expectations is almost an impossible task, and Tracy exceeded everyone's expectations. They struck gold with her and they didn't use it.
@@One.Zero.One101 Not only that, but the character Tracy deserved so much better. She was the sweetest, kindest soul in the whole cast and yet not only did her fiancé die a tragic death, no, she has to die young, too, and ultimately serve as a baby machine for Ted and Robin to finally have their happily ever after once Robin seemingly doesn't have to lift a finger anymore to raise Ted's kids. THAT'S dirty
I don't know if i'm just jaded but i feel Tracy was used as a tool to help Ted achieve his dream life. Everything we know about her is in relation to Ted : how well she completes him, how well she integrated in Ted's group, how they had the same goals.
After Ted got his kids and Robin travelled the world and achieved professional success they are finally compatible enough for their relationship to work long term so how nice of Tracy to get out of the way.
Oh absolutely! For me the worst part of that is how the show began to explore Robin's infertility and how it affected her although she initially didn't want to have kids. At the time it seemed like a nicely executed and deep storyline, but after seeing the ending I couldn't help but feel it was brought up just to highlight how Tracy is nothing more but Robin's replacement in Ted's vision of ideal life.
But that's the thing, Ted and Robin were never actually compatible. Ted was a hopeless romantic and Robin found that stuff cheesy. Robin was fiercely independent and could even physically defend herself in most dangerous situations, a fact that Ted even mentions in the show makes him insecure. I could go on, but the point is, opposites may attract but they do not always make a good couple
AND HIS MIND BLATANTLY REFUSED TO ACCEPT THE FACT THAT HE HAS TO MOVE ON. He was in love with the same woman for 20 frickin years?? Despite being married and being in relationships many times over ?? Oh so convenient Tracy died for both of em.
@@slaaaphas a woman who can’t have kids I totally understand her. Even if you didn’t want it, there’s still a possibility for me to start wanting them (in 5-10 years, why not?). Also having a kid is one of the unique experiences in life. But infertility just takes away all relatively “cheap and simple” options to live that experience. And not having any options is always super sad.
OMG, Tracy is a tragic version of a manic pixie dream girl? 🤯
Absolutely. The HIMYM finale should taught on a media/literature course showing how NOT to ruin your entire story. It’s amazing how I can’t get invested with the show after seeing the ending, when I LOVED the first 5-6 seasons. Now, I’ll go back and watch key episodes or story arcs, but I’ve never rewatched the whole thing and never plan on it for that reason. The ending/final season kills all the joy and mystery of the first 8 seasons and makes everyone outside of Lilly & Marshall’s development null and void.
I've always considered it a perfect example of how you need to be flexible when crafting a long-running episodic narrative like that. Because you have no idea how long your story will go on for, you can't really plan for how your characters will develop outside of a general direction you want them to go. Add to that world events and actors lives and you find yourself in a really tricky situation.
GoT, and himym... show how important it is for your legacy to have a good ending. If the ending's trash, nothing matters what happened before, and your media franchise will just stop having any cultural relevance. Huge shows whose popularity and public interest just absolutely fucking *cratered* overnight with going from juggernauts to no one caring about that show anymore except talking about how much the ending sucked.
People who try to defend the ending would say "well but then why did show start with Ted meeting Robin?" BECAUSE HE MET THE MOTHER AT ROBIN'S WEDDING, IT WAS A TALE OF ROBIN AND BARNEY GROWING INTO A COUPLE THAT BROUGHT THE MOTHER TO TEDS LIFE AAAAAAA TED WAS JUST THE NARRATOR THEY WERE THE MAIN COUPLE
EXACTLY! Also, Robin complaining about how Ted was the one who got away after he met Tracy at her own wedding was a terrible move development-wise. 😔 the show is all about fate and friendship and supporting people you love. It’s almost like Barney was also her placeholder.
I took the meeting of robin more as the way to kickstart the version of their friendship group and his life that made being with the mother possible, Robin taught him a lot (whether he actually was written to have learnt it very well...well let's ignore that) and was one of his most important friends.
Another thing that frustrates me about that is it's more than suggesting that nothing is more important than romance, friends are not as important according to this, and that's such a sucky take, they work SO much better as friends and they're better for it, they were soulmates as friends, not romantically. Some people are compatible as both and some people are the complete opposite, they are the complete opposite, working well as friends but so incompatible romantically
Also down with amatonormativity
At least that's one thing Barney's canon ending got right with his daughter, he didn't need a romantic or sexual relationship to be happy
@@reedsylvier5250 both are valid and go hand in hand imo!
To which I say why? Because Ted needed to meet and fall in love with Robin in order to grow as a person, realize that love is more than what is perceived as destiny and that above all, you can't force love on someone who doesn't share your vision. The lesson is never beg anyone to love you because with the right person, you can find someone you don't have to beg or force anything with. It will just be. Which is exactly how it was with Tracy upon their first meeting. The conversation with her was natural. It was easy. She shared his sense of humor.
Ted wasted many years on so many different women because of his obsession with the one when in reality the woman he married was the one he didn't force this ideal onto and it showed how much he grew as a person when he met Tracy.
That's why we meet Robin first. Because the person and mentality Ted had of forcing love needed to be unlearned.
Yesss swarkles main couple iktr 😌
It never made sense to me that Barney would ever have a problem with traveling around the world with Robin. In between her work he'd be finding his own adventures around her, whether with her or not especially since the final season spends SO MUCH TIME solidifying the two of them as a team despite them both being "lone wolves". The life they could have had after the wedding would have allowed room for both of their adventurous sides to flourish whilst maintaining the bond they built during season 9.
Exactly, bc Barney explicitly states in one episode where he talks about how much he loves robin bc she’s INDEPENDENT! they both are!!! That’s why they work together smh I see no reason they wouldn’t have fun and spend time while flying around the world together?!??
"Whatever you do in this life, it's not legendary, unless your friends are there to see it."
It makes so much sense that he would be unhappy in that relationship. His job was a big part of who he was and he lost that very close to the wedding. He never god anything of his own while traveling the world with Robin as she built her career. He never truly worked on himself, he just entered a relationship that fit his current state, but than it changed completely. The fact that they lasted 3 years shows how much they loved each other.
@@amirampeled His Job was NOT a big part of who he was. Besides the PLEASE joke (which shows that he didn't lose his job), its the fact alone, that he switched the job without great fuzz (from AltruCell to GNB). That Barney wasn't invested in his job was shown in the episode milk, where he talks about the things he does on the job (like pranking Clark Butterfield), instead of doing his job. It's simply ludicrous to think that Barney, who commit to everything he does 100%, would quit the woman he married because he could not post the dick joke of the day. If I were the writer, I had Barney and Tracey die in a plane accident or something on the way to Ted and Robin (for a vaccation or whatever), to enable Robin and Ted as a couple, because letting Barney just walk away from the woman he finally commited to is a disgrace for the best charachter arc in HIMYM.
@@Charon10-kb1bs he was running his blog remotely while they traveled the world. not sure how that was somehow an impossibility
he mentions his blog repeatedly. no one even knows what Barney's job was because he always replied with "please." his main function turned out to be signing off on fraudulent documents by the executives so they had plausible deniability. but it turns out it was a long con because he was reporting on them to the feds the whole time because that one executive dude slept with his coffee shop girlfriend.
the only thing that would possibly bother Barney is being cut off from his network of New York "guys". But then, Barney has a "guy guy" to help him find a new "guys" when he needed one. His "guy guy" could easily help him find a suit "guy" in Italy? or a car "guy" in Japan?
For me, one of the worst scenes is when Tracy, on her wedding day, took a photo of the group. It gave the impression she would never be apart of them, even after marring Ted! It annoyed me so much.
That’s so sad
I think it was meant to be foreshadowing.
It was really SUCH A LET DOWN how after all the seasons, we didn't get to know Tracy at all!!! Like I get why there wouldnmt be a full season about her, as it was about how they met.. But you'd expect to at least get to know her character enough as in scenes to what she was up to right before meeting Ted and why he was her perfect match too.. As to get emotionally attached to the character. But she was literally just put in there to push out two babies so Ted could again have Robin 🥴
I think that was literally Tracy's decision. Like she said "lemme take a picture" she knew these 5 had a bond that was from way before she came in the group. And I also think because rhe gang met again after a long time.
Idk I kind of took that scene as a metaphor for the whole show. Like, the show was never about the mother. Tracy was always just a framing device so we can experience the group and their friendship through its many highs and lows
Minor correction for what you said about Robin, she chose love once when she turned down the job in Chicago for Don.
For me the last episode is Season 9 Episode 22
The fact they didn't even give Tracy even 2 episodes on her passing. Such a disrespect of that character
I honestly don’t think it’s that bad, the show is was never about the mother it was about Ted and his friends. The real disrespect was to the established characters like Robin and Barney who they completely disregarded to show horn in this ending that they’d grown past.
They didn't give 2 mins to cope up with her death
@@oriandthesleepytime The show isn’t about her though, she’s essentially a MacGuffin. I don’t think what they did to her was anywhere near as bad as how they destroyed the development of most of the characters we had watched for 9 seasons
@@Name-fd2co What's the title of the show? That's like watching Forrest Gump and Tom Hanks was only in the last scene taking his son to the bus stop. People can defend it all they want, but the truth is the show is about Ted telling his children about his sexcapades.
She's a fictitious character. Just as I understand how you could reach that conclusion based on your life experience and what you knew of her, I guess I also could see how perhaps the show's writers know more about her than you and maybe the totality of her backstory was covered in the alternate universe series, "It's Tracy McConnell!" So they did not feel the need to delve too deeply into her tale beyond the thumbnail sketch of how she intersected with Ted. Plus, she may feel different emotions than you because, and I really cannot emphasize this enough, SHE'S A FICTITIOUS CHARACTER!"😆
It should have ended by Cristin Miloti as Tracy comming into the scene where ted ends his tale to his children and happily announce it was time for their children to hear how she met their father and implying her version was longer. Would have been so funny and perfectly displayed how great they fit together. I imagine they could have easily reused a clip for the childrens reaction as well.
THIS
Perfect ❤❤
I agree! But I also don't really agree with his take that just because Robin was super career focused and didn't want kids means she could never change her mind. There are a TON of people, in fact the majority of people who are workaholics in their twenties and even 30s, change their minds and decide to settle down and have families.
Because at the end of the day your career is meaningless. When you are on your deathbed do you think your company is going to care? Do you really think you are going to regret not working more? When people are on their deathbeds they regret the relationships they didn't have, or the families they didn't start. Hopefully you will be surrounded by your children and your spouse and grandchildren when you are dying.
People who spend their whole lives never having a partner or children almost always regret it when they are elderly. So even tho I actually don't like how they ended up together (i never really liked Robin LMAO 😂) I don't think it's unrealistic or unreasonable for her to change her mind.
I actually work as a hospice nurse. And the saddest deaths are the ones where they are alone. They have no one but nurses they are paying to be there. They regret the family they didn't have.
The only redeeming quality of the finale was Barney meeting his daughter Ellie for the first time. Neil Patrick Harris' acting in that scene honestly made me feel emotional, I wish that Barney suddenly having a daughter had been explored more. It felt lazy that Barney reverted to his womanising lifestyle, after his love for Robin made him a better person.
The thing that irked me about that was it took Barney havin' a daughter to reform his womanizer lifestyle. It happens plenty in life but it's very sad. Men shouldn't need a lil girl to help them start to treat women better. Greetings btw @trinaq
And the episode about the king player of New York City that’s one of the best episodes
Especially as barey getting betting there, is pretty much ruined retroactive. The better part of the looong seasons is barney growing as person, and robin is always great, but his growth too.@@rahbeeuh
@@rahbeeuhAgreed, it just felt redundant, especially since Barney became a better man through his love for Robin, but that was almost instantly thrown out of the window.
@@trinaq that's the frustrating part. We'd seen Barney become a somewhat better person but then to have him reverse that progress, get a woman pregnant and have a daughter who changes him again?! Oh my wow, the whiplash 😭
Barney going 360 didn't ruin him. He fell. He was abandoned again by who he thought he could be vulnerable with. Once his daughter is born he finally had someone he can love unconditionally and that would I'm theory love him back
The ending is so bonkers to me because it was the same showrunners for the entire series. They wrote and filmed that ending back in season 2, and then spend the next seven seasons practically going out of their way to make sure it wouldn't make sense. How do you fuck up that badly?
That’s the most frustrating part to me. They knew this was their endgame. So, why did they go on to evolve the characters in a way that made them so incompatible as the show went on? The further into the seasons they got, they just seemed to make Ted obsessed with the idea of Robin. I felt like by the time they got to the end, Barney and Robin were a much better fit.
@@NoPowerintheVerseare you blind or have bias? The entire last season was going back and forth with how both Barney and Ted were fit for Robin.
Plus again the story didn’t mess up. It ended with how they met their mother, their second mother Robin. It was always about Robin disguised in a story about their first mom.
They didn’t even have to go through with it tho… Like… just cut that scene out…
@@NoPowerintheVerseI disagree with Barney and Robin being a good fit, Barney is an awful human being and he did not have enough character development to have earned a healthy relationship. I hate it.
@@introusas Barney was a by product of his upbringing. He showed time and time again he would do anything for the people he loved and had a strong moral code it was just a weird one.
Barney and Robin both didn’t need people but it didn’t mean they had to be single.
At the end of the day Barney got exactly what he wanted: not a normal relationship but somebody he could out all his love into. What he desperately wanted his life to happen to him.
Every time I think about Ted and Robin, all I can think about is that scene where Ted tells her that Robin being self sufficient made him feel emasculated and inadequate... immediately contrasted with Barney saying that he liked that Robin was strong and independent and did not need him to fix all her problems.
So I fucking hate the finale on multiple reasons. And I thought I had forgotten how much I hated it and now I remembering all over again...
(And also Barney's total character assassination).
Ted was never good enough for Robin
god. ted really was just a fucking pest
@@TabbyeLynne yeah bro it was supposed to be you with her, because you know her so well and would treat her like a queen.
plot twist and news flash: most strong independent women dont like being strong and independent
Yeah it was not just about having kids, Ted and Robin were incompatible in almost every way
The actress for Tracy is the definition of perfect casting for me. She was everything we were hoping for and more
Which is so shocking, you would think finding someone to live up to a character hyped up for 8 years would be the hard part. Apparently not.
@@robrick9361 isn't it kind of cruel that the one and only thing the finale did well, and knocked out of the park at that, was finding and portraying the perfect "mother" character? but literally everything else was done wrong?
I believe that the story is one of the most well written pieces of media EVER and the building up to Tracy’s reveal made her such a likable character,seeing how she made Ted so happy, as well as the others involvement with her so perfect that the alternate ending along with a picture collection of all the moments in their life at the end would have made it, in my opinion one of the best TV series of all time
I'm only accepting the alternative ending, no way they butchered Robin, Barney and Tracy to deliver a finale that would only fit s2. And it's wildly misogynistic to reduce a character to their reproductive abilities, then kill her and replace her with the woman who clearly and repeatedly said No.
Agreed
Coud not agree more!
Said everything I was thinking, they built up Tracy as a great character giving her one of the best episodes of the entire series in an overall mediocre season only to reduce her to just “the mother” killing her off screen
Exactly. HIMYM was a show about how what you get is going to be 1000 times better than what you thought you wanted at 25. It made me able to hope for joy in my future even when I felt like nothing ever went my way. Giving Ted Robin at the last second destroys all of that and instead says “don’t worry, you’ll get what you wanted when you were 25! Just keep waiting, and waiting, and waiting, and waiting, and never move on, and don’t expect anything else to ever make you happy.”
They didn't do that though, the audience after the fact are the ones reducing Tracy to "just being there to give Ted kids" that isn't how the show treated her at all, they didn't butcher Robin nor Barney, everything that happened was set up in multiple ways. Robin was never not in love with Ted, their only issue was timing, the one time she said "no" to him that everyone brings up she didn't even want to say it.
This is my favorite sitcom, and the ending is just so awful that I just refuse to believe it exists. Ted meets the mom under the umbrella. Roll credits.
So you believe the “alternate” ending. Which there is nothing alternate about it, it is the true ending of the show
@@jessedellross3245 Pretty much XD
Yesssss ❤
That’s how I watch it 😂
My immediate thoughts when I saw the finale
The final episode was just *so* awkward. It felt like they had one really fleshed out and wonderful ending - and then rememberd "oh wait! we were supposed to do *the twist* that we planned at the start! So had to rush in a Robin-Barney break up and Robin falling in love with Ted again plotline.
So they literally had to undo *all* of Barney, Robin and Ted's character development to get it to work.
And *thank you* for your comments about Barney - you 100% nailed it.
I’ve never watched this show, but I’m glad I finally understand the lore. Thank you, space ninja
It’s still a great watch. Till the last season. It’s like game of thrones lol. You just need to accept that a better ending is canon in ur mind and blot out this one.
How I Met Your Mother writers walked so Game of Thrones writers could run when it comes to the art of crafting finales.
😂😂😂😂
Although compared to himym got is a masterpiece lmao
And so Supernatural could fly
SVTFOE anyone?
That's unfortunately true :/
The scene of Ted hearing Tracy sing La Vie En Rose with her ukulele never fails to make tear up. She's so charming and she slots perfectly into the friend group, it really feels like she'd been there all along. She's an amazing character in her own right and they just tossed her aside in the finale. It's baffling!
I still hate this shows ending 😭. Every time I think it's not that bad I get upset
1. A whole season of Barney/Robin wedding is so cruel when one of his last lines on the show is how he will never probably love again.
2. The fact that they just fell apart as friends 😭
3. That Ted was so venominant that Barney betrayed him and a shit friend and to turn around get his ex wife seems like character assassination for him and Robin.
4. Telling a story about how you been in love with an ex girlfriend the whole time 😭
5. A lot of people felt like Tracy was just used to give Ted kids 😭
Bonus : telling your kids about about every lady you had sex with before you met their mother😂
The fact the entire last season is about Robin and Barney’s wedding only for the final episode to just have them get divorced still pisses me off more than Ted thinking he had a chance with Robin afterwards
I remember a comment from another video about the ending. Basically Robin is unable to bear kids so Tracy came and gave Ted two children just so Ted and Robin can solve the no kid problem. The whole show turns from “How I Met Your Mother” to “How I Still Want to Bang Aunt Robin”
Same
@@loveheart115 Literally *this!* It made that entire season feel like a gigantic waste of time
To me, killing the mother and having Ted tell this story as a way to cope with her loss and as a memoir to their kids, it works for me. The ending with Robin and the blue horn is what messes all that up for me
Here is my take. As a middle aged woman, they could have made the ending work, but…they would have had to show Robin supporting Ted through the death of his wife. Showing Robin being close to the kids. Showing Robin having lived the life she wanted to live, but now wanting to live that life with someone quieter like Ted. It wouldn’t negate anything. It would follow the show’s natural premise of watching these characters grow and change.
Hitting middle age sometimes your needs and wants change. Flying around the world constantly was fun in your twenties but in your late forties it might feel like a lot. Also as you age one can get downsized or passed over for a younger version of themselves so there just be more alone time because a 24 hour job can turn into a 9-5. Like I said, change is a fundamental part of life. Seeing the world differently doesn’t negate who you were, it just defines who you are now. Like I said this progression should have been shown, because a shift like this takes 20 years and this one happens in less than 12 hours of real time. You can’t show the minutiae that creates these kinds of evolution.
On the Barney thing he could have changed through therapy with Robin trying to save their marriage. Instead of returning to asshole Barney he would return to a bit of a middle ground. He would remarry, become a dad, but would still say some dumb shit. My point is that they had so many simple ways to make it all make sense.
Edit: I’m not saying Robin now magically wants to be the mom (like the trope). It’s more of: she is uniting with people she loves. She’s still “Aunt Robin”.
Oonagh72 Hear, hear.
They could've set that up in season 8 maybe and took the extra time. Touche.
I think if they'd done this well, Barney being a loving single father to a girl is the perfect ending for him too
That would've make a great ending! They could've spent less time on the wedding, and more on the aftermath of Tracy's death. After a while it would've made sense to reunite Ted and Robyn. They didn't play their cards right and it's a shame!
I'm with you. Must be the age thing 🥲 we see so much happening to others and ourselves, the changing of the priorities...
after becoming a film student, i understood how timing is CRUCIAL with himym: we got 8 seasons with the same formula and episode format with arcs beggining and completing through them, then suddenly we got a whole season passing in a weekend, and the last episode flying through 10 years, it's weird and it wasnt necessary
The final season taking place over a weekend was itself not a bad idea as they still did flashbacks and flash forwards a lot. It was an interesting way to change things up for the final season. But agreed the pacing of the finale is awful and makes GOT final seasons pacing look masterful.
Why didn’t they have the 200th episode be the wedding and then pace our what happens in the finale? That would’ve worked much better and we probably would’ve accepted what happened more
@@jessedellross3245 A season taking place around a weekend could work if we were talking about a ten episode season.
I actually didn't mind the last season's pacing. It was different, but it was an absurd way for the gang to go on a few more little adventures and tie up a bunch of loose ends. But the final episode rushing through 10 years of development that completely undid Robin, Barney, and later Ted's character arcs retroactively ruins that, because why the hell did we spend so much time on fun little adventures and loose ends instead of building up any of these massive changes in the main characters?
Not true. Its just if its done correctly. Hunter x hunter did 3 days in about 40 episodes and it was pure fire. @matti.8465
I don't think the wedding over a whole season was a bad decision. It was the wedding where he met the mother, it should be intricate. Well ofc the season was too long, but hey.
The absolute idiotic decision was reversing the wedding in 15 minutes, have everyone's character regress 7 seasons and torpedo everything for the ending shot back in season 2.
20:41 what is so frustrating is they could have pulled off an ending where the “kids” were now adults, and just made a joke out of it, and written a better conclusion.
I agree completely with you, with ONE exception:
I think killing the mother off was not a mistake. Yes, they could and maybe should have dealt with it more exhaustively, but that's execution and beside my point.
The mother's death is the final one in a long row of moments (Lily leaves Marshall, Robin can't have kids, Barney's whole character arc that you mentioned, Ted gets left at the altar, Marshall's Dad dies, etc. I'm sure I'm forgetting some because I haven't watched the show in too long) where HIMYM dives into a deep emotional concept - hurt and grief. And yes, you can argue that Marshall's dad dieing "dealt with that topic", but it's not the same imho.
Ted recounts his journey, all his failed relationships that made him ready, that honed his character for Tracy, only for their happily ever after to be cut short, because LIFE ISN'T FAIR, and that's a reason to go out there and LIVE IT WHILE YOU CAN. That's the message. Cherish every moment that you have because you don't know how many you have left.
Having him tell his kids that story to relay to them how incredibly much he loves their mother is a life lesson. The show is full of life lessons. And if Barney & Robin had been left happily ever after like Lily & Marshall, and Ted got his "all alone" moment again, only this time he knows he had perfection, and he still has his kids, that would have been heartbreaking, but bittersweet, and it would have felt *real*.
The alternate ending cheapens, no destroys, that hurt and that lesson by giving in to the happily ever after trope.
there has NEVER been a character that was so assassinated like how barney was in that finale it was genuinely PAINFUL to witness. barney and robin are my favourite on screen couple so the fact that it was revealed that they DIVORCED after having one of the greatest relationship arcs in sitcom history was CRIMINAL. like they genuinely couldn't have ruined that finale more if they tried. watching it for the first time was like watching the worst thing that could possibly happen continuously happen for the entire runtime
Yeah it reduced him to just a character, not a person
The actual sin was centering the entire final season around the wedding, because Barney and Robin ending in divorce made perfect sense for both characters. He was a serial womanizer with abandonment issues. She was on the path to becoming a globetrotting reporter who would be away from her husband for extended periods of time. And we already saw their relationship fail once before in the series. They weren't the perfect match everyone wants them to be.
Honestly the thing that pissed me off the most about it was the whole "Barney learned to respect women because he has a daughter now" of it all.
Like it just felt like the writers trying to compensate for essentially ruining Barney's character. Especially when it wasn't foreshadowed at all, and we don't see his daughter's mother or even *learn her name*.
@@user74027nhBarney is practically irredeemable. He has abused and harassed women from the very first episode to the end. He’s a shit human being and doesn’t deserve any redemption. A lot of the things he did to women were bordering on rape, if not literal rape.
100% agree that shit ruined me
How I Met Your Mother is the shining example of why showrunners will never have their ending shot before they reach the final season ever again
In my opinion they could've just shot several possible endings with children. And never reveal which is the "canon". It would've also helped if show ended early in my opinion
And the thing is (no offense to the kid actors) but no one and I repeat no one in this entire world would have cared if the scene with them at the end was cut out.
@@sophieamandaleitontoomey9343exactly. The alternate ending has no mention of the kids and nobody cares.
Same
Exactly it would be like if Parks and Rec ended with Leslie realizing the love of her life was Mark Brendanawicz all along.
I will NEVER understand how they couldn’t make season 9 all about Tracy and Ted’s relationship. It might have made us people that hated the Robin/Ted ending willing to maybe accept it. This idiotic ending made Tracy seem like a surrogate for his kids. We got duped! Tracy was perfect and they pulled the rug from under us!
Also, by Ted running back to Robin it looked like he never grew up and the cycle of Ted/Robin started all over again.
Seriously, I would have loved more time with Tracy, and getting to see their life together. We didn't need twists and drama and Ted getting back with Robin, we just needed that cute happy ending we wanted.
Ted x Robin forever! Stay mad!
@@Vi_Vi_1happy endings are boring
@@TheSuperappelflap firmly disagree: life is hard, and very rarely has happy endings. Maybe you don't enjoy them, but plenty of us do.
Plus, they could still have written a sad ending if they wanted to. I'm not upset with it because it wasn't happy, I'm upset with it because it was poorly written and deeply unsatisfying. And I'm not going to explain that because the video we're commenting on does a great job explaining it lol
Good point! The ending ruined Ted, too! It’s like he never learned to let go, and the show said he’s right to keep pining over Robin. “Keep trying and the girl will be with you” is a terrible message. 🤦♀️
I was so disappointed and upset they did that to Robin. Like, i was so happy when she got with barney, two career driven people just ugh like I watched solely watched for Marshall and lily alone like that was my favorite couple and became my favorite characters I loved the alternate ending so much more
Same, swarkles forever
@@divinelangene6813 wasn't aware that was the ship name
The biggest problem with the finale for me is that Ted and Robin were never that interesting of a couple. Even if the show had ended in season 2 or 3 when their relationship was at the forefront of the show it still would’ve been a lame ending.
In the first episode Ted sees Robin from across the room at McLaren’s and just instantly falls in love with her. The show is obviously aware of how cliched and silly that is and pokes fun at it constantly, but it still makes for a weak starting point for their relationship. From then on, Ted is just unhealthily obsessed with Robin. We’re never really given a reason why Ted is in love with her. He just is. Not to mention their relationship always felt very one sided. Robin was never anywhere near as into Ted as he was into her. This is fine though, because by the end of the episode we are told that she isn’t the mother. So even at the end of the first episode we are told that aren’t going to work out.
If anything Ted was really awful to Robin during their relationship. He shamed her for the amount of men she’s slept with. Tried to get rid of her dogs and send them upstate. That incident with the t-shirt. Constantly pressuring her. And then of course the whole thing with the last episode of season 2 where he keeps pressuring her about marriage even though she’s made it clear she doesn’t want marriage or children.
The thing about the alternate ending is that it was clearly thrown together at the last minute due to backlash, and it's still way more satisfying than the one they actually put effort into.
I’m as baffled as FSN. If they did put any effort into it, they wouldn’t have tried to force a decade-long show fit a predetermined ending in less than 30 minutes. Build up to it, man 🤦♀️
Exactly. I mean I don’t know how the creators thought their planned ending would go well. Either they were that stupid not to know or they didn’t care.
Good writers and producers acknowledge that shows by their nature change. They evolve and grow. And HIMYM had completely outgrown the ending they had planned. It could’ve worked if the show ended in s3-5, but s9? NOPE.
It’s just awful. And I’m so glad everyone is on the same page here. I can’t understand how ANYONE can justify or defend this awful finale. I see people defend GOT finale (myself included) but THIS? No
@@jessedellross3245this ending sure never worked passed season 1. Cause Ted and Robin were never meant to be. It is about the mother who ever she was at that season.
Aaah How I Settled For Your Mother....I forgot how much I hated this ending
I can forgive letting the mother die, it's sad, but not necessarily a bad thing, but the destruction of Barney and Robin's characters and then forcing Robin and Ted together out of nowhere is truly devastating
Not gonna lie, upon rewatching this show about a year ago, I realized that Ted is actually the *worst* sex pest. Man thinks he’s “owed” a perfect partner, and destroys his life and others’ in pursuit of an unfair and unrealistic ideal. At least Barney is obvious about his goals; Ted is just a self- centered toxic asshole.
I feel the same. By the 3rd season, I'd had enough of him. He's such an awful person and treats women terribly, and never learns. In real life, guys like him and Barney, do they even have actual friendships with women?
@@sonyakinsey4376no, and honestly the show taught men that women saying no didn’t matter- just pester them long enough until they say yes! (Also separate note- Barney and Robin deserved better 😂😂😂)
Well, the question was rhetorical, but no, I certainly wouldn't be friends with any guys like Ted or Barney. I've successfully avoided dating guys a lot like Ted.
Ted was honestly worse. Because he would convince them he wanted something deeper, then break up with them on their birthdays. Ted is my least favorite character on the show, I actively hate him. My entire neutrality died for him when he screamed at Marshall for not being over Lily (an 8 year relationship) and that he should move on, while we had to sit through a season or two of him whining about Robin for one date.
Well - there's always the line Barney said "I'm pretty sure I sold a woman... There was a man who gave me the keys to a Mercedes and I left her there"
I know it's a comedy show - but I was like "yeah that's not funny"
having to record the end in 2006 and only shooting ONE OPTION for your finale is wild, did they run out of storage space ??
That's what gets me. They could've spent 10 minutes shooting a very basic
"that's the story of how I met your mother"
"oh thank good, that took forever. Feels like years" ending.
Yeah, I mean they could have even dedicated an entire day of just shooting the ending, with the added benefit of nobody actually being sure which would be the final version, thereby not having the risk of somebody leaking the ending beforehand.
They literally could have just shot alternate endings as a fail safe plan. Instead, they shot themselves in the foot.
@@KingsizeKini that would be perfect, some may say anti-climatic or unnecessary joke but i think that would be a good send off for a show like this
They could have filmed some shots of the kids, and make them talk off-screen so they can record dialogue later. It's stupid to limit yourself like that.
Tracy was so perfectly cast and the actress had such good chemistry with the cast that it actually made it hurt EXTRA BAD when that ending hit. Because they managed to pull off the impossible and then stumbled on what should have been the easiest part.
Yup!
As someone who just finished the show for the first time and no outside biases or knowledge of the show, I really enjoyed the ending. Sure the last season was kinda drawn out but the final ending felt like it fit in a certain way. I mean seeing the subtle hints in the show foreshadowing that maybe the mother isn’t actually around and the way overall it’s told, the ending really does kinda make sense. Ted told the entire story in the eyes of him being drawn to Robin, and then out of nowhere we finally meet Tracy and every part she was in just felt so distant, as if he really didn’t have much to say because he didn’t get a chance to know her that long before she inevitably passed. I think the ending did a justice at finally completing the promise that Ted and Robin made to one another so long ago. While being 2 completely situations, it’s nice to see that 2 people who genuinely did love each other but always at the wrong time, finally have the 1 time that’s right.
Well the ending would have been fine if it was only 3 seasons long. Not 9... The characters evolve the writing changes the ending however didn't chance at all. And that is a huge problem.
"Tracy and every part she was in just felt so distant, as if he really didn’t have much to say because he didn’t get a chance to know her that long before she inevitably passed." - they were married for many years, what do you mean he didn't have much to say about her? Sorry, but your comment makes it seem even worse, how in the earth Ted couldn't say much about the woman he married and supposed to love.
Tracy was actually perfect, I feel like they should’ve made season 9 about her rather than barney and robins wedding
Agreed
They couldn't very well make a character introduced at the very end outshine the established characters.
The problem wasn't a lack of planning. The problem was they'd planned this ending from the very start. But the show ran a long time, and the original idea of how it ended, which they'd gone to such pains to set up, didn't work anymore. Overall, I liked the final season. I certainly saw them hinting Ted and Robin weren't entirely over each other. But Ted and Robin no longer interested me as a couple. I loved Tracy at first sight. They also suggested there was some doom hanging over her. But that just made her more compelling.
It was not that they rushed the ending. It was that they had used the framing device of the kids to lead up to the ending they'd always intended to do. But they had to keep developing the characters, to fill all the time between the pilot and the finale. Ted and Robin no longer made any sense. Barney and Robin breaking up was of course quite imaginable, but to do it so abruptly after spending a whole season building up to the wedding did not work. Neither did Ted's own children telling him the story he'd been telling, about his endless affairs with a variety of women, leading up to his finally finding Tracy, achieving his dream of a happy marriage--the kids' mother!--was all about Robin.
No kids who lost their mom young would ever say that. They might want their dad to date again, be happy--they would not be literally matchmaking for him. And should we believe Ted has Robin for the asking, simply by stealing a blue French Horn and waving it at her from the street? It was too forced. Well, endings usually are, because sitcoms aren't a form designed to have endings. All sitcom finales feel forced, to some extent, but because this one was so serialized for a sitcom, it was more obvious.
The show I watched was not about Ted and Robin after the second season. They had their try, and they broke up without any real regrets. They were not meant for each other, except as friends.
And yes, it does make it seem like Tracy's only purpose in life was to bear Ted children. When in fact Robin was made infertile very late in the show, just to make sure we know she's not The Mother.
So again--not underplanning--overplanning. Not accepting that the show's whole ethos is that Life is what happens when you're making other plans. They should have just let the final twist go, and that is basically how the show ends now. Still feels forced. Maybe you don't need to tell us everything that happened to everyone on a damn half hour comedy? Just leave it open-ended.
100% agree, loved her character
@@christopherlyons5900 I agree with you, but at the same time I would prefer that they killed Marshall since he didn't want to be there and made one more season with the mother. This way the ending wouldn't be so scuffed. Could show us a bit more of her, even getting sick (it was not what I wanted, but I feel like I would accept it better) and grief that had only been seen by Marshall's dad, but it still could be a fun thing to explore. About Robbin and Barney they could show us the struggle but still make it work, I just feel that they got lazy and wanted to use what they already had in “stock”.
@@martins2677 I don't see how making Lily a grieving widow is helping anything. No, the only real mistake they made was to get so committed to the ending they dreamed up before they shot the pilot, they couldn't adjust to the reality that it didn't work anymore.
I don’t know what’s more misogynistic. The mother being reduced down to “the mother that dies because plot” and to set Ted up with someone else or Robin basically throwing away everything to get back with a guy who is not even compatible with her
Don´t forget the misogynistic trope of a man only learning to respect women and see them as humans after they contribute to make one; with the adding bonus that the mother of the girl doesn´t even have a name, just a number.🤮🤢🤮🤢
I dont know that Robin would have to throw everything away, but it is stupid and forced. It never sat right with me that Tracy was basically the r63 of Ted. Like what is the message here? That someone needs to be your exact doppelganger in terms of personality in order for you to be compatible.
Because the show is not about a happily ever after, It's about life and changes. Ted wanted a "perfect girl" that doesn't exist and he only accepts life when he finally move on from his wife's death.
@@owenleal no need to be a doppelganger, but you need to at least have common future goals, which Ted and Robin didn't have. Pining for your ex girlfriend, who is also the ex wife of your friend, for decades is also not a good message :))
I'm sure Ted and Tracy were not perfect copies of each other, we just saw very little of her.
@@JakeSmith-zk3ho But they made Tracy perfect :)) and then they killed her
If she was not dead, would Ted still go back to Robin?? Would the "perfect girl" still not exist?
And even taking that all aside, season 9 was terribly planned. You don't spend the last seasons saying how done were Ted and Robin, plan her wedding with Barney for the whole final season, present the Mother as perfect..... and then undo everything in the last ten minutes.
To this day, those final 10 minutes are some the most ridiculous character assassination I've ever witnessed.
Good video.
Now, I'll go back to unremembering that finale.
same here
Lmao 😂
we all pretend that ending didn't happen
I just finished it after binge watching it for about a month. When does the unremembering happen exactly?
The only thing I like with either ending is Barney meeting his daughter and being brought to tears. Like, he falls in love at that moment and realizes just how much he wants to protect and love her.
Ah yes, another 40 minutes video essay of a show I've never watched by friendly space ninja, today is a good day
I loved this show but could NEVER finish season 9 lol it was so bad
i still think Barney's proposal is some of the best set up and pay off in TV history. the finale is a slap in the face for everything
This entire show was terrible,fuck are you talking about
A slap in the face 😈
As much as the alternate ending does fix Tracy and Ted’s story, it still doesn’t change the assassination of Barney and Robin’s character arcs. Robin still wishes she was with Ted and is alone now, and Barney still goes back to his old ways, only with a baby now. That’s how bad these writers screwed this finale up so much.
Barney stopped once he had his daughter though. He’s the only one to really grow by the time the finale ended
My headcannon is that when he says "things fall apart, things get put back together" and t shows barney and robin, its left unsaid that they get back together again.
Barney and Robin are together in the real ending which is the one set at their wedding. There was no breakup which makes no sense to who they are and all the developments that went on during the last few seasons and not just the final season.
@@Sharzzz12 no that’s not it at all, like he said: everything from the finale stays the same except for the death of the mother. Everything alluding to her death is wiped out of existence, and it ends at the train. Barney and Robin still get divorce
@@brenegade7 in the alternate Barney and Robin remain married, if they had issues which were already resolved during the series and season they would get through it. They had grown enough to make their relationship work there was no need to break them up. Yes Tracy’s death is sad but shouldn’t have happened. So the alternate has her alive and Barney and Robin together. I don’t really care what happened with them but divorcing them for a plot that didn’t work for the entirety of the series was wrong. You can kill off Tracy just leave BR in tact they were fine with each other. Making the whole show about Robin was the incorrect ending the right ending is at Barney and Robin’s wedding.
It took me 10 years to rewatch any episode after the finale.
I followed this week by week from the very beginning episode one. Love the show during the run. The Russian doll nest of storytelling was very unique. Also these characters were exactly my age and my son was born just 2 months before Marvin was on the show. Marshall's dad dying was huge gut punch. I cry every time. I even loved the final season despite its quirks and Marshall not being around. All the characters had grown and moved on..... Then the end.....
I can accept that the mother died, because it made episodes like Time Travellers hit that much more...
After the finale, I felt so betrayed that I couldn't bring myself to watch it again for 10 years, then short kept popping up on my TH-cam feed. I fondly remembered the journey my wife and I went on with these characters.
So rewatched the whole series recently... It's a masterpiece sitcom gold. I still can't abide the character assassination of Barney and Robyn and the missed bittersweet opportunity for Ted to tell this story to his kids bc the mother died. The show should have ended with Ted learning that he doesn't need to be in a relationship to have a fulfilling life, that his life is full because of his friends and the memories of his wife.....
Nevertheless this is a great show that I'll revisit regularly
I wonder if they hadn't dropped the ball so hard on the ending if HIMYM would've had the same cult status as Friends. People rewatch Friends all the time and remember it fondly decades later. HIMYM kind of fell into obscurity after being one of the biggest shows out there because you can't rewatch it without remembering it's all leading up to this disaster of an ending
You can kind of see a pattern here, the mega popular shows sort of fade into obscurity, if their finale is that bad. Think about "Lost" or "Game Of Thrones". The biggest shows of their time, losing a huge bunch of fans because of their final episodes and being semi-forgotten afterwards.
HIMYM fits this mold too well.
Yeah kinda incredible that after a luxurious meal the people rejected the spoonful of shit and toxic waste forcefully put in their mouths...
They would have had so many reruns and it would still be on the air on many networks. But because of the ending and how terrible it is nothing came of the show after it ended. It’s only talked about now when people talk about the ending. The ending killed anything that the show tried to have.
All the clues, the yellow umbrella, the ''I guess I'll take the train'', the reveal of the mother, the scene where they meet. It was all so beautifully written and executed. They put together a beautiful puzzle picture and when they put in the final piece, they shoved the whole thing off the table.
You can't change my mind that the writers had no idea how to write a female character that was career driven. And same with lily they made lily so bitchy and ruined here too.
But like...weren't the men awful too? Hahaha
@@OpqHMg not really. Sure barney's character was exaggerated for satire but the character development of the characters barney ted and marshall was great(don't count s9) whereas most women character dev was around career or family even with lily like srsly couldnt think of any other problem? marshall could have both without it being a noise.
It's a very misogynistic show. The writers are misogynists it is why they fridged the Mother.
Robin was written pretty well imo. If they had to break up Robin and Barney (terrible decision all around but whatever) that could’ve worked IF she remained a career focused woman. That would’ve been an ending that fit her character and arc. But that DAMN scene where she whines about Ted RUINED her.
Lily………awful. Worst sitcom character ever imo. Just terrible and pointless
@@jessedellross3245Robin was awesome, but her ending up with Ted was an insult to her, paired an amazing woman with a Nice guy
Imagine having an ending so bad that people need to be reminded of how bad it was
I don't even remember it
13:50 “but ultimately, every theory about the mother’s identity ended up being wrong” hmm…..
I caught the Tracy hint in like 2012 and my family didn’t believe me and the internet didn’t believe me but I was RIGHT and I will never be prouder of myself
congrats! :D
VINDICATION!
21:05 american show runners should learn with brazilian telenovela, you don't just shot one ending, you shot multiple so you can choose from them (also to avoid leaks and/or spoilers)
The core of the problem is definitely that they betrayed the premise of the show with the twist. The very first episode set up a subversion of expectations. It looks like the classic sitcom meet cute but it ends with "that's how I met your Aunt Robin." Thus the premise of the show was that it was a "will they, won't they" show in which the original core couple WON'T get together. A Ross and Rachel where the breakup was definitive. That was fresh and new. That was the bedrock of the show. But then the finale betrays that by saying "actually psych, they WILL after all!" which just sucks. Even ignoring all the character reversions, especially with Barney, it sucks.
Absolutely 🙏🏻
The last season is not about Barney and Robin’s love for each other, it’s about all the reasons they don’t work together, but they still push through, and eventually it came back and bit them in the ass. Ultimately, I prefer the original ending, but I dislike the pacing of season 9
I loved this show and the finale ruined it for me. I think they were more focused on doing the finale they had planned than thinking what would have been a satisfying ending with how the show had evolved. So excited to see your take on it!
It ruined the only thing worth keeping up, barney growing as person and him and robin, robin was always great.
But it makes all th eprogress the character with most shown, it retroactively ruins it by characterassasinating.
And like there could have been ways they could have grown apart, without regressing him as character. or robin, and robins.
like had they given a way longer time and epilogue or story how they lived together, they had a rough time with something that isnt character assasinating. And they move on and agree as healthy people apart, not the wtf.
Also him and robin, are not compatible, they tried, it didnt work out, the show hammered that down so much. let barney and robin be happy, ok,
Same! I have not watched one single episode since the finale. Before it was one of my favourite shows...
One thing that annoys me more than Robin and Ted getting together (which trust me, it does) is the undoing of Robin and Barney’s relationship. They set up an entire season revolving around THEIR wedding, Barney went through such a lovely, realistic and plausible character arc to get to that very point. And within a matter of minutes they undid all his progress. It wasn’t even that Barney and Robin didn’t end up together but the fact that Barney reverted back to his old ways almost completely (I do like the storyline about his daughter and that was some development, I suppose). It was like the entirety of the 9th season and Barney’s growth was just for the sake of him getting to the altar. I was so invested in their romance and the breakup being that rushed left the viewers with no closure whatsoever.
The finale, duration wise, was incredibly rushed as well. I watched it on streaming and I could see while scrubbing through it that the episode only had 5 minutes left when Ted left his house to stand underneath Robin’s window. It bugs me more that they didn’t even fully commit to the last scene. 9 seasons of carefully crafted stories and interpersonal dynamics leading upto a sloppy, rushed and frankly implausible ending was such a let down.
I do love HIMYM with all my heart, it was one of the first sitcoms I fell in love with it but the ending just upsets me so much.
Edit: commented this before I finished the video, and I’m glad you touch on Barney’s arc as well
That made me so mad. The arc of their relationship was done amazingly well, and then to just throw it away was such a huge betrayal. Barney and Robin felt RIGHT together and the stupid reason the show broke them up, just to throw Ted and Robin together, felt so cheap. Absolutely terrible writing after some amazing writing. Like....why did they do that to us.
Right? I loved them so much. And after many many rewatches i actually believe that Barney fancied Robin from the first moment he saw her. He compliments her, sometimes gets flirty and he's exaggeratedly against Ted's and Robin's relationship, like he's hurt to see them together. If it is the case, it's such a sophisticated writing. And they killed that.
On paper I totally get the elevator pitch for this finale: you build up to a faceless character for the entire show, all the while building up this relationship we want to work out but are told it won’t.
The problem, as covered in the video, is that they really tied up the Ted/Robin story in a way that gave the audience closure that they simply weren’t compatible. And additionally, the mother was revealed to be a wonderful character that we all fell in love with before she even met Ted.
They either needed to make Tracy another generic girlfriend that just happened to work out, or else keep a lot more fuel on the Robin fire for the conclusion we got to remotely work.
yep, WE are the ones that don't buy robin and ted back together. showrunners needed to show and don't tell on how Robin and Ted reconnected and the spark is back because timing is right. showrunners missed their timing, lol
I remember there were a couple of ppl defending the ending by calling it "realistic" that is SO stupid. Its bad writing, nobody cares about realism in a comedy show where unrealistic things already happened
Yes,those people annoy me, realistic is just what you tell yourself to feel better
It was never realistic it was putting two people together that never belonged together at all. It does ruins the show. But you can ignore it and just leave it at the train station when Ted meets Tracy because technically that is the actual ending of the show.
@@Sharzzz12 yes , I choose to ignore the ending because honestly, its season 1 ending, so it doesnt really count
When I was a kid my mom would talk about how she watched that 70s show and how she hated the last season and the finale for breaking up Jackie/Hyde and pairing her with Fez. It would not be until the finale of HIMYM that I finally understood the rage my mom felt about your comfort show going to shit at the end.
Low blood pressure? No problem! HIMYM finale might help raise it up. "Might" is the keyword here.
I’m taking blood pressure medication right now just thinking about this abomination
Preach, a full decade later, and this finale is still rage inducing. It had so much potential, but ultimately fell flat.
@@jessedellross3245 hope it helps 🙏🏾
@@trinaq indeed it did! It was the first time I recall that a TV show that was a huge success became essentially nothin' over night. Game of Thrones was like, "challenge accepted" and as far as TV goes I've not been the same since
@@trinaq it’s the only show and finale where I legit got pissed off after watching. Got, and even tbbt (which I personally don’t like but see the pros in) got better finales that fit what the shows became.
HIMYM spends AN ENTIRE SEASON building up a wedding only to divorce them 10 MINUTES LATER!!!!!!!!!!!
I love that he brought up Sunrise cause it is imo the best episode of the final season. Seeing Ted FINALLY let go of Robin and move on was amazing. Seeing Barney pass down his legacy and let go of the bachelor life and accept his new role as robins husband was INCREDIBLE.
Fuck this finale so hard!!!!!!!!!!!!
I kind of saw the ending coming more near the end. I watched the whole series with my ex after she got the whole DVD collection for christmas. I was HEAVILY invested. I still enjoyed seeing Barney and Robin's relationship grow, I mean my favorite/saddest part is when Barney had those rose pedals on the bed but Robin goes with the other dude, Ted goes back to the apartment and sees Barney just completely broken. Literally broke me. I was thrown off that Robin and Ted got back at the end but Robin and him were going to be the end story for sure.
The episode where it’s a countdown to the reveal that Marshall’s dad dies and his reaction will always make me cry.
Honestly, I don't even think Tracy's death was necessarily a bad idea, I remember seeing theories about it on the internet literally a few weeks before the series final, it kinda makes sense that the story of their encounter would focus exclusively on Ted's perspective if she wasn't around to tell her part, and that Ted would want to tell this story to their kids as part of a mourning process for both him and them. The fact that this whole thing was just so he could have their benediction to go back with Robin however is just insanely distateful and dirty. It makes Ted a terrible husband and father, which isn't necessarily out of character but makes me regret following his story even more, and it's also a dick move toward the public who had followed this story for years and just had encountered and possibly fallen in love with the character to hear that she actually didn't matter and could/would be replaced at the first occasion.
Robin and Barney's divorce was just as terrible.
And it also makes it seem like he was emotionally cheating the entire time he was with Tracy.
I can’t remember the episode, but there is some pretty heavy foreshadowing in retrospect to Tracy’s death. If that had been handled better it could have been extremely meaningful. If they had left the end scene out, it still would have been moving.
The show also has a need to constantly punish Robin for choosing her career and not wanting kids. After she gets divorced from Barney, Barney has a kid and he's happier than ever, it almost feels like splitting with Robin got him his dream. This also makes no sense at all, since Barney and Robin truly were the perfect couple. The same thing happens with Ted, where Robin inexplicably feels jealous of Tracy for having this dream life with a man she KNOWS wanted kids. On that same note, it's depressing that the mom was a prop to give Ted the suburban life, kids, etc. that he wanted, and after she fulfilled his dreams, THEN they kill her off, which means Ted is free to pursue Robin again. Ted gets exactly what he wants, without compromising or learning anything on his journey, removing all agency from the women he meets and debasing them into objects to complete Ted's fantasy. It still pisses me off to this day.
Also also, can we talk about the fact that Ted ALWAYS has to be the hero in Robin's story? I fucking hate that Ted found the locket, that they made it seem like Barney was just a douchebag who didn't care about Robin throughout the whole wedding week and their marriage got "saved" by Ted's willingness to hand him the locket. It's such an exhausting trope to have them constantly doubt whether or not they should get married. It feels forced and is just a way for Ted to be the hero once again.
Yes to all of this. Also you’re so right another flaw of the last season as a whole was centering TED(??!) on Barney and Robin’s wedding!!! Why ruin both of their characters in favor of him?!
Just commenting on the last part. Ted is telling the story, so naturally he is going to make himself the hero. I agree with your comments though and don’t think the writers intended ted to skew reality. A cool spinoff would be “how Ted met your mother “ told by Barney or the other characters.
Dude I have seen women in real life, and not just one, that thought they wanted the career and then they realize that they screwed up and either have completely changed their life and have kids or it was too late and now they have a huge regret in their life. You are acting like people never change and if there is something unrealistic here it is your stance not that a person changed their mind and has regrets.
Thank you for saying what I’ve said for years. This locket story doesn’t belong in the story, Robin’s character isn’t fairytale that’s Ted’s idolization fantasy of her. This was not who Robin is, and all the things after they get engaged is so over the top obsessive that we the audience immediately called it out. Ted is the worst character ever, people like to praise his actions but all that does is make his actions worse by doing the exact same stuff over and over again. Ted and Robin were never meant to be. That ending isn’t canon nobody believes in that ending or all the character assassination that happened. The alternate is the real canon ending.
I found Ted’s character to be so obnoxious that he repulsed me. I agree with everything you said
I think that in the last episode it showed that the divorce killed him and he reverted to his old self to make him feel better
Why u laughing bro @@divinelangene6813
Why you laughing bro
@@GhostRider-pm7ns sorry , I laughed on the wrong comment
I like the idea behind HIMYM ending, starting again, not really being compatible on their 30 but in their 50, healing, loving again, etc. However the problem is the execution. First being the mess of Ted and Robin relationship post break-up, the amount of build up that Robin and Barney' s weeding had and the abrupt conclusion of the mother's arc.
At the time, there were theories about this ending because Ted says his favorite book is Love in the Time of Cholera, which does that. But infinitely better. Daisy Jones and The Six as well. But both really respect the lives that they live, even settle with in some cases. And for Love, it really deals with how worthy that life is even if it's maybe not with your soulmate. I actually enjoy the trope, but I really hated it in HIMYM. I think the biggest issue really is that it felt like it was just what Ted wanted. It didn't really value the life that Tracy and Ted had lived together and didn't value who Robin was. It had to make Robin resent her choices and give Ted what he wanted so he wouldn't have been bitter. Instead of maybe just letting Robin like him again at a later time period without having to be resentful.
I agree, every single thing presented in the ending works in theory i.e. Tracy dying, Barney and Robin divorcing and even Ted and Robin getting back together - The problem is that the final season doesn't take place over the course of normal life like the other seasons do, so we don't get that natural build up that other events throughout the show have gotten. The only thing that does get at least *some* level of build up is Tracy's death, there is a slight implication of her fate way back in the time travellers episode and her death is hinted during season 9 during one of her scenes - Even then, the shoddy and rushed way it's just thrown at the audience during the final episode is just lazy. The season takes place over a single weekend so we don't get that progression of Tracy's "mystery illness" that we would probably see over the course of a normal season.
It pains me to think about the season that we could have gotten instead - It could have been a normally structured season where we would actually see Ted and Tracy's relationship develop over time. We could see how she fits into the group dynamic with the others, how she works well with Ted compared to past girlfriends, what they argue about and how they resolve those arguments, and of course the big moments in more detail. One could easily argue that a single season may not have been enough to properly depict all of that to the usual standard, and that it may have needed a 10th season to truly work, but it would have been a million times more compelling than what we eventually got.
Like New Girl also did the right person, wrong time arc. It’s in the execution where HIMYM screwed up big time.
Yeeees, i'm 100% with you..fully agree.
@@43quin I'm so mad at the showrunners for not coming up with a better plan for Jason Segel's schedule.
At least Game of Thrones had a final season to go off the rails. HIMYM only had three minutes. The kids don't even seem upset Ted going after Robin. It's basically "It's been six years, now go get with Aunt Robin!"
But season 9, if ya wanna acknowledge its existence, of HIMYM did go off the rails 😅
GoT was going off the rails since season 5, don't minimize how truly terrible it was.
I binged all of GoT before the last season aired and you can really feel a huge drop in quality after season 4.
Season 5 is kinda boring with not much happening (plus it introduced the sand snakes).
Season 6 has many terrible scene, but also some great one so ii's just kinda mid.
Season 7 is when the show start getting terrible and the story fall appart. The entire season is bad but to me the show jumped the shark when John, the new king of a really unstable region, decide he will go himself capture a white walker instead of sending a few of the thousands of soldiers working for him. Nothing can ever be the same again after something so unbeliably stupid happen on sceen.
Season 8 well I don't even have to argue, I've never seen a single person who liked it.
@@Dext3rM0rg4n This is because season 5 is when the story starts diverging sharply from the books. They left out Lady Stoneheart and fAegon, butchered the Dorne and Northern conspiracy plots, ignored Bran's creepy fantasy plot and the Riverlands politicking, ruined Tyrion, Sansa, Littlefinger and Varys by taking away their stories (especially removing Tyrion villain arc) and so on. Stannis, Tyrion, Doran and Bran were especially done dirty.
The world expands so much after s4 creates a power vacuum, but GoT starts cutting out characters and storylines and turning smart characters stupid, even though they were under no pressure to wrap up the story. HBO would've happily funded many more seasons.
(So yeah, HIMYM finale bad but it's not half as close to the GoT quality drop-off.)
@@Dext3rM0rg4nI stopped watching halfway through season 3 when they started changing the story and making up dialogue. Yes I read all the books before the show was announced. I am the OG hater of that show. Fight me.
To me, that ending was the biggest slap in the face. The writing was so great and so convincing that making that kind of ending only felt like a cruel joke and an insulting decision. Like, I loved this show. It was my favorite for a long time, but because of how it ended I can't watch it again. Especially when you considered the premise is that the kids want to know how their dad met mom, but he's like nah lets just talk about your aunt Robin who I am in love with and can't stop obsessing over. Like, it just feels like he never loved their mom. It was always about Robin. And making Robin and Barney into such great characters that grew and strengthened each other only to split and revert back to their old ways was just cheap.
Agreed!
Maybe this show should’ve been called “How I Settled for Your Mother”
In the first episode of the series is ended by Ted saying: "And that is how I met... your Aunt Robin" just to the his kids suprise and they said "I thought it was about how I met mom".
I watched HIMYM just a month ago and I thought from around Season 3 that the mother was dead just because of how Ted was telling the story to his kids. When it got to Season 8/9 I was convinced Ted started telling the story where he did because Robin's wedding is where he met his children's wife.
The ending where Ted does get w/ Robin can be fixed easily by having the kids recognize how depressed Ted is over the passing of his wife even 6 years later and giving him the idea to go after Robin. Have it be a conclusion the kids lead Ted to because as per the original ending it was apparently Ted leading his kids to this conclusion and it doesn't feel right there would need to be 3-4 extra seasons to make that the right ending for the show narratively.
Core memory unlocked: I'll never forget my sister called me the second the HIMYM finale ended and yelled "What the f*** was that?"
Anyway, excited to watch this and be retraumatized in the best way possible
Haha, my cousin literally did the exact the thing, with that precise wording! She's still angry over the ending, a full decade later.
When my gf now wife saw the finale on Netflix (I had watched it live whereas she binged it on NF) we finished part one of the finale.
She looked at me with shock and horror on her face. To which I responded “and that’s just part one”.
I remember muttering “oh no” as the finale went down. It was a time 😂
I will always say, the problem wasn't with Tracy dying.
The show was never above making things sad, that's why I extremely prefer it over most sitcoms; and it would have been a very interesting character point for Ted: he needs to learn to live alone, without the one. Which, as we all know, is something he's struggled immensely with throughout the series, it would have concluded his character arc well; and there were hints to it, I would have been very happy with a finale that killed Tracy but didn't commit any of the other pitfalls I'm about to say.
The problem wasn't even with Barney and Robin breaking up. I'm not gonna say it was good, it felt like an extreme regression of Barney's character afterwards, not to mention the more meta sticking point of "the whole last season was about their wedding". But rewrite Barney's behaviour afterwards, have his daughter be with someone he knocked up before and he precisely fights to take responsability and be a parent once he finds out, trying not to be like his dad was to him; and I think it works. You could even have that be the reason Barney and Robin break up, Barney wants to be a parent now that he feels he has no choice, and Robin still doesn't. However, even if you don't make them breaking up about thatm Barney and Robin always had compatibility issues, and I can believe they would break up and it works in world, even if it's a bit of a spit in the face to the entirety of season 9.
The actual problem was that they did both of these things, so that Ted could end up with Robin. It shits on Ted's character development for most of the show but specially seasons 8 and 9, for starters. We know they aren't compatible with what they want and the finale doesn't help that just because Ted's kids are older, he still needs to raise them and Robin still doesn't want kids. And finally, it just doesn't leave anything but a sour taste in everyone's mouths because, while Tracy dying could have worked, while Barney and Robin breaking up could have worked, it forces these things into happening in a way that simply does not work.
On a side note, what is the trend with sitcoms and making finales very sad? I mean, come on, it's season 9, the only people that are watching are those that have been watching for years, why leave them with that lmao.
Amen to all of this! Tracy dying? I could get behind. Barney & Robin splitting? Also could get behind. Ted & Robin (and especially Robin) suddenly falling back in love after God knows how many years and multiple failed attempts of working? Absolutely not
Completely agree with this. I am okay with Tracy dying. I'm even okay with Ted looking for love after he grieved for his wife. That is very realistic and fit with the show's theme of everyone looking for love. It definitely fit with Ted's character who is always looking for the One. Just don't put him back together with Robin. They have both changed in the 15 years since they years, and it make more sense for Ted to go out to look for someone that is compatible with the him of the finale. Now, whether it would still be a good idea to break up Barney and Robin after spending a season on their wedding, I couldn't say.
@@juliag6126are you stupid? They kept emphasizing timing with Ted and Robin. I guess your dumbass missed that
My own mother passed a few months before this catastrophe of an ending. That, in addition to the character and plot assassination of the finale, absolutely CRUSHED me.
I wanted to have the ending explained to me as someone whos never seen an episode of this show and you really broke everything down for me!
I unfortunately, have to say that it is incredibly realistic that Barney would have returned to his shallow lifestyle again. If immediately after completely resolving your abandonment issues, the person who you believe would be the one exception to the rule ends up choosing her work over you and abandoning what should be your happily ever after, it just makes sense that you would believe that you are undeserving of your previous expectations and growth you've experienced. As a therapist in training, it's quite common for people to often revert back to their self-sabotaging defence mechanism when something like this happens. Although I would have liked to see it handled with better skill and nuance.
HIMYM was never about realism though. It makes absolutely no sense in the context of the show and the actual characters
yep, and that's the problem: it wasn't handled with skill and nuance, that's what makes it twice as awful.
"Realistic" is not synonymous with "good" or "earned".
@@GlennWolfschoon I agree and I hated that Barney reverted to his old ways. But if that had to happen, handling it with more nuance was the least they could've done.
I always thought their divorce made perfect sense specifically for the reasons cited. Robin's job was always going to take her away from Barney for long stretches of time. It's perfectly logical that this would wear on a serial womanizer with abandonment issues. And people always seem to forget that their relationship had already failed once before. They were not the perfect match that everyone wanted them to be.
Barney evolved a lot and learnt to love and be open and actually get married, but so did Robin. After Don Robin was back to "work first", no time for a love-life, but with Barney she took the risk. It's just terrible to see them finally working out the kinks and getting married (and loving them as a couple), to have it all ruined in a matter of minutes. Robin and Barney were such a great couple, because they were both unique characters that worked together so well. But the show goes ahead and rips that apart to fulfill Ted's ultimate fantasy :(
“The biggest stretch of time ever put on television…”
Hunter x Hunter fans: “let me tell you about the palace invasion.”
Shippuden's Fourth Shinobi World War as well.. it takes place over 2 days and 2 nights but the anime takes almost 200 episodes to cover it
@@linah1998
Jesus Christ, I barely even started Shippuden lol
One piece fan: WCI is a fucking afternoon
@@linah1998 After the Kaguya reveal, I just gave up and dropped the show. Like wtf was I even watching anymore
Goku vs Frezza on Namike is supposed to be 5 minutes
As someone who casually watched the first seasons on and off more then the later ones i guess thats why the ending made more sense to me. It kinda always felt like how it should end
I agree, I rewatched after 8 years and the final this time just make sense and is actually pretty good