Warning: this article contains spoilers.
After nine seasons of romance, friends, and tribulations, “How I Met Your Mother” met its series finale on March 31, an ending that divisively left fans either thrilled or devastated.
The final season showed the weekend of Barney and Robin’s wedding, anticipating the moment where Ted would meet the mother of his children. Although viewers met the mother at the end of the eighth season and learned more about her throughout the ninth, the moment that lays the foundation for the title of the show was as magical as Ted’s character foreshadowed it to be. They locked eyes at the reception, and after some encouragement from a stranger, Ted got the courage to talk to her at the Farhampton Train Station later that night. She invited him under the iconic yellow umbrella engraved with their shared initials, T.M. (Ted Mosby and Tracy McConnell). They realized their paths have crossed many times and fans reveled in the recognition Ted and Tracy share that all those moments were just leading to this big one.
Many fans wanted the show to end at this moment, but it didn’t, sparking rage throughout the Internet. The finale revealed that the mother died six years before Ted started telling his children the story of how he met her. When Ted reaches this climatic moment, his children encourage him to go after Aunt Robin, saying the story was always about her and barely had the mother in it. Ted goes to Robin’s apartment with the blue French horn he stole for her in season one, bringing the story full circle. Some have edited the episode on YouTube to cut this controversial final scene. Over 7,000 fans so far have petitioned to the producers Carter Bays and Craig Thomas to change the ending themselves.
While Bays has remained quiet during the controversy, Thomas has responded via Twitter with, “The fact that we have been a TV sitcom that has received this much passion from fans, for nine years (not just tonight)—thank you.” Three minutes later he responded, “We did a finale about life’s twists and turns and that is not always what happens…but THANKS!”
Before the finale aired, Bays revealed in an interview with Zap2it, “This is the ending we conceived when we conceived the show 10 years ago. It’s what we’ve been steadfastly writing towards ever since.”
Many fans have critiqued sticking to this conceived ending because of how much the characters on the show changed during the nine seasons. Ted and Robin had an immediate spark in the first season and then dated in the second. However, the final three seasons of the show focused on how Ted had to move on from Robin. She rejected Ted and loved Barney, and the producers dedicated the final season to her wedding with Ted’s best friend. While the creators of the show wanted to show the turns and twists of life, the execution of these plot points devastated fans. Bays and Thomas spent two seasons getting Barney and Robin back together, filled with montages depicting them as soul mates, and another season on their wedding. After taking seasons to grow that relationship, those characters’ divorce in the first 15 minutes of the finale after three years of marriage was emotionally abrupt. Robin’s career made their relationship difficult, and the plot was believable, but the timing made it seem like the entire last season was a waste. Then, in a confrontation with Lily over how distant Robin’s been with the group, she described Ted as, “the guy she probably should have ended up with.” The episode undermined the entire Barney and Robin connection.
Because of the divorce, Barney’s character regressed back to his womanizing and immature ways. The show dedicated four seasons to Barney’s emotional growth, and to backslide so quickly seemed to negate all of that development. Barney was at least redeemed with the birth of his daughter, Ellie. Although she was the result of a one night stand and Barney was devastated when he found out he was going to be a father, she turned out to be the love of his life in a beautiful moment that left fans pleased.
The most divisive part of the finale was the children’s reaction to the story. Bays and Thomas filmed the scene during season two, when the only thing holding Ted and Robin back was that they wanted different things out of life. Ted and Robin getting back together six years after the mother’s death made sense during the earlier seasons. They both got what they wanted out of life, and it didn’t have to diminish Ted’s love for the mother. But the show’s success led it to have nine seasons. Viewers got to fall in love with the mother during the final season, and that made killing her off cruel. After watching Ted get rejected by women for years, including Robin, it seemed like the children should have at least taken a moment to cherish how much their mom meant to their dad. Without missing a beat the focus went to Robin.
The show always dealt with loss, moving on, and finding different love, so the plot of the finale made sense and that’s why some fans are happy with what happened. What left others upset was the timing and execution of how everything happened. In their attempts to be creative, show the twists and turns of life, and make the plot come full circle, Bays and Thomas devalued the beauty of their story by throwing so much into one episode after taking years to build it all.
Jillian Heagerty is a student at West Chester University. She can be reached at JH760370@wcupa.edu