And That Kids, Is "How I Met Your Mother"...

I was originally going to follow up my previous article with my "Top 20 Episodes of How I Met Your Mother" but…well….

*Warning: If you haven't seen the finale yet, do not read on. Spoilers abound.*

Kids, in the summer of 2009 I watched the pilot of How I Met Your Mother for the first time. I always suspected that there was an important reason the show started with Ted meeting Robin, and not The Mother (aka Tracy), as I'm sure many people suspected. Though I don't think anyone suspected the reason we got in the series finale.

At the end of Season 6, when we discovered Ted would meet Tracy at Barney's wedding, everyone pondered who would be his legendary bride. The clear candidate was Robin, and it made sense. For if Ted hadn't met Robin, Barney wouldn't have met Robin, Barney and Robin wouldn't have gotten married, and Ted wouldn't have met Tracy at their wedding. For all intensive purposes, that theory proved to be true.

Then, as the series finale winded down, we all realized there was something else in the works, and a nine-year-old rug was pulled out from under her feet. What was speculated for years, and hinted at in the episodes "The Time Travelers" and "Vesuvius" proved to be true. In the year of 2030, when Ted is telling the story, Tracy Mosby has been dead for six years.

Now as tragic an ending as that is, I personally could have been fine with that…but then that nine-year-old rug not only came out from under our feet, it sucker-punched us right in the face. The whole reason for Ted telling this story, was to let his kids know he was thinking of asking out-wait for it….their Aunt Robin. Again.

Luke and Penny give dear old dad their blessing, and the series ends with Ted once again outside Robin's apartment, holding up the blue french horn. 

Now an infinite number of other things happened in this episode, through multiple flash-forwards and flashbacks. Barney and Robin divorced. Barney knocked up a girl and found the real love of his life, his newborn daughter Ellie. Robin became a world famous news reporter. Marshall and Lily moved out of the apartment and into the suburbs, Marshall became a judge, and they had baby number three. All the while we saw the important moments in Ted and Tracy's relationship, including their first meeting at the train station, their wedding, and Tracy telling Ted she's pregnant with Penny.

I'd rather not spend a lot of time reviewing the episode itself. I found it all, to coin a phrase "questionably okay". Like I said, a LOT happened in this episode. It almost seemed like Carter Bays & Craig Thomas were just trying to rush through half a dozen story lines they wouldn't get the chance to do because this was the end. Probably because it was all such a whirlwind, the only time my heartstrings got tugged at was when we slowed down to see Barney hold and declare his love for baby Ellie. But probably my biggest beef, is the episode spent more time on the other characters than it did Ted and Tracy.

Now, given the fact that's what we've got for nine seasons, why should that be a big deal? Well, it should and it shouldn't.

Let's go back to the pilot, where it all began with meeting Aunt Robin. The reason Ted started the story there wasn't because he was telling the kids the story of what he went through to meet the mother. He was telling them the story of all the hell he went through pining for Robin for years…and was considering giving it another go. When it comes right down to it, the premise and title of How I Met Your Mother has been one giant mislead from the get-go.

We were led to believe for nine years this mysterious mother was "The One" for Ted. But wait. It's been well known for some time Bays & Thomas had this ending in mind from the beginning, and what we saw with the kids in the end was shot way back in Season 2, when mind you, Ted and Robin were a couple. This is the story those two set out to tell from the beginning. The story of what it took for Ted and Robin to finally get where they are in 2030.

It sort of leaves the idea of The Mother in a very unclear place. Was she a coping mechanism for Ted, hung up on Robin? Was she just a plot device opposed to a real character? How does his love for Tracy compare/contrast to his love for Robin? Which of them is Ted's true love? Are they trying to tell us a can person have more than one true love? Who knows.

I applaud the two of them for sticking to their guns, and the original story they wanted to tell…but in the end, they trapped themselves. I'm sure they didn't suspect fans would fall in love with all the misdirection, such as Barney and Robin an item, or say, this whole ninth and final season. 

They let us meet The Mother, the biggest part of their "con", and we fell in love with her. Hard. Cristin Milioti as Tracy McConnell/Mosby instantly found her way into our hearts. Suddenly we all came to understand why she was the one, why it never worked out for Ted with Robin, or Stella, or Victoria, or anyone else. Josh Radnor and Cristin Milioti had amazing chemistry, it was clear from the beginning. I hate to say it though, I don't think it was too clear to Bays & Thomas, what they had crafted for themselves and viewers. 

The two of them should have realized they were in too deep a long time ago, in a place where their original ending was going to upset a lot of people. This brings up the age old debate of "Do you cater to the masses?" or "Do you tell the story you want to tell?". They chose the second option, and that is something I can get behind in the end. It just wasn't the ending I wanted, like many of us.

I won't go off with ideas on how the ending could have been different or better. That's not my place.
Film and television is an interesting forum for creativity and storytelling. You want to make the project you want to make, but it's not that easy. A cancellation call from a network executive or a bad review from a critic can take away all your chances. But How I Met Your Mother defied these standards, for nine years in a creative, deceptive way. How many television shows stay on the air for nine years anymore?

In the end, How I Met Your Mother  has always been about the journey, not the destination. Journeys have many twists and turns, and aren't always black and white. The show's thrown many shocks and surprises at us before: Marshall's Dad dying, Robin being unable to have kids, and yes, Robin not being The Mother, but the "aunt". You can look at this ending as a poison to the rest of the series, but I don't see it that way. For me, it opens my eyes up to what was really going on behind the scenes. Now we know why Marshall said "Not yet" at the end of "No Pressure". Now Ted's speech in "The Time Travelers" is all that more emotional. Now we see why Ted told us Penny and Luke were so close to Robin in "Little Boys", and part of why he said she was never alone in "Symphony of Illumination". I will enjoy these episodes no less than I have before.

Did I love the How I Met Your Mother finale? No. Do I understand it? Yes, and that's enough for me to  end this series on a pleasant note.