My Thoughts On The How I Met Your Mother Finale, or How An Ending I Haven't Wanted For The Past Nine Years Ended Up Working Anyway

I've watched How I Met Your Mother for nine years. I haven't watched all of those episodes chronologically, and until recently I didn't make a habit of watching it "live". And I have to admit that I pretty much gave up on the show during season five, and it wasn't until it improved over the next couple of years that I went back and re-watched those episodes (Thank you, Netflix!) Still, it's been a long habit and I knew I would end up missing the show. It's one of the few traditional sitcoms left, and unlike so much stuff that gets praised by critics, it was a pleasant, optimistic show about a guy who tried to find space for his dreams of true love and commitment in the typically depressing mileau of modern singles sitcoms.

Ted ended up the least likable character on the show, and he actually turned out to be almost as slutty as Barney, but none of that really kept the show from being a fun, pleasant experience. The characters had their setbacks and occasional tragedies, but they didn't give up on life. They kept plodding forth and eventually seeking that something better would be coming around the corner, despite what was happening to them at the present moment. And I LIKED them. That's not insignificant in these days when it seems that every drama on TV is in competition to see how morbid and cynical and ugly they can be in a 42 hour time frame. Sure, I'm a red-blooded American female and I love zombies and the prospect of Jon Snow's derriere as much as anyone else, but it's a good idea to get a break from all of that.

So why do I think a show that killed off The Mother in the last ten minutes and reunited Ted with the character he broke up with in the second season and that he spent entirely too much time obsessing over, even as she prepared to marry one of his best friends, ended up pulling it off, against all the odds?

Let's start with Barney and Robin. They have never really had a terribly healthy relationship: it's always been full of awe-inspiring romantic gestures and short on the day-to-day support and sacrifice that makes a real marriage work. They never really tested whether they could make a relationship work: the first attempt failed disastrously and the second attempt went straight to planning a wedding with no in between. That said, I think they both did have good intentions, but they just didn't have what it takes to make a relationship work. And it's not like the writers didn't tell us this repeatedly over 22 episodes of this very, very, very long wedding weekend.

It turns out Barney didn't have it in him to be Robin's husband, but apparently he really took to fatherhood. I love this ending much more than him ending up with Robin, because he apparently shed some of his more disgusting habits and ended up being a good father. The show didn't really spend that much time on it (mostly because there was only 5 minutes left, and they had some murdering to do), but I liked to think that Robin's congratulations to him was a sign that they reconciled a bit, and that she ended up being "Aunt Robin" to his kid, too. It may have not have been the expected ending, but that doesn't mean it wasn't a happy one.

As far as Ted and The Mother goes, I was a little surprised that they didn't end up getting married until years after the kids were born, since Ted seemed so adamant about marriage throughout the entire series. I'm guessing he didn't want a wedding until everything could be perfectly planned, but if there's anything this finale taught us, it's that life doesn't work out exactly as you plan. So he settles for an impromptu wedding that brings everyone back together after a long estrangement. It's at that point that Robin re-enters everyone's lives, and becomes the beloved Aunt Robin to all six (!) kids.

As far as the Mother dying -- well, this has been a fan theory theory for a very, very, very long time. When the episode first aired that hinted that The Mother might meet an untimely end, I groaned because I never wanted that ending. We've watched way too many episodes of Ted Pining over Robin, and frankly it went way past the line a long, long time ago. When Ted was considering going after Robin in season 7, he asked Barney if he would mind, since Barney had been pursuing Robin himself a few months earlier. Barney told him no, because he puts "bros before hos" and Robin will always be his "bro" first, and he wanted her to be happy. It always bothered me that Ted could never do the same for Barney, and this entire season of making him the "villain" has never set right with me. So I really never wanted this to happen, because Ted was being such a huge douche about it in the first place. Why should he be rewarded with Robin in the end? And what does that say about his affection for The Mother?

However, you cannot deny that there was plenty of foreshadowing. First of all, there was Ted's insistent whining about Robin marrying his best friend. 22 episodes of this. Plus all the whining the year before. (DUDE, GET OVER YOURSELF). Barney and Robin fought constantly. The fact that the mother didn't narrate "How Your Mother Met Me" was a big tip off. So when Baby Mama tells Ted she doesn't want him to "live through his stories" in the future and he almost burst into sobs when she brings up the prospect of a mother missing her daughter's wedding day, it was pretty clear she was a goner.

I think what made it work for me is thinking back to "How Your Mother Met Me". Tracy (OK, let's start using her real name) tragically lost her boyfriend, Max, at a young age, and swore off dating for a long time, because she thought she would never find someone like that again. It wasn't until she met Ted that she realized that she could actually love someone else again. It doesn't mean she didn't love her boyfriend before, but life eventually moves on and things don't always work out like you plan. The Mother knew what Ted would be going through after she died, because she had been through it herself. She didn't want him to focus on the past, but to move on and eventually find joy and happiness again.

Even knowing this, the bare facts of the situation didn't sell me onto this ending. It's one thing to know something intellectually and another to accept it as it's happening, even if it's completely fictional. I completely rejected the prospect when it re-emerged a few weeks ago, and hoped that The Mother would recover. I didn't want The Mother to die: I loved her myself and wanted her to stick around. Besides, wouldn't the kids be angry that their father is having a relationship with their "Aunt", and wonder if something had been going on when their mother was alive? Is Robin really going to be able to handle resentful, recently traumatized teenagers? And since Ted obviously still idealizes and loves The Mother, is he really ready to jump into a relationship with someone else, even if he's known her for 25 years?

I think what turned this around was the reaction of the kids. They insisted the story wasn't really about their mother, but about "Aunt Robin". They still love their mother, but she's been gone a while now. They are close to Robin, and they endorse their father's potential relationship with her. They know, even before their father does, that his relationship with her doesn't negate the relationship he had with their mother. He did really love her and cherish every moment of their relationship, which is why she was so idealized throughout the entire show. That's the way he always thought of her. She seemed perfect to us because she was perfect to him. As more and more time passed, she stayed that way in his memory in a way that she wouldn't be if she was sitting on the couch beside him the entire time, picking her toenails. And even after her death, Ted remained the loyal family man he always wanted to be, remaining primarily devoted to his children and remembering life as it was.

However, life goes on, and as Ted ponders picking up that cordless phone that cannot possibly be functioning in the year 2030, he knows it's time to move on. So he shows up to Robin's old apartment, with the same grand romantic gesture he greeted her with 25 years earlier. Maybe he's not completely over The Mother at this point, but it's a date, not a marriage proposal. (And for the kids' sake, let's hope that doesn't come for a while, because she knows them and she won't let them get away with as much as they think). It's a new story, because the old one's already been told. It turned out to be a pretty great one.

A few extra thoughts before I conclude this:

- I noticed that throughout the finale the rest of the cast looks like the almost middle aged parents that they are. Even Barney. But Robin always look gorgeous and poised, because Ted is feeling those old feelings again and he looks at her differently, even if he doesn't realize it. But when Ted finally greets her at her apartment, she looks more like the rest of them, complete with bad haircut, because she's ready to meet him on real life terms.

- That scene with Barney and his daughter. TEARS. 

- If nothing else, this show should deserve credit for making NPH into a star.

- I wonder if any of the kids end up dating each other. That should be an interesting story to tell the grandchildren.

-I think the reason this resonated so much with me is like most of America, I come from a long line of remarriages and blended families. I won't go into all of the details, but when my younger sister died 15 years ago and my parents split up soon afterwards, I was devastated. I felt like I had lost everything. My parents remarried and now instead of being the only child of estranged parents, I have two lovely stepparents, three stepsisters, one stepbrother, more in-laws and inherited cousins than I care to list right now, and I am the "aunt" of five wonderful kids. I never could have had all of that if my parents had stayed together. I won't pretend that it's solved all of my problems or that it hasn't upped the dram quotient by a considerable number, but I am glad things worked out this way. Admitting that doesn't mean that I didn't appreciate my family as it originally was when I was growing up, but it does mean that even if things didn't work out like anyone had planned, life does move on and it can be good again in new and wonderful ways. And that's really all I have to say about it.