So, last night was the How I Met Your Mother 1h finale. Never in my life I was so glad that I don’t get to watch these shows live, but have time to read the spoilers first (yes, I like spoilers!). Why? Because the only way I can deal with the disappointment I feel at this exact moments, when I just finished watching The Last Forever, is that I had a whole 14 hours to come to grip with the outcome of the episode.
HIMYM, one of my favorite shows ever, one of the few I watched right away, it was just that good! And now? All I can think right now is that I will never be able to watch it again (getting to a point where I could actually watch the finale was hard enough!), I will never be able to pick a random episode and watch it with joy, because I know how the creators ended up butchering these beloved characters…
So this is what the finale brought us:
– Robin and Barney are unhappy because of all her travelling, and she gives him an out of the marriage at the 3 years mark. He takes it. They get divorced. So, the Robin that put Don in front of her job once, isn’t able to put her love life in first place… again… we are back in 2006! After this, she strays away from the gang and misses a lot of important moments in their lives – she’s a crappy friend to Lily and where’s the person who couldn’t stand her job in Japan because she was away from them?
– Why did we just spend 1 whole season in a wedding that lasted a less than 10 minutes?
– Barney goes to his old ways, even making the Playbook II and manages a perfect month, 31st gets pregnant, he gets a daughter = he changes his ways! So, the Barney that has been evolving since season 3 and that is able to love and not cheat and actually be happy is no more… again… we are back to 2008 with Barney, who, by the way, was the character with the most development in the series…
– Lily and Marshall get baby number 3! So Lily, who was so overwhelmed a couple of seasons ago with one kid, now has 3, there is no mention of her job or any career… so, are we to assume that she’s a stay at home mom, which she never wanted to?
– Marshall eventually becomes a judge and runs for the supreme court (which we know he gets), but, why on Earth did he had to endure a job in corporate that he didn’t like for so long?
– Ted eventually marries Tracy – what took them so long? – and she eventually dies (of very unknown reasons!). He finishes telling the story and the kids tell him how the story was all about how he has the hots for Aunt Robin and how he should go and get her… so he grabs the Blue French Horn and goes to her place, where she is miserable with her dogs… waiting for him, essentially… and we are back at the Pilot!
So, I don’t really mind that the mother dies, I liked her, but life isn’t fair and stuff happens, it’s not that implausible. I do mind that Carter Bays and Craig Thomas ignored completely the character development that happened for the last 9 years and stuck to the finale they imagined in the first season. If this episode had aired at the end of season 2, heck, even at the end of season 3, it wouldn’t be that bad… it would kind of be OK that Ted and Robin got together, and that a child changed Barney and that Lily never got her dream job but got 3 kids…
But it has been 9 years, the characters changed, they grew! It has been 7 years of Ted chasing Robin and being clear that they do not work! 5 years of a chemistry between Barney and Robin and such a growth for both of them as people, that I really thought couldn’t be ignored! A whole couple of seasons dedicated to the importance of Lily’s professional accomplishments, to have them thrown out of the window. And 9 years of us rooting for the Mother, the proverbial ONE, meeting her, falling for her, because she was just right for him, and have that all crushed when we see that even after 25 years he’s still pining for Robin!
So this is how you destroy almost a decade of television and the show should actually be called: “How I got my kids permission to bang Aunt Robin”!
Here is a good post about this episode on Tumblr:
I honestly feel sad, disappointed, betrayed… Here’s a lesson kids: don’t get emotional attached to something that someone else creates, because they can crush you with a blink of an eye!
Kudos to Mrs Alyson Hannigan for giving me the only couple of teary moments of this episode, because lady, when you cry, I cry with you! And to Mr Neil Patrick Harris who totally rocked on the Ellie scene!
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