A Fairytale Ending
Jack McGuire
Aggie Central Editor
On Mar. 31, CBS’s “How I Met Your Mother” ended after being on air for nine years.
Millions of fans have been drawn to the show about a man, Ted Mosby, telling his children the story of how he met their yellow umbrella toating, bass playing mother. During every story, Ted’s four best friends, Marshall, Lily, Barney, and Robin, joined his love-fueled escapades.
The series produced plenty of laughs with a fair share of tears, but when it came down to the finale, fans of every character were given a proper farewell.
If you do not like SPOILERS, stop reading now.
The final season of “How I Met Your Mother” centers on Barney and Robin getting married, while we simultaneously meet and learn about the mother, Tracy. However, one issue did come up on occasion, Ted’s love for Robin.
The first couple seasons told how Ted fell in love with, dated and broke up with Robin. One continuing joke in the series is how following Ted and Robin’s first date, Ted stole a blue French horn to profess his love for her.
The remainder of the show centered on Ted and Robin going through relationship after relationship all while Ted still had feelings for Robin.
In the episode prior to the series finale, Robin, having wedding jitters, felt she was making a mistake for not choosing Ted after all these years. Ted reassured her that Barney was the one for her and that Ted, supposedly, no longer had feelings for her. Robin and Barney tied the knot at the end of the episode.
Throughout the start of the final episode, we begin to fast forward through the gang’s lives when life-changing moments occur. This includes Ted and Tracy having a child and moving to the suburbs, while Robin and Barney get divorced.
At one point in the episode, Lily professes that no matter what direction everyone goes they all are together for the “big moments.”
Fast-forward only a few months to a rooftop Halloween party. Robin visits everyone there; only too leave immediately after seeing Barney moving on and Ted with Tracy. Before walking out the door, Robin explains to Lily how she doesn’t feel the group is the same because of how each others’ lives are ending up.
Throughout the next few years, big moments continue occurring. Marshall becomes a judge and Barney becomes a father, but Robin misses both occasions.
One occasion Robin did not miss was the overdue wedding of Ted and Tracy.
While we watch the ceremony play out, Ted begins wrapping up the story he is telling his children, only to mention how, at one point, Tracy became sick and that it was “the worst of times.”
Cut to Ted, waiting for the train. Ted approaches a young woman holding an instrument case and a yellow umbrella and meets the future mother of his children.
Cut to Ted sitting at a desk with his kids. His kids began explaining how that story was too long just to be about meeting their mom because he barely mentions her. Ted’s kids believe it was told because he is still in love with Aunt Robin. After debating back and forth, the kids encourage Ted to go after Robin since their mom had died six years prior.
Ted then has an idea.
Cut to Robin coming home to her apartment, when she gets a buzz from someone downstairs. She goes to the window only to see Ted…with a blue French horn.
Not only did the show give closure to Ted and Robin, but also to all the characters. Marshall finally became a judge while having a family with Lily.
Barney finally had a one-night stand go wrong, but it led to the birth of his daughter. He then learned what true love really felt like.
Robin finally became a big name, network television talent and lived her dream.
And then there is Ted. The closure that came to Ted is the one that makes the finale perfect.
Ted meets the woman he fought for years to find. They started a family, moved to the suburbs, got married and lived the life Ted always wanted. However, he also finally got the other girl of his dreams, Robin.
This gave both fans of Ted finding “the one” and fans of Ted being with Robin what they always wanted.
His kids were right though. How could some fans not see him getting with Robin in the end? He spent eight years talking about her and only one recapping how he met Tracy.
Ted experienced something very few people do. Ted found true love, twice. The journey he took with Robin led him to achieving a dream of having a family, only to return to Robin, the girl he always loved.
The finale gives hope and understanding that the future will bring you what you deserve. The hopeless romantic, the cute couple, the quotable womanizer and the beautiful reporter finally achieved the life they deserved. Fans can look back on the moments these friends shared and relate to some of them in unique ways.
The story may have really been how Ted met Robin, but the lesson is with patience and the support of family, love will never die and always find a way to flourish.
The finale was without a doubt legen…wait for it…
The Legendary Letdown
Kaylee Jones
Managing Editor
After nine seasons of Ted’s tedious storytelling, How I Met Your Mother came to a close, dividing fans in its final moments.
I will do my readers a kindness Ted never extended to his audience, the gift of a long story short: Ted ends up with Robin.
Season after season, viewers were desperate to catch a glimpse of the woman about whom the story is supposedly being told.
However, after the big reveal, the mother is promptly killed off to make room for Ted’s old flame and best friend.
Infuriated fans took to social media outlets like Twitter to lampoon the writers for the too long drawn-out con.
While some fans were supportive, claiming to have always suspected a reunion between Robin and Ted, many reacted harshly over the unexpected nature of the finale.
“There were maybe like a million possible endings and they picked up the worst one,” tweeted @PoppyR4in.
“Ted & Tracy were actually perfect,” tweeted @RJDaviesMedia, “He admitted that. It’s so out of character to go back to Robin. His crush ended years ago.”
An avid fan of HIMYM as well, I found myself with similar feelings of betrayal regarding the conclusion.
The show is called “How I Met Your Mother” after all, not “How I Managed to Reunite with My First Love After Marrying Your Mother for a Few Brief Years Before I Lost Her to Cancer.”
I don’t think the ending was completely terrible; it was simpy textbook, preditable and Disney-esque in the sense that the guy got the girl.
The events that took place in the finale were so inconsistent with the long established nature of the characters that it made it impossible for the audience to identify with them any longer.
I felt as though I was sitting idly by watching as the rest of the lives of these people I had come to love passed by me.
From a very young age, I remember enjoying being put-off by unfulfilling plot twists.
I believe my intial moment of clarity came after finishing Lemony Snicket’s “A Series of Unfortunate Events.”
The End, the last of 13 books, finished the story of the three Baudelaire orphans without a traditional ending, leaving the reader without a clear idea of what might happen once the book had been closed.
The final line of the series read, “It is not the whole story, of course, but it is enough. Under the circumstances, it is the best for which you can hope.”
It was one of the greatest lessons I ever took away from a book - the idea that we never truly see the beginning or end of someone’s story, and we have to accept the facts that we might never know.
While HIMYM and “A Series of Unfortunate Events” may seem unrelated, I believe the writers of HIMYM would have been better off leaving more to the imagination than simply gratifying their happy-ever-after hungry fans.
The mother’s survival was not necessary to placate me.
Honestly, I believe I was most disappointed in the writer’s treatment of Robin and Barney. I simply cannot believe that mere age
was a sufficient reason for Robin to give up her struggle as an ardent independent and find shelter in Ted’s undeniable co- dependency.
I was also stunned that Barney, a beloved charcter, was cast aside as a mere supporting role to find happiness in the birth of a child.
Both of these scenarios defied the nature of the characters.
The finale was a farce.
One of the best moments in the show was when Marshall lost his father.
It brought a tinge of a sadder reality to a show fraught with laugh-tracks and hammy storylines.
Perhaps if the writers had recreated a similar reality, the finale would have been more believable to the legions of HIMYM fans who were upset over the twist.
It was one of the greatest lessons I ever took away from a book - the idea that we never truly see the beginning or end of someone’s story, and we have to accept the facts that we might never know.
Fortunately for those of us who were left wanting by the original finale, the producers have announced an alternate ending will be released along with the DVD boxset, due out this fall.