And Lily.

For old times sake

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I ended up watching this and finally the end of Dexter in the same night.

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WHY would you do this? Have some respect for yourself, sir!

I hated it. It was worse than Dexter.

If anyone was going to die, it should have been Lily.

I pretty much agree with all the negative comments I read here.

This seemed very similar to that movie Definitely, Maybe. Ryan Reynolds tells his daughter some contrived story about his life and how he met his mother and at the end he and the mother get divorced all the while talking about another girl played by Isla Fisher. And at the end the daughter encourages him to go seek his true love Isla after she gives him the 'okay.' Very similar premise except the mother doesnt die they just get divorced.

Until it wasn't, I was hoping the girl Barney knocked up turned out to be Robin (somehow). After that, I had nothing to redeem the BDF of a finale.

I was hoping to see bob sagot.

I think what bugs me the most about this is pretty much what the daughter says....

This show was never about the mother...it was a love story about him and Robin. Which is fine..but that makes pretty much the entire premise of the show a lie.

Lily goes on about how something is different with the mother when Ted talks to her. She's the "Love of his life," yet Ted who tells people he loves them after 1 date, waits 5 years and 2 kids to marry her? The Ted who is supposed to be the hopeless romantic waited 5 years?

Then after she dies at the end of a 1 minute life montage, it's back to Robin?

That's the end of my rant.

I think they tried to show that robin had settled down in New York by showing her with the pack of dogs.

Meaning she couldn't leave them to go on assignment across the world.

But this one sucked.

I'm hoping they come on during NCIS tonight and yell "April Fools...the real final is next week".

After seeing what they did in last nights crapfest...I agree with an earlier poster about Barney being the dad on How I Met Your Dad.

I enjoyed it and they had this planned from the beginning.

That was terrible. Really sad to see them just throw away a character they have built up for nine years. As soon as it was over, I turned to the wife and said "Why wasnt this show named How Much I Want to Bang Your Aunt Robin?"

I really can't see Ted as the type to have 2 kids with no marriage, and I couldnt see that from the mother either. Completely dumb decision to make them wait for that. Also, they should have at least shown Ted mourning. Instead, we get 14 seconds of Ted saying how much he loved her until she died, but that he really wanted Aunt Robin all along? That makes no sense and doesn't fit with his character. It is almost as if they filmed these scenes with the kids 7 years ago and didnt film any backup scenes in case they changed their minds. Its a "Well, we filmed the kids, so we are stuck with this ending" type of feeling when the whole tone of the show has changed since then.

The real question is how did they get those two kids to keep their traps shut this whole time?

Also to answer this question from the previous page:

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How did they resolve the whole thing with Ted having the voice of Bob Saget when he gets old? For the last episode did he turn into Bob Saget? What was the deal with that?

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I noticed last night they had changed Bob Saget's voice and it was actually Josh Radner doing the talking. First time I had noticed it the whole series. I never thought about how their voices were similar, or perhaps he was doing his best Saget impression, but we were more than 3/4 through the episode when we finally realized it.

It was a good finale up until the last 5 minutes. ugh!

Robin/Barney getting divorced pissed me off a bit but I was willing to go with it for the scene with Barney and his daughter.

But yeah, the last 5 minutes totally felt like taking a sheet on the mother. No!! And Ted and the mom not getting married until after two kids seemed really stupid and un-Ted like.

Still loved the series but they should have faded to black after the umbrella scene.

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That a great and all but they should have named it differently if that was the whole point.

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Maybe they are implying the Robin IS their mother. Their biological mom died when they were young. Maybe here is where Robin becomes a huge part in their lives?!?!??

I know the creators had this in mind all along, but if so I think there most horrible error was in the pacing of the last season. They set themselves up for the backlash.

They should have made the wedding weekend the first half of the season, then revealed the mothers illness, then taken us on the journey of the post wedding weekend, allowing us time to take it all in. Instead they packed more than a decade into 40 minutes and we got ZERO time to process any of it, much less mourn the mom, who we waited to meet for 8 years. And then we are expected to be ok with Ted moving on because it's been 6 years in his life, when it's only been 60 seconds of screen time? Show me don't tell me! A screenwriting principle!!! Make me feel like it's been 6 years and he is ready to move on, don't tell me it's be 6 years and expect me to feel like it's ok!!

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That was terrible. Really sad to see them just throw away a character they have built up for nine years.

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They hadn't been building her up for 9 years.... They built up the mother for a year, and had basically told us she was dead before we even met her.

Everything was about Robin since Ted saw her across the bar. If they had thrown her away that would've been a bad way to end it.

Man, didn't expect the backlash to be THIS bad.

I do agree with everyone saying they shouldn't have just glossed over the death of the mother, but if they had killed her earlier in the season, everyone would've seen the end game a mile away.

I think the best approach would've been to have them meet in the beginning of the finale, then a few dates in, she tells him she has some disease that will eventually kill her, and Ted says he doesn't care.

Then start with the flashforwards, and near the end, show us a funeral scene with Ted mourning, and everyone there to comfort him.

THEN move on to Ted and Robin. In the end it wouldn't have made that much difference to most people, but I do think the death of the mother deserved a little more (ANY!) screen time. They did spend an entire season building up how perfect they were for each other, after all.

Overall, I'm torn. I loved all the flashforward stuff, enjoyed how they wrapped everything up, and even liked that Ted and Robin finally get together. But they did such a good job making us like the mother, that I feel bad about her death being just a footnote in the series.

I think they had to make the mother being dead be a passing story. Otherwise the end of a primarily happy show ends sadly.

agree 100% with Spilner

Good post Spilner

Anyone else notice that Lilly seemed to slip Marshal some money or something in the bar on Ted's wedding day? Right before Marshal turned to the people in the booth behind them. I guess that was the pay off of their bet about who Ted ends up with. Didn't see anyone else mention it. Could have been cool to see them Marshal give it back after Ted gets back with Robin.

It really makes the end scene in the episode "the time travelers" a lot sadder. Cause he told the mother he would meet her in 45 days but he came now cause he wants those extra 45 days, even an extra 45 seconds before her boyfriend shows up. At the same time though that last bit with Robin kinda invalidates that bit. I'm just mad that they went this direction. The mother was someone that was always meant for Ted and someone that he wouldn't be able to move past, at least that's what I thought of the Ted they were portraying. But those last 5 minutes completely invalidate the show for me. BOOOO

Good point about the Time Travelers episode

I guess they could have gone this route with Ted and Robin.




Overall, the writers put themselves in a tough spot. If he ended up with the mother happily ever after, why focus so much on Robin during the story? If he ended up with Robin, why orient the entire story on how I met your mother?

I never took the perspective of it being Ted talking to his kids that seriously. To me, the narration was just an interesting device to allow for flash forwards and some funny jokes about "eating sandwiches". I just looked at the show as Ted's life during this time before he met his future wife. The raunchy stories and the focusing on Robin never bothered me and wouldn't have bothered me after the series ended. If you're focused on the perspective of the story and a widower telling his kids he's about to move on, I understand the direction they went with it, but I think the writers took that perspective too seriously and we ended up with the millionth iteration of Ted and Robin getting together.

There's my over analysis for the morning.

[This message has been edited by FREEDOM AINT FREE (edited 4/1/2014 9:07a).]

Here is why I liked the finale (gasp!). It showed the characters experiencing real life.

Marshall had to sacrifice the job he really wanted for the woman he loved. Did he roll over? Yes. Can Lily be a *****? Yes. But not all marriages are composed of two people sacrificing evenly, and that does not mean they can't be happy marriages.

Robin and Barney found out that love alone is not enough. They loved each other, but the real world kicked them in the ass and they ended up divorced. The reality is that people (a whole lot of them, actually) get divorced. I don't know why people complain that Barney reverts to his old norm - he never left it. Robin never changed Barney - as she mentions herself, even his proposal was built on lies. They do "bro" stuff together, he still acts like an immature adolescent while they're together, the fact that he does this once they're divorced just goes on to show that while they had feelings for one another, they weren't a couple that would make the distance. Barney's ending was perfect. Only one girl could change his life, and that was his baby daughter's.

Ted finally found a woman that fell as hard and as fast in love as he did. It was the perfect match. She loved the same corny jokes and old timey things that he did. She collected stamps. But Ted found that even the perfect match can't last forever. She got sick, and died. Tragedies happen. It explains why the mother was never present in any of the flash-forward episodes that showed the gang as old people. Those that are mad about the mom "lying" - get over it. It's not the first time and it won't be the last that someone involved with a show or movie has lied to protect the twist ending.

In the end, the show comes perfectly full circle, with Ted on Robin's doorstep with the blue french horn. People complain that the story is all about Ted and Robin, but when this is resolved by showing that Ted is asking for his kids permission, everyone complains about what otherwise is a major plothole. Ted's love for Robin does not cheapen his love for the Mother. Just as Ted loved stella, and was going to marry her, and live the rest of his life with her, he was doing the same with the Mother. Robin would have never entered the picture again had the mother not passed. But once she did, was he supposed to live the rest of his life in mourning?

Was it the perfect ending? No. But there was never going to be a perfect ending, especially for the vast majority of people who have been complaining nonstop for the past 3 seasons. After time passes and the knee-jerk reactions and internet circle-jerking die off, I think the finale will be viewed for what it was - a respectable ending to a respectable show.

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How, I wondered, could the same two men who wrote that great scene where Barney met his daughter for the first time be so tin-eared in this other area? How could the same writers who absolutely, 100% nailed the moment when Ted and Tracy finally meet on the train platform not realize that they had already undermined it by spending so much of the finale on the dissolution of Robin's marriage and her leftover feelings for Ted? How could they not see the happy, satisfying ending that was staring them right in the face, and instead do... this?

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http://www.hitfix.com/whats-alan-watching/series-finale-review-how-i-met-your-mother-last-forever-how-they-conned-us-all/1

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They hadn't been building her up for 9 years.... They built up the mother for a year, and had basically told us she was dead before we even met her.

Everything was about Robin since Ted saw her across the bar. If they had thrown her away that would've been a bad way to end it.

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That isn't true at all.

Pretty much everything in the series has been a build up to Ted meeting the mother.

- The yellow umbrella
- Getting the job offer from Stella's husband
- Dating Rachel Bilson
- Going to the matchmaker in NYC
- Moving to Chicago

How many hints were dropped through 9 years of something that Ted did (or didn't do) that helped him along the path of meeting the mother.

I mean, at the end of the day he never had to get married, he never had to have kids, all he had to do was wait until Robin divorced Barney and then date her. The entirety of the show was pointless in its story.

Not to mention, him waiting 5 years to get married still makes absolutely no sense. Along with Barney reverting back to being Barney. The ending felt forced and contrived after everything they did this season to tie up loose ends.

Why have Ted come to the realization that he didn't love Robin just to have him wait around to go back to Robin?

At the end of the day, there was no need to even have a "mother" character. She was a macguffin. A throw away. The writers did a disservice to themselves.

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Was it the perfect ending? No. But there was never going to be a perfect ending, especially for the vast majority of people who have been complaining nonstop for the past 3 seasons.

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Disagree with this. The "perfect ending" would have been Ted meeting the Mother on the train platform...

the end

Someone posted it earlier, but I too thought that Barney's #31 was going to be Robin.

All in all, I'm not super satisfied by the ending, but I thought it was good. Kampfers review above was the best review I've read on it so far.

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- Going to the matchmaker in NYC

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I remember this episode, but what was the connection to the Mother regarding this? Was there another "just-missed" opportunity?

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Ted's love for Robin does not cheapen his love for the Mother.

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It's the only plausible explanation for why he waited 5 years and TWO KIDS to marry her- bc he still had feelings for Robin. So for me, it was cheapened.

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The "perfect ending" would have been Ted meeting the Mother on the train platform...

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This is what I think too. I think the only reason not to be satisfied by this ending is that Ted focused so much on Robin throughout the series. That would not have bothered me for a second.

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Pretty much everything in the series has been a build up to Ted meeting the mother.

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Not near as much as was put into him and Robin. If you don't think the ending fit, you were ignoring what they had been putting right in front of your face for 9 years.

You mean other than Ted eltting Robin go and watching her float off into the sunset...

literally...

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I remember this episode, but what was the connection to the Mother regarding this? Was there another "just-missed" opportunity?

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If I recall correctly, there was only 1 woman in all of NYC that was a perfect match for him and he wasn't ready to meet her. It wasn't Robin and, to me, shows how he was still looking for his true love...

which still wasn't robin.

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How many hints were dropped through 9 years of something that Ted did (or didn't do) that helped him along the path of meeting the mother.

I mean, at the end of the day he never had to get married, he never had to have kids, all he had to do was wait until Robin divorced Barney and then date her. The entirety of the show was pointless in its story.

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You nailed it. Pretty much all of the little things from all the seasons of the show were flushed down the toilet with this finale. Like you said, it didn't even matter that he met the mother. Robin was who he wanted the entire time.

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After time passes and the knee-jerk reactions and internet circle-jerking die off, I think the finale will be viewed for what it was - a respectable ending to a respectable show.

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Maybe...

But I don't see how I will be able to go back and watch a show where nothign that happened on it actually progressed the story, at all.

Telling a story about meeting the love of your life, is worth watching.

Telling a story about meeting a woman that gave you kids while you really wanted to be with your ex-girlfriend that rejected you multiple times, is not worth watching.