How i Met your Mother

[SerScot]

Anybody watch the finale?

What did you think?

[Cail]

I liked it. I've been watching since the beginning, and I thought it was a fitting end.

[SerScot]

Cail,

I thought they made a mistake in not showing Ted's grief and the gang rallying to him when Tracy died. Much of the final episode was about "being there" for the big moments. What was bigger for Ted than losing the woman he'd been chasing for so very long.

It seems to diminish Tracy's importance as the titular "Mother".

[SerScot]

I have to say, though I really don't have a problem with Tracy having died, I think this ending is better:

gawker.com/someone-fixed-the-awful-ending-of-how-i-met-your-mother-1556841304

[sgt.null]

the alternate ending has been taken down.

[Cail]

I have to say, though I really don't have a problem with Tracy having died, I think this ending is better:

gawker.com/someone-fixed-the-awful-ending-of-how-i-met-your-mother-1556841304

Meh, I don't see that as a "fix".

The entire run of the series focused on the relationship between the 5 leads, with not much more than lip service paid to Ted's quest. Everything about Ted and Robin getting together makes perfect sense given the 9 years of history we've seen. Because let's face it, the Mother was really nothing more than a MacGuffin all along. The show was never about her, and even after we met her in the final season, she was still given next to no screen time. We had no investment in her whatsoever, other than the false excitement generated by the show's title and a bit of the narration.

The show was always about Ted and Robin getting together, and the "aunt Robin" at the end of the pilot episode was a massive red herring. It actually speaks volumes for the writers that they kept true to their vision.

My only gripe is that there was no screen time given to Ted (or the group) mourning Tracy's death. That seemed a little off given how well the train platform scene and Barney & the Baby were pulled off.

[SerScot]

Cail,

I agree. It reduced Tracy's character, who was played so well by Christi Miloti and who had wonderful chemistry with Josh Radnor, to a footnote. That bothered me.

[Cagliostro]

I think intellectually, it worked. I think emotionally, it kinda sucked. Probably because they generally seemed to nail the season finales. But I've found shows that tend to have great season finales have difficult series finales to love. I agree with Cail that it makes sense, and that people often don't learn the lessons they should learn. I personally think it would be a mistake for Ted to get together with Robin, as they don't really work. Just like it seemed wrong with Robin was marrying Barney. I never got why we should expect that to work, and I was at least relieved to see that it didn't, even though I really liked the change Barney went through as a character leading up to that. The ending definitely grounded it in reality, but the emotional story-loving side of me was a bit disappointed. And it does feel like a bit of a cheat to have a show called How I Met Your Mother have the mother be a side note rather than the point of the story, especially since they set it up as such (to some degree).
That said, I did really like the mother, and now that we know she dies, I wonder about the chances of How I Met Your Father. Kinda like a prequel series - they often don't work well because you ultimately know what is going to happen.
I've loved a lot of this season, and think they have done a great job of dancing between the timeline of the story and giving future glimpses and such. They definitely made the gimmick the show has employed from the beginning serve the story the best (in other words, that it is some guy telling his kids a long story, and full of lies and misremembrances).

[Cail]

All good points.

The thing I liked about the show from the beginning was its commitment to nonstandard storytelling and stunt filming. In a way, it's a direct descendant of the fantastic Parker Lewis Can't Lose. The show took risks in the name of making gags, and that's what separated it from dreck like Everybody Loves Raymond and the like.

And ultimately it makes the case that the journey is more important than the destination. It was a better show about friends than Friends.

[Cagliostro]

I loved me some Parker Lewis. I've been back recently to watch the DVDs through Netflix.
I usually don't do sitcoms, but Entertainment Weekly went on and on about it, and I gave it a try and fell for it. I was always interested because of the cast members I knew, but I just never bothered. I'm glad I did when I did, as it was one of the most clever sitcoms (anti-sitcom?) I have ever seen, and sadly nobody else I know ever watches it. I thought about starting this topic, but figured it would die on the vine. So thanks, SerScot for starting it.
Something I wanted to point out was that I thought it was a fitting end to the Ted/Robin romance that he was the one that rejected her in the end before the wedding, and that that should have been it. He learned his lesson and it was over. And that the last slap that Marshall was in love and not in anger. But I was sad that they overturned the Ted/Robin thing. That was probably my biggest complaint with the ending - it seemed like it had already ended and the last word had finally been said.

[SerScot]

Cag,

Yeah, had the finale ended with Ted telling his kids about meeting Tracy on the Train platform I think that would have worked. However, we wouldn't have known what happened to Robin and that would have been weird.

I've seen some complaints that Robin seemed to be imbittered by achiveing her lifelong dream of an amazing career as a TV journalist and that bitterness seems to cheapen her dream.

Then again who that achieves their life's dream isn't just a little disappointed by the thing they've idolized for so long once it is achieved?

[Hashi Lebwohl]

Once you define "success" and you attain it, you are faced with the questions "what now? was that it? that's all?".