I started watching How I Met Your Mother because I had to get my tonsils out. That sounds strange, but it’s true; I had a tonsillectomy in 2010 and needed a show to watch during my recovery time. Friends had been going on about HIMYM for a while, so I decided to finally check it out. I binge-watched the first season within a day, and from then I was hooked.
***MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD***
I loved the story. I related to Ted- the hopeless romantic, who was determined that destiny, God, or fate would lead him to the love of his life someday. I loved all the characters, all the silly plots, all the more heartfelt story lines. It quickly became one of my favourite sitcoms. Funnily enough, when my husband and I met the next year, one of the things we bonded on was that we both were fans of the show. We’ve watched the seasons together over the years since, and though the show finished airing last year, we took our time getting to the end, by re-watching all eight seasons. Finally, last night, we watched the finale. And boy was I disappointed.
It’s not so much that the mother dies. Okay, that pissed me off, because, geeze- Ted has been searching for nine seasons for the love of his life, only for her to die? I know life is unfair, but I don’t need to be reminded of the cruelty of life in my favourite sitcoms. But no, that’s not really what upset me the most. It was just the way that the entire plot, the entire point of the show– how Ted met his wife/the mother- was brushed off in the last half hour to reveal that Ted is still really in love with ROBIN. Are you kidding me?
As YouTube commenter ewt415 eloquently put, “The whole point of HIMYM was How I Met Your MOTHER, not How I Met Your Mother but still need to get together with Robin now that your mother is no longer here.” 
I have never been a Robin/Ted shipper. They aren’t good together. They want drastically different things. Though I love the character of Robin, I’ve never thought she was a good match for Ted, and vice versa. I’ve hated the way Robin has selfishly treated Ted over the years and repeatedly broken his heart. Oh, and not to mention the fact that Robin and Ted (or Cobie and Josh, rather), have as much chemistry on screen as a pair of cucumbers. They weren’t the couple I rooted for through the years. Every time the show hinted at a “will they or won’t they?!” moment, I rolled my eyes. Seriously. They’re no Ross and Rachel.
It just felt like the whole ending was a cheap plot device/cop-out. It seems as though Craig Thomas and Carter Bays had no idea how to end the show, so they just threw in the cheesiest/easiest ending they could, which would be for Ted and Robin to end up together, just because he liked her in the pilot. Or maybe it was because they shot the ending with the kids during season two and felt forced to keep things that way. Even putting aside my personal Ted/Robin bias, I just don’t see how after all these years of growth and character development, that Ted and Robin would still even harbour romantic feelings for one another.
Then, there’s the whole fact that the show really made us fall in love with the Mother. It was such a big deal for us to finally meet Tracy, and though I had my doubts at first, she was perfect for Ted! They were so cute together, and I couldn’t have picked a perfect Mother (not even Victoria, who was always my pick for Ted). But what was the whole point of all that when she dies off-screen in the finale, and Ted doesn’t even seem sad or anything?
Ugh, I could probably go on about this forever, but long story short: the finale was one of the worst I’ve ever seen. It’s not because I hated what happened (okay, I did hate what happened), but mostly because the writers seemed to forget the story they’ve been telling for the past 9 years, and the characters seemed to throw away anything they’d learned about life, love or even themselves, just to end back up where they were at season one.
Thankfully, there was an alternate ending, which was 1,000 times better, and will be the one I’ll think of whenever I think of the finale.
What did you think of the How I Met Your Mother finale? Disappointing? Or fitting?
Check out that alternate ending here:
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RoHUs8J7x94]