Was hoping for a couple real life allusions, 1 didn’t happen, the other NEEDS to happen:
At the wedding, the priest asks,“Does anybody object to this union?” A male voice calls out “I do”, pan over to either Scooter or Steak Sauce Guy.
On Weekend Update, Jebidiah Atkinson trashes the finale.
I don’t know. Given the context of the narrative, I feel like the ending was extremely appropriate and made complete sense.
Was I moved? Of course. Did I tear up a bit? Sadly, yes. But, it made sense. The only thing that really threw me was that it took 5 years for Ted Mosby to get married.
So the Mother turned out to be the biggest McGuffin in television history. Personally, I always wanted Ted to wind up with Robin so that’s fine with me. The whole season was well done, the care that the writers took in tying up all the loose ends was pretty impressive.
I’ve got mixed feelings. On one hand, what Drewtwo99 said a few posts back is dead-on correct: it does feel like real life where you can’t predict where life will take you. But on the other hand, it feels like the writers were trying to have it both ways–with Tracy and with Robin. I wouldn’t have minded Tracy dying but…the whole point of the show was Ted growing and changing. And we ended right back where we started so the growth seems like nothing happened.
I don’t know…
Well, one can’t say that they didn’t try to keep dropping hints during the series that Ted and Robin would become an item at some point. The final episode was actually done pretty interestingly, as we jumped year by year into the future and while there were some funny bits, it was mostly about the characters. I liked it, even though it ends with Ted asking out Robin, but didn’t love it.
Also, for those saying the Mother wasn’t important, I think the point was we can’t tell what will happen in life and we can’t just pine over “The One” - there may be more than one person who fits that designation.
Yeah, that was bizarre. Mr. Lovey-Dovey-Romantic Himself takes 5 years to get around to planning a wedding? Riiight.
Actually, David Henrie did “Wizards of Waverly Place” just 2 years after HIMYM started. He was already considerably older, so the scenes we saw tonight had to have been filmed in 2005.
I actually liked that Lyndsy Fonseca had recorded so many lines quite a few years ago for this episode when she and David Henrie were much younger looking. The People Magazine Article has a nice interview about this.
Just so ya know, WGBH, a sister co of the Boston network, captions that show among many others with CBS. They NEVER get the final audio when it’s captioned, so three hours before it’s aired, it’s being capped in Burbank, and the final audio is being remixed in NYC.
(end hijack) 
So, after a second watching, I have to say that the show’s run (in its entirety) makes much more sense than for which I initially gave it credit.
A running joke is that the show should be called “How I Met Your Aunt Robin, Was Dumped By Her, And Eventually Settled For Your Mother”, and yeah, there is a very strong argument for that stance. IMHO, the finale put the whole thing in perspective.
The way I see it (and I can easily be wrong), Future Ted told the entire story to get permission from his kids to pursue a relationship with Robin. The series wasn’t just about the epic love story / saga of Ted meeting Tracy; it was about letting the kids know that, while he does (and will always love her), the “Universe” works in mysterious ways. As torn as I was, initially, at the finale, I think it stands true to the characters, and theme, of the show.
Honestly, in my opinion, the narrative wouldn’t have made much more sense with any other ending but this. If the mother was going to survive, why would Ted spend so much time talking about all these other periphery characters (including [and especially] Ted’s list of women w/ whom Barney and he had slept)? This was a story that was about him wanting to court their “Aunt Robin” cloaked in the guise of a long build-up of him meeting their mother.
I’m not saying that, ten years from now, I think that Ted and Robin will be together, but from what we were provided in this final season, I don’t think the final scene is nearly as far of a leap as others might make it out to be.
What the hell then…was the point of the Robin Barney wedding.
You can ignore this paragraph. I’m putting extra words in here for those outside the US who don’t want to stumble across spoilers in the preview text to this thread which is available without hovering in Tapatalk and might show up where they least expect it… that should be enough words.
Robin had to marry someone to free Ted to fall for someone else so he could have the children he wanted to have, and so Robin could follow her career around the world. Robin’s failed marriage (and Ted’s wife’s terminal illness) allowed them both to get the things they most wanted out of life, but still end up together in the end.
I think we should fundraise so we can hire someone to punch the nose of the person who cooked up the idea to set the entire series over the weekend of the wedding. Excruciating. Also, for the rhyming episode and the oriental stereotype episode. This season was an ordeal to get through, but the ending wasn’t too bad.
What made the ending unsatisfying for me was that Cristin Milioti was so good as the mother that she redeemed Ted for being so pathetic for so much of the series. I had always said that they had to find someone amazing to play the mother because they needed us to fall in love with her immediately or there would be no reason to care about her and Ted. They succeeded. But she was so good that killing her off to have Ted be with Robin feels forced. The mother was so much better for Ted than Robin was. I know they planned it long ago, but they should have changed the ending when they saw how good the mother was.
The ending made the whole Barney/Robin relationship even more contrived. And the Barney character described by unreliable narrator Ted prob was exaggerated to make Barney seem worse, if you see what I mean. Viewers never got to know the Barney that Robin wanted to marry because narrator Ted wouldn’t tell about him.
Anyway in the end it was all about Ted & Robin, and dear heavens I’d thought that was over. Bad
Agreed. I found the ending satisfying - we see enough of Ted and Tracy to see that they were very happy together (and to agree with Ted that more time with Tracy would have been a very good thing). But Ted’s story has always been about how life is full of very good and very bad moments, and we had been given clues throughout the series that indicated that the mother wasn’t around any more, so the mother’s death didn’t come out of nowhere. And I agree with the kids - after 6 years, there’s no disrespect being shown to Tracy by Ted renewing a romantic relationship with Robin.
No, that was exactly why he was telling the story (which I think he described as “succinct”).
And while Barney and Robin’s breakup was sad, it was sadder to see Barney continue his playboy ways far too long.
I thought it was pretty good for what it was. I wouldn’t have liked it introducing new questions about the show. The fate of the mother was out for a while already. This last season was tedious, I think they took a script for a two part finale and turned it into a whole season. This show had a better pace and closed it all out without adding a lot of fireworks.
Incidentally, I am impressed at both the cynicism and brilliance of CBS in sticking the pilot of Friends With Better Lives immediately after the HIMYM finale. “Yeah, so that’s over. And now you’re too old to watch a similar show, because it’s been on for 9 years. Anyway, why don’t you watch this show about thirtysomethings instead?”
They just about took the last 4 seasons worth of character growth for Barney and threw it out.
One last comment. I really do think the Barney character was given short shrift. Many in the audience cared about all the characters, including, Barney - not just Ted and Robin. It made no sense for Barney & Robin to not discuss her travel before their marriage; it made no sense for Barney to suddenly forget birth control. Worse, we never know what happened to the kid’s mother, how Barney is involved, Robin’s reaction, etc. Ted must have secretly hated Barney to tell his story like that. Awful best man.