I’m just going to leave this here for tonight. I’ll be back to post once I clear the water from my eyes (where did that come from? who knows…but I’m expecting it) and observe a period of time to respect and take it all in.
Love to hear your thoughts as soon as it’s over (or even during).
At any rate, thanks for an extremely fun ride.
~aaron
HIMYM Music
- Heaven by The Walkmen (The End) on amazon
Before all the hateful comments start flowing in (seriously, the only comments I’ve been reading so far) I just have to say it was a good ending and here’s why. What the daughter says at the end is totally on point. The story wasn’t really about how he met the mother. It’s about how he’s totally in love with Robin. And really, the series has always been about Ted and Robin.
I am honestly shocked at how many people hated the finale. Reading those comments seriously makes me feel like 90% of the viewers watched it for the wrong reasons. There’s so much authenticity in that finale and it makes me wonder: Have those people not taken anything from the show? No eye-opening lessons at all? Especially Ted’s monologue about love in one of the last episodes.
Without saying too much before I post… I agree.
Beautiful and reasonable ending. Congratulations to the writers that the had the nuts to do it this way….
I agree with everyone who liked the finale. How I Met Your Mother was not about meeting the mother. It was about a group of friends, their experiences, and how they grew together through the experiences that they shared. It was a realistic portrayal of life, love and loss and shows that there can be more than one great love of a person’s life. The point of this show was the journey. That being said, I feel like Barney’s character developed a severe case of Revertigo after he and Robin divorced. He really grew as a person in season 9 and until the birth of his daughter, completely reverted back to the person he was before his marriage. Apart from that, I loved the finale. At the end of the day, the parts I cried at were:
1) When the gang was saying goodbye at the beginning of the episode
2) When Ted and Tracy actually met under the yellow umbrella
3) The end credits when the faces of each character (from season 1) flashed along with who played them
All in all, it was a story about friendship, and I loved it all nine seasons.
its brian and justin from qaf all over again. why do they do this to me?
On september 19 2005 a television legacy by the name of how i met your mother began and over a period of nine years the show got famous, gained a fan base, became popular overseas, people all over the world started loving it,it connected deeper and deeper to people with every episode it showed different colours of life and told to live life the best way you can cause every moment counts as all this you are facing is not for you but for your future. As the mother of your future children is there waiting and you have your friends out there.
The show’s plot was great and they gave it perfect built up for nine years and kept it’s fans with itself till the very last. But on 31 march 2014 they destroyed it all the plot, there perspective on life,the point of the whole show .
My comment may be removed because its negative but that’s what a lot of fans feel
It’s fine that you feel that way man. I wouldn’t remove your comment for that. I’d love to hear what part really upset you the most and if there were parts of it that you did like? — Sent from a not-so-smartphone. Anything written herein that you find misspelled, objectionable, incoherent, dim-witted, plagiarized or legally actionable should be attributed to the phone manufacturer, Chinese hackers, or PRISM.
Thnx man, great to know that. The parts which had the mother in them were great even though the story was told to ask the kids if they were ok with ted dating their aunt robin but for the rest of the episodes it was all about the mother. The show had more suspense(on how ted met the mother) than all the best thrillers combined. Everyone was glued to the and loved it at the same time It’s Just the ending which gives a little bit feeling the it was all for nothing.
My first thought after the episode ended was that I felt a strange mixture of loss and disappointment. The nine years that I had invested into this show was finally over and it didn’t go the way I hoped it would. But after thinking about it, I realized that I had no idea how I wanted the show to end and that for all the twisting paths and red herrings they set up, the ending actually makes sense and was beautifully done. I especially loved the ending when Ted talks to his kids and they convince him to call Robin, which is very surprising to me because I’ve always hated the Robin/Ted relationship. I think I accepted the fact that Robin and Barney would never work when she questioned her choices right before the wedding.
The chemistry that the Mother and Ted have is wonderful. I love the scene where they finally meet for the first time and banter over the umbrella. However, I feel like there should have been more scenes of the mother with the kids, especially when she dies. I know the point of the show wasn’t really about the mother, but about the journey of 5 friends and Ted’s love for Robin, but I still feel cheated out of a special moment – a thing which Lily made a huge deal about the entire episode, that everyone would be there for the big moments. That should have been one scene to put in there, everyone together at the Mother’s funeral, or telling the gang or the kids that the Mother is sick. Would Barney have actually suited up for his best friend? Or gone in sweats and a tee-shirt like at Mark’s funeral?
As for Barney. I wish that his character didn’t revert back to the womanizer after the divorce. It made the whole nine years of character development go down the drain and that was slightly heartbreaking to see – especially with the New Playbook. I agree with what Lily said, that a man in his 40’s having a playbook is just sad. It also seemed to me that the writers wanted to put that in the show again because of how well it worked in the series (a slight cop out for more laughs), but after Barney started to grow I was hoping that he wouldn’t need it anymore because of Robin. But then the divorce came, and I can understand why he would go back to old habits, but it was disheartening to watch. And a perfect month? Seems like the writers were just trying to build off old themes for lack of better ideas.
That being said, I really am disappointed with how open ended the show left off. Please correct me if I’m wrong, but there are a whole series of questions that the show left unanswered:
1. Did Lily and Marshall have another boy or girl?
2. How long were Marshall and Lily in Italy for?
3. What becomes of Chicago and Ted’s career?
And of course, the two biggest – What did the mother die from? and Who is the mother of Barney’s daughter?
Overall, I feel an odd mixture of loss, disappointment, and completion at the end of this series. It may not have been as awesome as some other show series finales, but the writers did it justice and told it beautifully. The thing to remember is that the story wasn’t really about the mother, but about the journey of 5 friends. Everything that happened from having illegitimate children, to divorce, to traveling for a job, to death of loved ones, to growing apart yet always being there for the each other in the big moments, all of these things happen in real life. Even meeting someone and then waiting for destiny to finally shove you together after over 20 years can happen too. The ups and downs that Ted and Robin went through to get to that 80’s RomCom cliche moment when Ted holds up the Blue French Horn outside her window years after he did it back in 2005, brought the show back full circle to when everyone thought that Ted and Robin would end up together, makes for the most LEGEN- wait-for-it -DARY ending!
I’m confused and i’m disappointed. I really wanted more from this finale, or maybe not more, just something different. I hoped to see them all grow old, the mother character was so nice and she fit in the group so much that i don’t understand why she had to die. Barney and Robin were a perfect match and they should’ve stayed thogether, maybe adopt a lil argentinian baby. The mother was perfect for Ted and they should’ve kept them together. The whole Ted and Robin thing…i stopped liking the idea of them after countless times Ted tried to be with her, in my opinion the writers shouldn’t drag Teds love for her along all seasons if they knew how they are going to end this, because for me, this ending was just like whatever.
Lily and Marshal, awesome as ever, i knew they wont disappoint me 🙂
Overall i love HIMYM, and always will, i just hope this would’ve ended differently.
I feel the writers pulled the rug out from under us. We go through 9 years to find out how he met the mother and she just ends up being a plot device for Ted to end up with Robin. They make us go through an entire season of Robin and Barney’s wedding only for it to fail and be divorced within 3 years. They knew the ending they wanted all along since the kids scenes were filmed years ago..but they didn’t bother to check with their fanbase who is sick to death over Ted/Robin. Ted deserved the mother and got 10 measly years with her, only for her to be disguarded (plotwise) so he can finally end up with Robin. It’s disengenuous to fans.
I was happy with the ending. Although Ted was in love with Robin for the longest, he always wanted kids…. something that was never going to happen with Robin because a.) she didn’t want kids and b.) she could never physically have them… leaving Ted with a void. So they both moved on to others and they both loved others completely, while still loving their friend in a non-romantic way.. When things went south between Robin and Barney (I had high hopes for them), she saw what she missed out on by not marrying Ted. I think this allowed her to be ready for Ted in all his Ted-ness. She remained silent because she loves him and is happy for his happiness with Tracy. Once Tracy passed away, I like that Ted waited a decent amount of time before acting on his first true-love Robin….with his kids blessing. I can see these imaginary friends being together for the rest of their days. Those are my two cents… loved it and watching it again on the CBS site.
You have got a good point. How i met your ending was not something which most of us expected it was just the way life is supposed to be unexpected. Ted planned happily ever after but that did not happen he lost the love of his life after 11 yrs of meeting her and went back to her previous love. We dont know how his rest of life will be, it will be happily ever after or not.
I really liked the finale. Not how I would have ended it but neither life nor the show ever went according to plan. The show was about accepting that and realizing you can find real happiness even when what you wanted to happen doesn’t. I wish Tracy hadn’t died but sometimes that happens in life. I’m happy that Ted was able to move on. Its good to know his story doesn’t end in 2030.
My only complaint is that we never learned what happened with Robin being a bullfighter.
It sucks because those two episodes totally undid the whole season (that whole wedding was a waste of time).
Don’t hate, appreciate. You’ll never get it if you never felt the same way Ted did with Robin. The finale wasn’t perfect, but it was genuine.
so why did you (or another mod) remove my comment then? It was a reply to shannonemily that wasnt hateful or bashing the show. Even showed an alternate ending.
It wasn’t removed… Just held for moderation since it had an attachment. It’s up now
I’m torn on the finale. On the one hand, it was interesting, moving, funny and obvious that this was how it HAD to end. It was right there in the pilot. It’s all about Ted and Robin. That said, we, as an audience, got over Ted and Robin a long time ago. It had gotten to the point that the idea of them ending up together or Ted continually falling back on the idea that he loves Robin was annoying. We wanted Robin and Barney to be together. It was all that mattered to a lot of people.
The problem is that in giving us the obvious ending, it completely throws all the personal growth of the characters under the bus. It resets the clock to season 2 and says the last 7 years didn’t matter.
So, it was actually an excellent finale, but I’m disappointed in the writing choices. I think they would have sold a lot more of the audience on it, if they’d set it up and executed it better. Too little time to do it well.
So honest question (not trying to be sarcastic at all I promise): to the people that say they loved the finale, or even just thought the finale was good, what about it made you like it?
Because I am trying here guys, I have thought it over and attempted to make excuses but I just don’t see how this finale honored the show. The final scene especially. It was filmed after season 2 and you can clearly tell. If the show ended after season 2 or even 3 or 4, I probably would not have had a problem with that finale. But from season 5 and on (or at the very least season 7 and on) the ending just does not work. It discounts 5 years of a show (and technically 20 years worth of a story).
I just really don’t understand it, and I am very disappointed because I have been following this show for a decade. All this build-up was leading to a fitting end and I am just SO LET DOWN.
So if you were not let down please tell me what I am missing so I too can enjoy the finale.
Until then RogerRogers I much prefer the ending you provided 🙂
I’ve been wanting to share my thoughts somewhere since I saw the finale, but not had time until now. So here I am! Hi, by the way – I used to try to comment on episodes a couple of seasons ago, but then real life got in the way. But the finale certainly deserves a return!
Summary of my feelings: overall I loved it, with a few things they could have done better.
I absolutely LOVED the ending, which I’ll come back to (at the end, funnily enough!). On first watching I really wasn’t sure how I felt about part 1, but really enjoyed part 2. On a rewatch, I realised my feelings about part 1 were marred by Robin/Barney’s divorce, and when I watched again I really enjoyed it.
Briefly, the things I thought weren’t so good, so I can go on to excitement about the rest! I didn’t like how quickly into the episode Barney/Robin divorced. I can believe that they wouldn’t last (although they could have also made me believe they would) but having had the whole season about their wedding, it felt a bit jarring to break them up 15 minutes in. Had the final episode been over maybe 4 episodes instead of 2, they could have done it in a more gradual way that would have felt more natural to me. The other big thing that didn’t feel quite right was Ted’s initial insistence on a big wedding, and how long it took them to get married – I always felt that Ted would be desperate to marry the woman he loved as soon as he found her, and it made a little sad that he didn’t. Also, in the 2015 flashforward in Trilogy Time he was wearing a wedding ring – and HIMYM is usually so good on continuity!
But onto the good…I like that they took us through the years, and let us see their lives play out, even if it wasn’t always how I imagined their future would be – but isn’t that what life’s like? The start with the Purple Giraffe tag-on was perfect. There were lots of callbacks, which I really enjoyed about it – Barney wanting to play “haaaaaave you met Ted?” with The Mother (loved the moment Ted first spotted her, by the way), major pleasure (*salute*, major pleasure), licking the Liberty Bell (“we did?!”), Barney having a guy for everything, exit ramps in a relationship (referencing back to S2), the cockamouse, hanging chad costume, Big Fudge (Judge Fudge ruling – loved it!), Robots vs Wrestlers (with The Mother, brilliant), Marshall paying Lily (I’ll come back to this), and much more that I’ve missed, I’m sure.
Comments on a few key moments:
– Ted meeting The Mother (and finding out her name) – this was just perfect. It felt understated, natural, and perfectly them. I loved it, it was everything I always wanted it to be. And the way we found out her name was just right, didn’t feel at all forced (as I was worried it might be, since everyone had been wondering). In general, Tracy kept up her trend of being sweet and hilarious throughout the episode.
– Barney meeting his daughter was wonderful, and emotional. NPH played it perfectly. And I liked that she was what finally changed him for good. I’ve seen complaints about Barney sliding backwards in character development, but we have always seen him react in this way to heartbreak. I was sad for him that he went back to it, but it didn’t feel unexpected. However I feel that now, with Ellie, there will be no more heartbreak and backslide, this is it for him. So pleased.
– Marshall paying Lily. I thought it was interesting that he didn’t pay her at Barney & Robin’s wedding, but did pay her when Ted & Tracy got married. I hear they filmed Lily paying him back, would really like to see this on DVD extras.
And so, to the end…the photo montage was beautiful, and sad when they confirmed the mother had died (although the warning shot in Vesuvius meant I had come to terms with this a bit.) And then Penny’s objection…I never, ever thought that Ted would end up with Robin. I’ve always enjoyed them as a couple, but understood why it hadn’t worked through the prior 8 years. Through the second half of the finale I started to get suspicious, but I still didn’t think they would go there. And when Penny said it was about Aunt Robin I was completely shocked. But it makes sense to me – I’ve always wondered why on earth he would start the story of meeting their Mother with his meeting of Robin. I think in many ways Ted and Robin are great for each other, but there were many reasons why in their 20s and 30s it just wouldn’t work. Ted took a long time to get over her, but I think he DID get over her in this final season, and was completely in love with Tracy. But it’s several years since they lost her now, and he’s just been telling the kids in great detail about his life leading up to meeting her – it’s only natural that he will remember back to all the wonderful, romantic things he did for Robin, and rekindle how he once felt about her. And now, later on in life, they’re in much better places to be together. The reasons for them not being together, particularly her career and his want for a family, are no longer an issue, and they can be happy together.
I really loved how they did the last scene, exactly like the scene in the pilot. It perfectly tied everything together. I never had any expectation that they would end it like this, I’m completely shocked that they did, but I loved it.
Sorry this was so long, I had too many thoughts to keep it concise…!
can U please just recap this PLEASE
What about the review? 🙁
I just came her to gloat a little bit! on this very site I was called an idiot by another HIMYM fan because I would not budge on the whole Ted and Robin forever theory. I wish I could find that post because wow, look at that ending!
I love this show and I will sort of miss it.. I say sort of because I will watch them to the point of madness on Netflix until I get the entire series on DVD! (those bts and blooper scenes, I gots to knowwww!)
Very dissapointing that there is no review for the final episode…
Still pissed when I think about this. Epic, epic fail. It’s as though the writers hired a couple of people who’d never seen, nor cared about, the show to write the ending. I am now embarrassed to have ever called myself a fan. Thanks a lot.
Hi Arrron – I hope you get around to posting your article about the finale soon. I keep periodically checking back – I’m keen to hear what you thought. Sarah
*Aaron, not sure what happened to my typing there! 🙂
why noboby is talking about the alternate end on the dvd?
I loved your reviews, but it is so unsatisfactory that for this last (two) episode(s) there is none! Please have a look, take some time and write….:)
I guess the people running this website thought the finale sucked donkeyballs too.
So I just finished re-watching the entire series. When you do this, knowing how it’s all going to end, paying attention to all the little details that hint at the ending, the finale makes a lot more sense. Take S07E11&12, for instance. Where Ted and Barney come up with the glorious plan to adopt a baby. For Ted, this is clearly just a matter of acting crazy as he is temporarily not doing so well. In the end he realizes he has to wait for “the real thing”, finding the One, falling in love and having kids of his own with her. Barney however is quite serious about the whole thing. He never pictured himself ending up in a happy, enduring monogamous relationship, but he did picture himself being a dad at some point. Just as Loretta should later say: “But you’ve always wanted kids!” That’s never gonna happen with Robin, as we find out in the very next episode. And as Robin goes through her big personal tragedy, who ends up consoling her? Ted, of course.
I think the problem with the final episode, that makes it difficult to digest when you watch it for the first time, is that it seems so rushed. It’s 17 years in one episode, after all. We see all these glimpses into the future stacked together, but we’re missing out on all the character development that has to happen in between. It was a huge challenge for the writers. Carter&Bays said in the DVD audio commentary that “How your mother met me” was something like their test run, that would show if they could cramp that many years into one episode. And since that worked out so well, they decided to do it again in the finale. There are just two issues with that: First of all, even in “HYMMM” the time was hardly enough for the whole story line. There’s a great breakup scene with Tracy and Louis (Lewis? you know who I mean), it’s on the DVD extras but was cut from the actual episode. Great acting from both of them, especially Cristin Milioti (as always). Unlike other deleted scenes, it is a key scene that really should have been in the episode. It makes clear that despite turning down his proposal, she has in fact moved on from the ghost of Max. But now that she is ready to find the love of her life once again, she has realized she needs to hold out for that special person that loves her robot paintings and her singing breakfast, just like Ted has to hold out for his shellfish lady. Anyway, it didn’t fit in the time budget of the episode, and that was only 8 years. Now they tried to double that. Granted, the finale was a double episode, but we spend a lot of the time at the wedding and the train station, so there are maybe just about 30 minutes to deal with the 17 years into the future part.
The other, more important issue is the big difference to “How your mother met me”: In that episode, we always had a reference frame for the time. The indicated year is just a number, after all. More important is that we can relate every scene to the timeline of the HIMYM universe. We start out in 2005, that’s season 1, we all remember that. Then the St. Patrick’s Day party, that was season 3, so we instinctively know a lot of time has passed. Next thing we know, we are in the classroom that Ted mistook for the location of his architecture class. That’s another two years, and as we know, a lot of life changing events happened in Ted’s life in between these two scenes. Then the “Save the Arcadian” flyers, and so on.
Just imagine they had done an episode like that about what happened to the gang in these eight years. First scene, they all meet Robin, Ted falls in love with her. Next scene, Ted had dated Robin but is now enjoying his single life, getting very drunk at a St. Patrick’s Day party. In the scene after that, he’s the architecture professor. Who got left at the altar. By some girl named Stella we didn’t even know in the previous scene. Oh, and by the way, Robin is dating Barney now. Crazy, right? Compared to that, there isn’t really that much going in the 17 years after the Barney&Robin wedding. But we have no feeling for the timeline in the finale, at least when we watch it for the first time. Watch it repeatedly, and once you’ve got your head around the dimensions of the timeline, you can’t really say that what happens from 2013 to 2030 was unrealistic or untrue to the story. At least if you’ve not only accepted, but actually loved that emotional rollercoaster that was 2005-2013 in the HIMYM universe, as I think most of us did. Ted did not run back to Robin the moment Tracy died. It was SIX YEARS. Even Judy Eriksen got back out there after only two years, and nobody complained. Because to the viewer it actually felt like two years and not like two minutes. And then it’s Ted we’re talking about. I mean, there’s a chance he got engaged and left at the altar in between those six years by yet another girl we haven’t even heard about…
I think what I’m trying to say is: The more often I watch the finale, the more I like it. And it makes sense, too. Yes, at first it was hard to see Barney regressing and hit on slutty cops a minute after the divorce. But then again, that minute was like eight months in the story line, and you can’t expect Barney to stay celibate for that period. He had a point there, you have to let Barney be Barney. You could say that the final episode was when Barney unlearned that lesson he once taught Marshall. You can only change your entire personality for so long, but at some point you have to accept the unique little snowflake that you are. Plus, did you catch the inscription on the new playbook? The Playbook II – Electric Bang-a-loo. That bad sequel joke never gets old!
Vowing to always be completely honest, that was changing his personality. Especially after he had made such a strong case about lies and deception being a part of him in “Weekend at Barney’s”. If that was the price for making the marriage with Robin work, then it just couldn’t last forever. As much as we’ve all loved Barney and Robin as a couple.
Ted for sure also unlearned his lesson. About letting go the things you love, about “the One”, about Lebenslangerschicksalsschatz. Especially that last part. Life has it’s twists and turns, and in the end there may be more than one “the One”. That does not mean Tracy was in any way exchangeable. Maybe Ted mourning her death should have been a bigger part in the finale, but in my opinion that wouldn’t fit the uplifting ending. And it is certainly nothing you would rub in your children’s faces while telling the story, when they too may have just gotten over it and were finally ready to move on. If you really want to see it, just rewatch “The Time-Travellers” knowing what you now know. I cried waterfalls.
As for Ted and Robin: The chemistry has always been there, but timing was a bitch right until the end. When they were dating in season 2, i think we all liked them together. They were just too young and had too different plans about their lives. Ted as a single dad, finally ready to move on, Robin single, settled and with all her career goals achieved – if you look at the whole story, the ending totally makes sense.
So I’d like to conclude this rather long post (sorry for that!) with what I found in my rewatching-the-entire-series-experience to be the greatest bit of foreshadowing in the whole series: “Robin Scherbatsky, will you be my backup-wife?”
I just finished re-watching this past summer and I feel so much the same way.
I’m still heartbroken over Tracy dying. I’m Ted. I’m still waiting for the one. I’m even in the same age range. I don’t own any red cowboy boats though… 🙂 Anyway, I was so routing for him and the journey he was on. I think it’s crap she died. (And that he waited 5 years to marry her. I don’t buy that he would have done that. Nope.) And didn’t have time to mourn her. I wish they had taken 4 episodes for the finale, and at least give us a little time to grieve. But, I see the poetry of the series now, the whole of it. It is still, dare I say? my very favorite show that has ever been on television. And I’m not a person who picks favorites.