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Edited by @ajcaraballo95
0:00 Intro
5:28 The Story
9:44 Season 9
16:22 The Finale
35:57 Conclusion
I think the worst part of it all is the final season being entirely about Barney and Robin's love for each other and then they get divorced 10 seconds later. It felt like a gut punch.
And an insult to people more invested in them than Ted.
I knew marriages like this 🥲
The thing that I really hate about movies / shows is when there's missing chunks and things happen off-screen. I've never ever ever liked that and I don't know why writers keep doing that. Are writers oblivious about the audience's distaste for that technique?
@@TomCruz54321 agree, even the deleted scene gave some context
Yup!
I don’t know how you can build up expectations for a character like the Mother, actually get her to live up to them and then just kill her off to rehash the same tumultuous love story that the audience has been forced to sit through for 9 seasons.
It's insane to me that they nailed the hardest thing of all, which is to create a character that lives up to the hype...and then they fucked up everything else. Like.
I came to the conclusion that the show was never about Ted meeting the mother, but about Ted never getting over Robin and still finding a way to be with her in the end even though they wanted different things from life
@@KamalianCiranoush which is sooo creepy and problematic 😂 like, forget what Robin has wanted all this time. Ted wants to have kids and a wife and he's gonna get it *no matter what*
@@KamalianCiranoush Ted was kept in the “hook” and even tho he’s, you know Ted, I’m pissed off about it.
@@KamalianCiranoush literally 😭 it actually cheapens the sweetness of the story knowing he was only telling it to get permission from his kids to bang Robin
It never made sense to me that Barney would ever have a problem with traveling around the world with Robin. In between her work he'd be finding his own adventures around her, whether with her or not especially since the final season spends SO MUCH TIME solidifying the two of them as a team despite them both being "lone wolves". The life they could have had after the wedding would have allowed room for both of their adventurous sides to flourish whilst maintaining the bond they built during season 9.
Exactly, bc Barney explicitly states in one episode where he talks about how much he loves robin bc she’s INDEPENDENT! they both are!!! That’s why they work together smh I see no reason they wouldn’t have fun and spend time while flying around the world together?!??
"Whatever you do in this life, it's not legendary, unless your friends are there to see it."
It makes so much sense that he would be unhappy in that relationship. His job was a big part of who he was and he lost that very close to the wedding. He never god anything of his own while traveling the world with Robin as she built her career. He never truly worked on himself, he just entered a relationship that fit his current state, but than it changed completely. The fact that they lasted 3 years shows how much they loved each other.
@@amirampeled His Job was NOT a big part of who he was. Besides the PLEASE joke (which shows that he didn't lose his job), its the fact alone, that he switched the job without great fuzz (from AltruCell to GNB). That Barney wasn't invested in his job was shown in the episode milk, where he talks about the things he does on the job (like pranking Clark Butterfield), instead of doing his job. It's simply ludicrous to think that Barney, who commit to everything he does 100%, would quit the woman he married because he could not post the dick joke of the day. If I were the writer, I had Barney and Tracey die in a plane accident or something on the way to Ted and Robin (for a vaccation or whatever), to enable Robin and Ted as a couple, because letting Barney just walk away from the woman he finally commited to is a disgrace for the best charachter arc in HIMYM.
@@Charon10-kb1bs he was running his blog remotely while they traveled the world. not sure how that was somehow an impossibility he mentions his blog repeatedly. no one even knows what Barney's job was because he always replied with "please." his main function turned out to be signing off on fraudulent documents by the executives so they had plausible deniability. but it turns out it was a long con because he was reporting on them to the feds the whole time because that one executive dude slept with his coffee shop girlfriend. the only thing that would possibly bother Barney is being cut off from his network of New York "guys". But then, Barney has a "guy guy" to help him find a new "guys" when he needed one. His "guy guy" could easily help him find a suit "guy" in Italy? or a car "guy" in Japan?
having to record the end in 2006 and only shooting ONE OPTION for your finale is wild, did they run out of storage space ??
That's what gets me. They could've spent 10 minutes shooting a very basic "that's the story of how I met your mother" "oh thank good, that took forever. Feels like years" ending.
Yeah, I mean they could have even dedicated an entire day of just shooting the ending, with the added benefit of nobody actually being sure which would be the final version, thereby not having the risk of somebody leaking the ending beforehand.
They literally could have just shot alternate endings as a fail safe plan. Instead, they shot themselves in the foot.
@@KingsizeKini that would be perfect, some may say anti-climatic or unnecessary joke but i think that would be a good send off for a show like this
Tracy honestly deserved much better. Cristin Miloti really lived up to all of our expectations, and she was everything that we wanted for Ted. However, it might have been better had they introduced Tracy earlier, and we could have seen her and Ted's relationship develop. Instead, it seems that she was just a way to give Ted children, since Robin was unable to.
And marshall, was underutilized, he had such interesting side things, family, that went nowhere. And worse lily over that much sitcom time, she becomes from a bit mean, to the worst. And i like the actress. But him running off with shirley from community last season, would have made sense.
I think it would be better if they did at least one episode from her pov. I feel like We never actually met the mother 😃
They, did? It's how your mother met me in season 9 one of the best episodes in the show.@@mandolen3317
Yeah tracy did deserve better, but hey she lived a great life and met the one who unfortunately passed away and years later moved on. Kind of like Ted. She deserved better as in she deserved to not die but her dying hits the core of the show that it is about life, not a fairy tale where they live happily ever after. In the same breath i'd say most people who die from cancer before the age of 70 deserved better. Like no shit
Yeah, I think the show felt like it was running out of steam and then they tied it up in a rushed way. They could have introduced Tracy much earlier and given it a bit of new material to work with.
the thing I'll never get over is the assassination of Barney x Robin. Their build up was so well done only to be completely erased for the forced finale that we got
Agreed. I thought they built a really interesting relationship and while yeah, sometimes shit happens in real life, it just didn’t work with the story they had written for them.
That’s my biggest gripe with the ending tbh
I always felt they would never work because they were too familiar in characteristics so it didn't bother me.
not really they spent episodes in final season explaining why Robin and Barney didn’t work. A potent blend of true love fixes all, and Barney Robins immaturity. Their divorce was essentially a micro of Ted and Robins break up. But Ted saw the issue with his relationship with Robin, he saw their expiration date. Robin and Barney just saw the love they had.
And they spent nine season explaining why Ted and Robin didn't work but we're somehow supposed to accept it? @@sECUREij
after becoming a film student, i understood how timing is CRUCIAL with himym: we got 8 seasons with the same formula and episode format with arcs beggining and completing through them, then suddenly we got a whole season passing in a weekend, and the last episode flying through 10 years, it's weird and it wasnt necessary
The final season taking place over a weekend was itself not a bad idea as they still did flashbacks and flash forwards a lot. It was an interesting way to change things up for the final season. But agreed the pacing of the finale is awful and makes GOT final seasons pacing look masterful. Why didn’t they have the 200th episode be the wedding and then pace our what happens in the finale? That would’ve worked much better and we probably would’ve accepted what happened more
Good video. Now, I'll go back to unremembering that finale.
same here
Lmao 😂
How hard would it have been to just reshoot them on the couch and make a joke about being on this couch forever 😭. Nobody would have cared that they were old. Its a damn sitcom
I think that would have been hilarious! “How many times do we have to hear this?” OR! it was him telling the grandkids!
The trailer for S9 actually made that joke, with the kids being older and telling Ted that they’ve been on the same couch for 8 years. Imagine that and combine the scene with the fictional scenario with Stella (where Stella came into the room to ask their kids if Ted was still yapping)
The editing of the final episode was just a nightmare, this could have been done different in so many ways, even if I was to assume that Tracy dies, the show should have spent more time on Ted actually struggling with the death of her. We know how TV works, we know we can spin the opinion of the viewer to hate a person on a TVshow just with editing, but they just completly missed the tone. They also easily could have reedited it in a way to pretend the kids in the end are happy with the alternate tracy ending, Ted never shares the screen with them I think? They also could have recast them.
I literally would have rather seen the adult actors come back and pretend to be kids than have this ending. I'll suspend my disbelief, please. In retrospect, they definitely should have shot more possibilities/some more ambiguous endings so they could let the show evolve. Hindsight is 20/20 and all that but yeah. Anything but this.
@@corneliahanimann2173 If they had just edit in a way that Ted is done grieving for Tracey and is ready to start dating again to find "The One" again, I think it would have been a good ending. It would hit the theme that the journey for love is never ending and they wouldn't need to revert Robin's and Barney's character growth to force the ending
I'm only accepting the alternative ending, no way they butchered Robin, Barney and Tracy to deliver a finale that would only fit s2. And it's wildly misogynistic to reduce a character to their reproductive abilities, then kill her and replace her with the woman who clearly and repeatedly said No.
Agreed
Coud not agree more!
Said everything I was thinking, they built up Tracy as a great character giving her one of the best episodes of the entire series in an overall mediocre season only to reduce her to just “the mother” killing her off screen
Exactly. HIMYM was a show about how what you get is going to be 1000 times better than what you thought you wanted at 25. It made me able to hope for joy in my future even when I felt like nothing ever went my way. Giving Ted Robin at the last second destroys all of that and instead says “don’t worry, you’ll get what you wanted when you were 25! Just keep waiting, and waiting, and waiting, and waiting, and never move on, and don’t expect anything else to ever make you happy.”
They didn't do that though, the audience after the fact are the ones reducing Tracy to "just being there to give Ted kids" that isn't how the show treated her at all, they didn't butcher Robin nor Barney, everything that happened was set up in multiple ways. Robin was never not in love with Ted, their only issue was timing, the one time she said "no" to him that everyone brings up she didn't even want to say it.
It's like when Chandler was going to propose to Monica so he went out of his way to make her think he didn't want to get married at all. They didn't want us to know that it was Robin so they went in hard on their friendship, but they seem to have forgotten to SLOWLY bring them back together. The ending was so jarring and abrupt.
The worse part is that Tracy‘s death works the same way as Marshall’s fantasies when he thinks of other women. He meets a hot chick, makes Lilly sick, tries to save her but fails. And after an appropriate time he meets that chick again and has a great time with her. They did the same thing with Tracy. The only difference is that they basically just changed the roles of the main woman to the chick.
About three episodes away from the finale, my dad asked me, "so why is he telling them this story, did the mother die?" And that's when I realized. My dad spoiled the HIMYM finale before it even aired
It was a popular theory at the time especially for Ted and Robin shippers, so unfortunately they were all right. I think it was in season 8 when he runs back to her apartment because he says if he could change something he'd have more time with her and my parents said "oh, is she dead?".
Honestly would have been fine if she had died and he's just reminiscing the past. I just hate the whole "it was Robin this whole time" message after building up to Tracy 9 seasons ans showing why they don't work
@@LeapThroughTheSky i said it in my own comment, but if i could go back to 11 years ago me, there was a time when my wife and i were both single. i'd have run right to her then because i want more time. my wife is very much alive. when you have a phenomenal love, there is never enough. ted's always potrayed himself as a hopeless romantic and i'm that way too, when he said that i never once thought "dead wife", i legit thought he was just spelling out how much he loved her, that he'd want 45 more days if he could get them.
@@Iggybart05 I mean I'm married and agree. At the time I really hoped that was what it was going for and unfortunately argued what you're saying now at that time (unfortunately because I was clearly wrong). There was the place for it to have been really sweet, but that wasn't the show runners intentions. On later rewatches I did see more patterns of how it was more likely to be Robin (i.e. Marshall always insisting he didn't lose the bet with Lily). And I think other viewers just picked up the writing on the wall. I like the version you and I thought more. I hoped like in the episode where he admitted it wasn't Stella and she walks in and talked to the kids, that Tracy got that moment instead.
I dont understand how people were shocked with her death. There was teds speech in 8x20 about going to her house and wanting extra days with her. Thats when I started preparing for it. And 9x19 kinda confirmed that she passed away.
The weird part is that Tracy dying isn't even a bad ending. It makes sense and would make for a lovely bitter sweet ending. They could have removed the last few minutes of the show, kept Robin and Barney together, have a final speech by Ted about her dying and then shown them meeting and ended the show with the umbrella scene.
I wish it had been this.
I second this. I binged watched the show a couple of years ago so my experience is obviously different than the people's who watched it over the course of 9 years, one episode per week, but I realized very early on that the mother was most likely dead. The way Ted was talking about her (for example, I remember a scene in s8 I think where he said that if he could change anything he'd go back and meet her sooner so they could have more time together or something like that) is a dead (no pun intended) giveaway about her fate when you watch the episodes close together. This could have been a poignant, bittersweet ending that'd have aged well if they hadn't shoved Ted amd Robin back together last minute and ruined her relationship with Barney (that we spent the majority of the show watching flourish) in the process.
@nagiach.102 I remember when that episode aired, and I remember saying wait is she gonna die? But watching it in real time, you don't have each episode fresh in your mind like you would if you binged it, so back then us the audience didn't know that scene was the first real giveaway.
EXACTLY! EXACTLY! people say the ending is bad... i agree, but in their vision, the perfect ending also meaning she lives is... ive been thinking this for so long
Exactly!!! It would have given some context as to why Ted was telling this story and really hammer home how that special someone will come if you keep searching with optimism and learn lessons along the way.
To me, that ending was the biggest slap in the face. The writing was so great and so convincing that making that kind of ending only felt like a cruel joke and an insulting decision. Like, I loved this show. It was my favorite for a long time, but because of how it ended I can't watch it again. Especially when you considered the premise is that the kids want to know how their dad met mom, but he's like nah lets just talk about your aunt Robin who I am in love with and can't stop obsessing over. Like, it just feels like he never loved their mom. It was always about Robin. And making Robin and Barney into such great characters that grew and strengthened each other only to split and revert back to their old ways was just cheap.
Agreed!
Maybe this show should’ve been called “How I Settled for Your Mother”
My own mother passed a few months before this catastrophe of an ending. That, in addition to the character and plot assassination of the finale, absolutely CRUSHED me.
I feel personally victimized by the title of this video. I can't believe it's been 10 years since How I Met Your Mother ended💀
I know right? I remember I was watchin that horrible ending for the first time like it was just yesterday
Really make me depressed as I have not graduated college yet
Tracey dies this year. In 2024..
I adamantly have to believe FSN did that as clickbait and NOT because it’s true
It's crazy
I would have been fine with Tracy passing away IF and only IF the series was just Ted giving a fond look back of their life together and all the wonderful things she gave him. Instead, they made it seem like she was a placeholder surrogate for Robin who would give Ted kids and once she was gone, then could Ted pursue Robin and it is really gross.
After the series ended I read Love in the Time of Cholera because it's Ted's favorite book and so some fans said the ending was obvious. And after reading that I thought...ok, but the book did it better. It did not shit on the lives the characters did live. It cherished the lives they had and that maybe they had to have them. And I've seen a lot of works since that have similar things and have done it better. But exactly as you said, they made Tracy the back up so he could have everything wanted. I see some people say the ending was realistic and I'll fight them on that. Because getting everything and everyone you want is not realistic, and Ted is a creep. It was unfair to Robin.
Truly. That would've been completely fine
I mean, that would be true if ted did that as soon as Tracy died, but he mourned, took his time and try to find his kids blessing. While we didn't see a lot of Tracy, she did had an impact on Tef ad did more that just give him kids.
@@valordelink the thing is we didn't get to see that and that's the point. she did have a major impact on ted, and if they had left the mother dead and done a follow up show to let us see that then it's fine. even seeing ted and robin getting closer and closer to end where this did would have been fine. the reason she seems like a placeholder is because they spent 9 seasons building this up with ted talking to his kids only to rug pull it at the end and say "lol it was just about your aunt robin the whole time". that's why she gets viewed as a place holder, the writers were so focused on getting to "ted and robin" that they rushed through ted and tracy, leaving us with only her kids as the big take away from that relationship.
@@valordelink you must not have watched the entirety of the video because FSN outlines exactly why the way they handled this was all wrong. It's not like you can't move on after being widowed. But the execution of this storyline made it feel like the writers themselves didn't care enough to treat all the characters with respect. Not Ted, not Barney and *especially* not Robin, who ended up being another woman for Ted to win after he met The Mother of his kids.
ted's core arc helped me through some deep-seated hang-ups i'd been going through since college (soulmate anxiety, fear of baggage, oneitis, complex compatibility dissonance) and watching the show go "just kidding, all that growth meant literally nothing" contributed greatly to me never taking sitcoms seriously again
same for me !!!!
I think Scrubs is a very good sitcom. At least when we ignore the last season
The worst part of great shows with bad endings is that they’re discouraging to rewatch. I do recall figuring out that the mother died before the final season. I could just tell.
me too it was when he said he wished he could go back in time and spend even 45 seconds more with her
It’s just… they spend 9 seasons showing us why Ted and Robin do not work as a couple, all while developing the relationship between Barney and Robin and making Barney go through a huge character development, only to throw it all away in the two last episodes
And they just never demonstrated WHY they were endgame. All they did was just show Ted being super creepy about his feelings for Robin over and over even when they would never want the same things. People want to demonstrate this false narrative of the wrong person wrong time when in reality if that title went to anyone it was Victoria and not Robin.
Barney is one of the saddest character assassinations I have ever seen. They took time and effort to craft the character growth of his character from a shitty fuck boy to a loyal man ready to commit for love and happiness only to kill it and circle back to a depressed Barney that lost capability of love
Or just make Ted the villain: He hears about Robins and Barneys divorce and her fallout with Lily so he sets about getting rid of his wife and finally has his obsession fulfilled with a sad depressed and lonely Robin 🤷♀️
They really *didn't* spend nine seasons doing that, though. I have no idea why everyone says that. Ted and Robin DID work as a couple (minus the sitcom-level disagreements, which...yeah, you need, otherwise there wouldn't be a show). They just wanted different things for their futures. Pretty much every time they threaten to break up or get back together, it's not ever because of a lack of feelings or respect or love, it's the fact that they want different things. Why, after circumstances in their lives change drastically, when they grow and shift and reevaluate their priorities but never stop loving and respecting each other, is it suddenly completely unacceptable that they decide to take things in a romantic direction? I have some real issues with the finale (mostly with how rushed everything is) but this specific point keeps being brought up and has literally never once made any fucking sense.
@@GypsyScot1 In my opinion, it wasn't just that they wanted different things. There were fundamental differences in their personalities that made them just not work, or at least nok work as good as Robin and Barney did. The finale treated it as if the only problem was that Ted wanted kids and Robin didn't, so if Ted just had his kids with another woman, THEN they would work out! Right? But Robin were still putting her career over everything else - that was the reason her and Barney broke up in the first place. She was always fiercly independant, and Ted never liked that because he wanted to feel needed. Meanwhile, Barney loved that about her. I admit that I may be biased because I love Barney and Robin as a couple, but I just don't understand why Robin's career would get in the way of their relationship but magically work out with Ted.
The thing is, I don’t even know WHY they were so obsessed with Ted and Robin, they make NO sense at all. If you took their characters at face value, they never would’ve gotten past a one night stand
What really gets me is the way the narrative almost acts like it's fine that Ted has kids because they're OLDER KIDS, as if teenagers and young adults don't still deeply impact their parents' lives. Ted is still a dad and Robin is still stepping into a FAMILY UNIT here, and her character would be frustrated by the parameters of that, which she would likely see as limitations while Ted would see it as the ideal. I hate the implication that older kids don't count or something--Robin aggressively did not want kids, then apparently goes and marries a guy with two kids whose mom DIED. This is not an easy role to take on, even if the kids are on board. Like you said, they just do not fit.
@@Vi_Vi_1 it'S SUCH a weird narrative choice. Up until the end the story we get told is " Ted wants Robin, but she doesn't want a family, but Ted ultimately wants his family and will love his future wife much more. The obstacle he needs to overcome is his false idea that Robin is what he wants, so he can move onto what he actually wants and needs" and then at the end, it just flips that on his head. So we get a feel good montage about a happy life, but the entire point of the series is that what Ted wanted was NOT what he kept talking about for nine years, his family actually is the obstacle to his happiness! It's like watching a sportsmatch and you know the objective, and then in the end the commentators say "Oh by the way, the team that scored more points loses" and you sit there like... wait what It's like the worst case of subverting expectations... in a way it's as insulting as the BBC Sherlock show mocking people for trying to crack the case along with Sherlock as if that's a crazy thing to do when watchign a mystery show, the writers of HIMYM went " Why were you expecting a romcom feel good ending when we've been giving you a feelgood romcom/sitcom show? That's not how reality works! People die!"
@@ginster458 yeah exactly!! It was just so deeply confusing, frustrating, and unsatisfying. They made no sense as a couple and shoving them back together at the very end like that was probably the most disappointing thing they could have done. I wish they'd had the guts to scrap their original plan and acknowledge that the show had grown well beyond that, and the characters had taken paths that made it so that ending no longer made any sense. Barney and Robin were great together and Ted got what he wanted, so making it seem like it all led back to Robin kinda nullified that and treated his family like a secondary priority to what really mattered to him, which was so gross
Robin already has a relationship with Ted’s kids, they call her aunt Robin. She’s not walking into something brand new. It’s ridiculous how you weirdos throw the kids card at Robin when people are allowed to change their minds. Robin isn’t raising little toddlers, she would just be the cool aunt who’s dating their dad. Y’all making it more deep than it needs to be to justify your anger. Get some help and grow up
This, I always perceived the ending as, Ted and Robin always loved each other (that's why the show starts years before we meet the mom nor is knowing the mom as important as the kids know that story) it's the story of how he wants his last chance at love, by that age all the other things matter less. @NightRises234
Agreed! I would also add that my wife point blank told me that, if she died, it would not be okay for me to remarry an old ex-gf that I’ve been in contact with the whole time I knew my wife. That would be a personal insult to my wife and basically an indication that I always had feelings for another woman while married to my wife.
I never thought about it like that, but you're right. That makes the ending even worse.
The worst part was the way they ended Barney and Robin. That was a really stupid reason for a divorce - Robin works too much? They don't see each other enough? After all the drama leading up to them finally getting married you would think they would try just a bit harder. Made zero sense and only serves to make sure Robin is single for Ted later. And the mother was way more compatible with Ted. Robin didn't want kids, and Ted has kids. Not sure how that is just brushed to the side as well. Also it's worth noting there is an alternate ending where Ted did not end up with Robin. The mother still dies, which is a bummer, but in the alternate ending shows Robin asking Ted if he would like to give their relationship another try and Ted responds that he doesn't have those feelings for her anymore. Which I think stays true to his relationship with Tracy and is more aligned with his character.
"Hey guys why don't we tediously stretch two narrative days over an entire season, culminating in a wedding that will be undone off-screen with a voiceover. Then we'll kill off the mother in 5 seconds so we can peddle a relationship that we said was "definitively" ended about six times already. Man, everyone is gonna love it".
Fr
Imagine the wedding being say a 3 parter at the start of the season, and then the finale episode being the rest of the final season. We spend time with the Mother and Ted. You could even keep most of the same plot points but instead give us time to breathe with it. I prefer the alternative ending where the final shot is Ted meeting the Mother, but hey what they had could theoretically work.
@@neodigremoI basically said this right away, it was necessarily the finale, it was all of season 9 waisted on that wedding and the craming all this information into the finale. I agree with the guy who made this video that it be better if Robin and Barney stay together and Ted doesn't go after Robin. We spent 9 years waiting to meet the mother and they kill her off right after we meet her, they spend an entire year on that wedding and it's over 15 minutes later. Way too much information in the finale. Season 9 was a turd because of the wedding. Season 8 should of ended with Ted and Tracy meeting, season 9 their story. I like the idea of Ted telling the story to his kids just reminiscing the love of his life. Ted going after Robin feels like he never truly got over Robin and it undermines the love for Tracy.
Tediously... Man, you're killing me! 😄
The worst part is that Ted meeting Tracy at Barney and Robin's wedding retroactively makes the begining of the show (and Ted's story) make so much sense because had Ted not fallen for Robing, he would've never brought her into the group, she never would've fallen for Barney, they never would've married and Ted never would've met his children's mother.
Oh I love this theory, butterfly effect.
If there was ever conclusive proof Ted and Robin were NEVER meant to be together, it would be this. It was actually clever on the writer's part nixing Robin early on as a possible candidate for being the mother of Ted's future children, yet keep her around as part of Ted's friend group eventually culminating in her and Barney getting together, getting married, and then, when Ted least expected it, he finally met the woman of his dreams with everything that transpired leading up to that iconic moment HIMYM serving as an effective representation of the saying "a blessing in disguise" with Robin serving as the personification of said saying. But noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo...they just HAD to subvert viewer's expectations at the last minute by having Ted still pine for Robin in the final few minutes of the series finale when the entire nine season run of HIMYM did everything possible to torpedo the idea of them ever becoming an official couple after their break-up early on.
It also could have served as a lesson to his kids who are still grieving Tracy: he met their mother the day he finally got over Robin. As painful as it is to move on, that's how the best thing in your life can happen to you.
@@disgruntledcashier503 that is so good!
And if he didnt love robin he wouldnt leave her marriage shortly after ending and meet Tracy in station
The final season should have been, Ted Meets Wife at Wedding. Followed by their life together. Ending at the point Ted is talking too the kids and the wife walks in to see what they are talking about and Ted just smiles. End scene.
Seriously that would have been great. 24 episodes and we only got one episode just for the mother. We barely know anything about her and for them to just end her character like that. Was such a punch in the face
@@jacquelinelugo5518 agreed. But this video did give me an itch to watch it again :)
I think you nailed this, you've said it exactly as it was. no notes, perfect work.
Why didn't they just reshoot Ted's kids grown up and make a joke of how long he has been telling the story? Their hands wouldn't have been tied to the original ending.
I wondered this too. Or they could’ve just not showed the clips where they’re talking about Ted going after Robin and scrapped the whole thing. The fact that this was all pre planned makes it feel so much worse. 🤷♀️ I thought it would’ve been so much more meaningful if the mother had lived, and maybe they could’ve made some sort of family montage where his kids bring over his grandkids and they’re retelling the story or something.
@@Lina-ed2cr I think most of us would be okay if they just get the original actors to come back and dub over the preshot finale. Sure, the new conversation won't match the lips, but at least then they won't be quite as tied to the original ending.
The kids didn't even need to say anything. It could have just shown Ted's (or Bob sagets) face saying and that kids is how I met your mother.
There was a joke reel where actors made this exact premise it's on KZhead 😂 And they use cuss words as well.
And with make up and special effects, they can do anything. I think they just lost their passion.
There would have been absolutely nothing wrong with the show just having an incredibly straightforward ending where Ted meets Tracy and says "and that kids, is how I met your mother." The end. The writers were desperate to add in one final twist and it just wasn't necessary
Yup. Then the audience can imagine whatever they wanted to happen to happen.
Yeah my favorite fan-idea for the ending was to have the story end straightforwardly and then cut back to the present and have the kids aged up so they are adults now, possibly with their own partners and young kids. It would have perfect, you get one last joke, it solves the issue of the actors who play the kids aging, and it's perfectly in line with Ted's character to literally spend years telling the story of how he met Tracy.
@@connorsullivan1855 Honestly this! They always joked about it being a long story, play it for the joke!
Very well articulated. I remember being devastated at the ending of this show, having followed it from day one. I didn't know about the alternate ending on the dvd set- maybe I'll give it another watch with that ending, or like you stated, stop at the end of season 8 and save myself the boredom of season 9.
I had to quickly pause the video to write this: i swear on the Goliath National Bank that your breakdown of Barney's character was the most poignant analysis and best explanation of his purpose in the show, the logic behind his personal flaws and subsequent growth over the course of the series, that I've ever seen/heard. Bravo. I studied media science and I never would've been able to summarise this so perfectly and compact😅
I still hate this shows ending 😭. Every time I think it's not that bad I get upset 1. A whole season of Barney/Robin wedding is so cruel when one of his last lines on the show is how he will never probably love again. 2. The fact that they just fell apart as friends 😭 3. That Ted was so venominant that Barney betrayed him and a shit friend and to turn around get his ex wife seems like character assassination for him and Robin. 4. Telling a story about how you been in love with an ex girlfriend the whole time 😭 5. A lot of people felt like Tracy was just used to give Ted kids 😭
Bonus : telling your kids about about every lady you had sex with before you met their mother😂
The fact the entire last season is about Robin and Barney’s wedding only for the final episode to just have them get divorced still pisses me off more than Ted thinking he had a chance with Robin afterwards
I remember a comment from another video about the ending. Basically Robin is unable to bear kids so Tracy came and gave Ted two children just so Ted and Robin can solve the no kid problem. The whole show turns from “How I Met Your Mother” to “How I Still Want to Bang Aunt Robin”
Same
@@loveheart115 Literally *this!* It made that entire season feel like a gigantic waste of time
Not gonna lie, upon rewatching this show about a year ago, I realized that Ted is actually the *worst* sex pest. Man thinks he’s “owed” a perfect partner, and destroys his life and others’ in pursuit of an unfair and unrealistic ideal. At least Barney is obvious about his goals; Ted is just a self- centered toxic asshole.
I feel the same. By the 3rd season, I'd had enough of him. He's such an awful person and treats women terribly, and never learns. In real life, guys like him and Barney, do they even have actual friendships with women?
@@sonyakinsey4376no, and honestly the show taught men that women saying no didn’t matter- just pester them long enough until they say yes! (Also separate note- Barney and Robin deserved better 😂😂😂)
Well, the question was rhetorical, but no, I certainly wouldn't be friends with any guys like Ted or Barney. I've successfully avoided dating guys a lot like Ted.
Ted was honestly worse. Because he would convince them he wanted something deeper, then break up with them on their birthdays. Ted is my least favorite character on the show, I actively hate him. My entire neutrality died for him when he screamed at Marshall for not being over Lily (an 8 year relationship) and that he should move on, while we had to sit through a season or two of him whining about Robin for one date.
Well - there's always the line Barney said "I'm pretty sure I sold a woman... There was a man who gave me the keys to a Mercedes and I left her there" I know it's a comedy show - but I was like "yeah that's not funny"
hello this is the first video I've ever seen by you and the Riverdale reference in the middle of the show synopsis was an INSTANT subscribe
ok now i'll finish the video
Wow thx for this video ❤❤ as a huge fan I can say this show changed my life. I did the Chinese subtitles of the show since season two until the end. So I almost remember everything jokes that were so hard to translate and everything epic moments of the show. I was in love with every character and defended every critic of the show being a copy of friends. Now watching this video 10 years later answered lots of questions about my confusion about the final season. I thought okay maybe old Ted made that decision cuz he is only old and don’t want to be alone so he go back to robin that can make sense but actually Ted is never someone who can settle as robin can’t put romance before her career. This just ends wrong and I can’t defend it😢😢 broke my heart to realize my all time favorite sitcom has a shitty ending but that’s life
Tracy was done DIIIIRTY!! You do not cast someone as adorable and perfect to play the Mother as Cristin Milioti just to kill her in the spam of half an episode like that. TRACY DESERVED FUCKING BETTER!!
One good thing the final season did was making everyone mad about Milioti, because she is just so darn charismatic!
Bro I felt I was in love with her just after 5 mins.
That's the thing, living up to the expectations is almost an impossible task, and Tracy exceeded everyone's expectations. They struck gold with her and they didn't use it.
@@TomCruz54321 Not only that, but the character Tracy deserved so much better. She was the sweetest, kindest soul in the whole cast and yet not only did her fiancé die a tragic death, no, she has to die young, too, and ultimately serve as a baby machine for Ted and Robin to finally have their happily ever after once Robin seemingly doesn't have to lift a finger anymore to raise Ted's kids. THAT'S dirty
For me, one of the worst scenes is when Tracy, on her wedding day, took a photo of the group. It gave the impression she would never be apart of them, even after marring Ted! It annoyed me so much.
That’s so sad
I think it was meant to be foreshadowing.
It was really SUCH A LET DOWN how after all the seasons, we didn't get to know Tracy at all!!! Like I get why there wouldnmt be a full season about her, as it was about how they met.. But you'd expect to at least get to know her character enough as in scenes to what she was up to right before meeting Ted and why he was her perfect match too.. As to get emotionally attached to the character. But she was literally just put in there to push out two babies so Ted could again have Robin 🥴
I think that was literally Tracy's decision. Like she said "lemme take a picture" she knew these 5 had a bond that was from way before she came in the group. And I also think because rhe gang met again after a long time.
Idk I kind of took that scene as a metaphor for the whole show. Like, the show was never about the mother. Tracy was always just a framing device so we can experience the group and their friendship through its many highs and lows
watching these clips at the beginning and being unable to hear anything they're saying, it pulls on my heart and makes me want to watch the series again so badly 😭 I've done a rewatch before though, so I really really know that I can't stomach that. It's not just the ending. The show itself hasn't held up at all. It's wild to compare it to something like Always Sunny which was around at the same time, and way edgier, and yet is still just as watchable today. HIMYM just makes me groan with disappointment end to end 😞
The final episode was just *so* awkward. It felt like they had one really fleshed out and wonderful ending - and then rememberd "oh wait! we were supposed to do *the twist* that we planned at the start! So had to rush in a Robin-Barney break up and Robin falling in love with Ted again plotline. So they literally had to undo *all* of Barney, Robin and Ted's character development to get it to work. And *thank you* for your comments about Barney - you 100% nailed it.
I don't know if i'm just jaded but i feel Tracy was used as a tool to help Ted achieve his dream life. Everything we know about her is in relation to Ted : how well she completes him, how well she integrated in Ted's group, how they had the same goals. After Ted got his kids and Robin travelled the world and achieved professional success they are finally compatible enough for their relationship to work long term so how nice of Tracy to get out of the way.
Oh absolutely! For me the worst part of that is how the show began to explore Robin's infertility and how it affected her although she initially didn't want to have kids. At the time it seemed like a nicely executed and deep storyline, but after seeing the ending I couldn't help but feel it was brought up just to highlight how Tracy is nothing more but Robin's replacement in Ted's vision of ideal life.
But that's the thing, Ted and Robin were never actually compatible. Ted was a hopeless romantic and Robin found that stuff cheesy. Robin was fiercely independent and could even physically defend herself in most dangerous situations, a fact that Ted even mentions in the show makes him insecure. I could go on, but the point is, opposites may attract but they do not always make a good couple
AND HIS MIND BLATANTLY REFUSED TO ACCEPT THE FACT THAT HE HAS TO MOVE ON. He was in love with the same woman for 20 frickin years?? Despite being married and being in relationships many times over ?? Oh so convenient Tracy died for both of em.
@@slaaaphas a woman who can’t have kids I totally understand her. Even if you didn’t want it, there’s still a possibility for me to start wanting them (in 5-10 years, why not?). Also having a kid is one of the unique experiences in life. But infertility just takes away all relatively “cheap and simple” options to live that experience. And not having any options is always super sad.
OMG, Tracy is a tragic version of a manic pixie dream girl? 🤯
This video is so validating for so many - thank you
The part about Barney. HELL YES! Thank you so much.
How I Met Your Mother writers walked so Game of Thrones writers could run when it comes to the art of crafting finales.
😂😂😂😂
Although compared to himym got is a masterpiece lmao
And so Supernatural could fly
SVTFOE anyone?
That's unfortunately true :/
The actress for Tracy is the definition of perfect casting for me. She was everything we were hoping for and more
The fact they didn't even give Tracy even 2 episodes on her passing. Such a disrespect of that character
The obsession of men getting laid is also what contributes to the male loneliness epidemic. The show is LITERALLY showing how acting like barney leads to superficial and short lived relationships and a feeling of loneliness. But then guys will either glorify this OR will end up becoming "nice guy finish last" guys, both ignoring that guys like this dont usually get meaningful relationships
The biggest problem with the finale for me is that Ted and Robin were never that interesting of a couple. Even if the show had ended in season 2 or 3 when their relationship was at the forefront of the show it still would’ve been a lame ending. In the first episode Ted sees Robin from across the room at McLaren’s and just instantly falls in love with her. The show is obviously aware of how cliched and silly that is and pokes fun at it constantly, but it still makes for a weak starting point for their relationship. From then on, Ted is just unhealthily obsessed with Robin. We’re never really given a reason why Ted is in love with her. He just is. Not to mention their relationship always felt very one sided. Robin was never anywhere near as into Ted as he was into her. This is fine though, because by the end of the episode we are told that she isn’t the mother. So even at the end of the first episode we are told that aren’t going to work out.
If anything Ted was really awful to Robin during their relationship. He shamed her for the amount of men she’s slept with. Tried to get rid of her dogs and send them upstate. That incident with the t-shirt. Constantly pressuring her. And then of course the whole thing with the last episode of season 2 where he keeps pressuring her about marriage even though she’s made it clear she doesn’t want marriage or children.
Every time I think about Ted and Robin, all I can think about is that scene where Ted tells her that Robin being self sufficient made him feel emasculated and inadequate... immediately contrasted with Barney saying that he liked that Robin was strong and independent and did not need him to fix all her problems. So I fucking hate the finale on multiple reasons. And I thought I had forgotten how much I hated it and now I remembering all over again... (And also Barney's total character assassination).
Ted was never good enough for Robin
god. ted really was just a fucking pest
@@TabbyeLynne yeah bro it was supposed to be you with her, because you know her so well and would treat her like a queen.
plot twist and news flash: most strong independent women dont like being strong and independent
Yeah it was not just about having kids, Ted and Robin were incompatible in almost every way
Honestly, the final season always had a special place in my heart, with Tracy's episode leading up to how she also got to Robin and Barney's wedding. It always made me cry, and will continue to.
Okay, as a very passionate How I Met Your Mother last episode defender, I totally agree. I still like the last episode, because I remember watching it when it aired and sobbing my eyes out when he holds up the blue french horn. And I've probably rewatched the show 10 times since then. But you're so right. A lot of it was a betrayal of their characters. Though, I will say, I don't think Tracy being dead is a bad choice at all. I mean, that's the reason he's telling the story, right? Because his kids are old enough to hear it. Even in the alternate ending, I still think Tracy is dead. They just don't explicitly say it to appease the audience. Anways, RIP Tracy Moseby.
People who try to defend the ending would say "well but then why did show start with Ted meeting Robin?" BECAUSE HE MET THE MOTHER AT ROBIN'S WEDDING, IT WAS A TALE OF ROBIN AND BARNEY GROWING INTO A COUPLE THAT BROUGHT THE MOTHER TO TEDS LIFE AAAAAAA TED WAS JUST THE NARRATOR THEY WERE THE MAIN COUPLE
EXACTLY! Also, Robin complaining about how Ted was the one who got away after he met Tracy at her own wedding was a terrible move development-wise. 😔 the show is all about fate and friendship and supporting people you love. It’s almost like Barney was also her placeholder.
I took the meeting of robin more as the way to kickstart the version of their friendship group and his life that made being with the mother possible, Robin taught him a lot (whether he actually was written to have learnt it very well...well let's ignore that) and was one of his most important friends. Another thing that frustrates me about that is it's more than suggesting that nothing is more important than romance, friends are not as important according to this, and that's such a sucky take, they work SO much better as friends and they're better for it, they were soulmates as friends, not romantically. Some people are compatible as both and some people are the complete opposite, they are the complete opposite, working well as friends but so incompatible romantically Also down with amatonormativity At least that's one thing Barney's canon ending got right with his daughter, he didn't need a romantic or sexual relationship to be happy
@@reedsylvier5250 both are valid and go hand in hand imo!
To which I say why? Because Ted needed to meet and fall in love with Robin in order to grow as a person, realize that love is more than what is perceived as destiny and that above all, you can't force love on someone who doesn't share your vision. The lesson is never beg anyone to love you because with the right person, you can find someone you don't have to beg or force anything with. It will just be. Which is exactly how it was with Tracy upon their first meeting. The conversation with her was natural. It was easy. She shared his sense of humor. Ted wasted many years on so many different women because of his obsession with the one when in reality the woman he married was the one he didn't force this ideal onto and it showed how much he grew as a person when he met Tracy. That's why we meet Robin first. Because the person and mentality Ted had of forcing love needed to be unlearned.
Yesss swarkles main couple iktr 😌
The only redeeming quality of the finale was Barney meeting his daughter Ellie for the first time. Neil Patrick Harris' acting in that scene honestly made me feel emotional, I wish that Barney suddenly having a daughter had been explored more. It felt lazy that Barney reverted to his womanising lifestyle, after his love for Robin made him a better person.
The thing that irked me about that was it took Barney havin' a daughter to reform his womanizer lifestyle. It happens plenty in life but it's very sad. Men shouldn't need a lil girl to help them start to treat women better. Greetings btw @trinaq
And the episode about the king player of New York City that’s one of the best episodes
Especially as barey getting betting there, is pretty much ruined retroactive. The better part of the looong seasons is barney growing as person, and robin is always great, but his growth too.@@rahbeeuh
@@rahbeeuhAgreed, it just felt redundant, especially since Barney became a better man through his love for Robin, but that was almost instantly thrown out of the window.
@@trinaq that's the frustrating part. We'd seen Barney become a somewhat better person but then to have him reverse that progress, get a woman pregnant and have a daughter who changes him again?! Oh my wow, the whiplash 😭
Great breakdown. I think that several of these pieces could make sense for the ending in a vacuum, but you're absolutely right that the ending just pulled the rug out from underneath everything we had gotten invested in for these characters. You could argue that a lot of the story did focus on the will-they-wont-they of Robin and Ted, so there is some catharsis of them coming together in the end. Even with the constant reminders of how they don't have compatible goals, we love them, and have loved a lot of things about their relationship, and it does fit that the idea behind this was not *really* about how he met the mother, but how even as much as he loved the mother, now that she is gone, his feelings for Robin are still there, and if shes available and he isn't trying to have more kids, maybe it will be good this time or something. But that completely ignores the amazing arc for Barney which just got thrown out of the window, and *so* suddenly. And it meant that we are just starting to get to know and love the mother, when suddenly we are told this is not what its been about at all this entire time, and she doesn't matter, so, move on. You could also argue that the canon ending just doubles down on Barney's abandonment issues, explaining his return to depravity, but that requires Robin to still be so career focused and also is super unfulfilling the way it is presented - as a side casualty to the need to make Robin be available for Ted. I can even understand if they say that by the time the story is being told, the mother is dead, which is part of why the kids get to hear this story. But again, you spent so much time building up to it that you leave us so whiplashed with everything that its unsatisfying, and you pile on top of that all of the other let downs and character assassinations. I actually kinda like Season 9 minus the last little bit that tears up Robin and Barney and says that this whole thing is about Ted trying to get his kids permission to go date Robin. Honestly, I could even get behind if they had just killed Barney too, so that Robin was otherwise available. It still would have been a bit of a subversion of the expectations, but in the end it could have come together. I did not actually know about the alternate ending cut, which is super exciting, I may have to check that out... I do like the sound of it, it sounds like it fits so much better
one of my fave youtubers making a video ab one of my most fave shows! OHHH! i'm blessed
The ending is so bonkers to me because it was the same showrunners for the entire series. They wrote and filmed that ending back in season 2, and then spend the next seven seasons practically going out of their way to make sure it wouldn't make sense. How do you fuck up that badly?
That’s the most frustrating part to me. They knew this was their endgame. So, why did they go on to evolve the characters in a way that made them so incompatible as the show went on? The further into the seasons they got, they just seemed to make Ted obsessed with the idea of Robin. I felt like by the time they got to the end, Barney and Robin were a much better fit.
@@nurse0857are you blind or have bias? The entire last season was going back and forth with how both Barney and Ted were fit for Robin. Plus again the story didn’t mess up. It ended with how they met their mother, their second mother Robin. It was always about Robin disguised in a story about their first mom.
They didn’t even have to go through with it tho… Like… just cut that scene out…
@@nurse0857I disagree with Barney and Robin being a good fit, Barney is an awful human being and he did not have enough character development to have earned a healthy relationship. I hate it.
@@introusas Barney was a by product of his upbringing. He showed time and time again he would do anything for the people he loved and had a strong moral code it was just a weird one. Barney and Robin both didn’t need people but it didn’t mean they had to be single. At the end of the day Barney got exactly what he wanted: not a normal relationship but somebody he could out all his love into. What he desperately wanted his life to happen to him.
How I Met Your Mother is the shining example of why showrunners will never have their ending shot before they reach the final season ever again
In my opinion they could've just shot several possible endings with children. And never reveal which is the "canon". It would've also helped if show ended early in my opinion
And the thing is (no offense to the kid actors) but no one and I repeat no one in this entire world would have cared if the scene with them at the end was cut out.
@@sophieamandaleitontoomey9343exactly. The alternate ending has no mention of the kids and nobody cares.
Same
Exactly it would be like if Parks and Rec ended with Leslie realizing the love of her life was Mark Brendanawicz all along.
In hindsight the writing of the last season of HIMYM feels to me a lot like that infamous "somehow Palpatine returned". In a nutshell: bad writing mixed with higher up interests incompatible with how a story ectually developed. Thank you for this excellent summary. It actually made me realise WHY I was so angry about this matter, I never really got it until today. So well done, and thank you again!
Your analysis actually helped me see the ending as better than i initially did.
Here is my take. As a middle aged woman, they could have made the ending work, but…they would have had to show Robin supporting Ted through the death of his wife. Showing Robin being close to the kids. Showing Robin having lived the life she wanted to live, but now wanting to live that life with someone quieter like Ted. It wouldn’t negate anything. It would follow the show’s natural premise of watching these characters grow and change. Hitting middle age sometimes your needs and wants change. Flying around the world constantly was fun in your twenties but in your late forties it might feel like a lot. Also as you age one can get downsized or passed over for a younger version of themselves so there just be more alone time because a 24 hour job can turn into a 9-5. Like I said, change is a fundamental part of life. Seeing the world differently doesn’t negate who you were, it just defines who you are now. Like I said this progression should have been shown, because a shift like this takes 20 years and this one happens in less than 12 hours of real time. You can’t show the minutiae that creates these kinds of evolution. On the Barney thing he could have changed through therapy with Robin trying to save their marriage. Instead of returning to asshole Barney he would return to a bit of a middle ground. He would remarry, become a dad, but would still say some dumb shit. My point is that they had so many simple ways to make it all make sense. Edit: I’m not saying Robin now magically wants to be the mom (like the trope). It’s more of: she is uniting with people she loves. She’s still “Aunt Robin”.
Oonagh72 Hear, hear.
They could've set that up in season 8 maybe and took the extra time. Touche.
I think if they'd done this well, Barney being a loving single father to a girl is the perfect ending for him too
That would've make a great ending! They could've spent less time on the wedding, and more on the aftermath of Tracy's death. After a while it would've made sense to reunite Ted and Robyn. They didn't play their cards right and it's a shame!
I'm with you. Must be the age thing 🥲 we see so much happening to others and ourselves, the changing of the priorities...
This is my favorite sitcom, and the ending is just so awful that I just refuse to believe it exists. Ted meets the mom under the umbrella. Roll credits.
So you believe the “alternate” ending. Which there is nothing alternate about it, it is the true ending of the show
@@jessedellross3245 Pretty much XD
Yesssss ❤
That’s how I watch it 😂
My immediate thoughts when I saw the finale
Beautiful description of my favorite show
The only thing I like with either ending is Barney meeting his daughter and being brought to tears. Like, he falls in love at that moment and realizes just how much he wants to protect and love her.
there has NEVER been a character that was so assassinated like how barney was in that finale it was genuinely PAINFUL to witness. barney and robin are my favourite on screen couple so the fact that it was revealed that they DIVORCED after having one of the greatest relationship arcs in sitcom history was CRIMINAL. like they genuinely couldn't have ruined that finale more if they tried. watching it for the first time was like watching the worst thing that could possibly happen continuously happen for the entire runtime
Yeah it reduced him to just a character, not a person
The actual sin was centering the entire final season around the wedding, because Barney and Robin ending in divorce made perfect sense for both characters. He was a serial womanizer with abandonment issues. She was on the path to becoming a globetrotting reporter who would be away from her husband for extended periods of time. And we already saw their relationship fail once before in the series. They weren't the perfect match everyone wants them to be.
Honestly the thing that pissed me off the most about it was the whole "Barney learned to respect women because he has a daughter now" of it all. Like it just felt like the writers trying to compensate for essentially ruining Barney's character. Especially when it wasn't foreshadowed at all, and we don't see his daughter's mother or even *learn her name*.
@@user74027nhBarney is practically irredeemable. He has abused and harassed women from the very first episode to the end. He’s a shit human being and doesn’t deserve any redemption. A lot of the things he did to women were bordering on rape, if not literal rape.
100% agree that shit ruined me
Aaah How I Settled For Your Mother....I forgot how much I hated this ending
Apart from the Ted and Robin getting back together, I generally enjoyed the the last season and how the show ended, but it could have been done so much better. I think that maybe if they had done the wedding a few episodes sooner so we could see more looks at the group down the road, show Barney and Robin begin happily married, then struggling and trying to make it work, and then divorcing it could have gone down better. I will say I did love Barney's final growth coming from becoming a father. His guest appearance in the sadly canceled How I Met your Father was great, seeing how he had become a loving father and better person.
This video made me realize how many good dance/club sequences a lot of shows he covered has. Like, I always assumed it was something he pulled from somewhere else, but THIS video made me realize that shows he had covered had some really dope dance scenes.
20:41 what is so frustrating is they could have pulled off an ending where the “kids” were now adults, and just made a joke out of it, and written a better conclusion.
It should have ended by Cristin Miloti as Tracy comming into the scene where ted ends his tale to his children and happily announce it was time for their children to hear how she met their father and implying her version was longer. Would have been so funny and perfectly displayed how great they fit together. I imagine they could have easily reused a clip for the childrens reaction as well.
THIS
Perfect ❤❤
Ok Dylan so first of all: this was a super awesome analysis Second: WE NEED THE ENDING TRACK LIKE YESTERDAY ITS SK GOOD
I will never not shed a tear at the Alternate Ending. It's PERFECT.
The scene of Ted hearing Tracy sing La Vie En Rose with her ukulele never fails to make tear up. She's so charming and she slots perfectly into the friend group, it really feels like she'd been there all along. She's an amazing character in her own right and they just tossed her aside in the finale. It's baffling!
Tracy was actually perfect, I feel like they should’ve made season 9 about her rather than barney and robins wedding
Agreed
They couldn't very well make a character introduced at the very end outshine the established characters. The problem wasn't a lack of planning. The problem was they'd planned this ending from the very start. But the show ran a long time, and the original idea of how it ended, which they'd gone to such pains to set up, didn't work anymore. Overall, I liked the final season. I certainly saw them hinting Ted and Robin weren't entirely over each other. But Ted and Robin no longer interested me as a couple. I loved Tracy at first sight. They also suggested there was some doom hanging over her. But that just made her more compelling. It was not that they rushed the ending. It was that they had used the framing device of the kids to lead up to the ending they'd always intended to do. But they had to keep developing the characters, to fill all the time between the pilot and the finale. Ted and Robin no longer made any sense. Barney and Robin breaking up was of course quite imaginable, but to do it so abruptly after spending a whole season building up to the wedding did not work. Neither did Ted's own children telling him the story he'd been telling, about his endless affairs with a variety of women, leading up to his finally finding Tracy, achieving his dream of a happy marriage--the kids' mother!--was all about Robin. No kids who lost their mom young would ever say that. They might want their dad to date again, be happy--they would not be literally matchmaking for him. And should we believe Ted has Robin for the asking, simply by stealing a blue French Horn and waving it at her from the street? It was too forced. Well, endings usually are, because sitcoms aren't a form designed to have endings. All sitcom finales feel forced, to some extent, but because this one was so serialized for a sitcom, it was more obvious. The show I watched was not about Ted and Robin after the second season. They had their try, and they broke up without any real regrets. They were not meant for each other, except as friends. And yes, it does make it seem like Tracy's only purpose in life was to bear Ted children. When in fact Robin was made infertile very late in the show, just to make sure we know she's not The Mother. So again--not underplanning--overplanning. Not accepting that the show's whole ethos is that Life is what happens when you're making other plans. They should have just let the final twist go, and that is basically how the show ends now. Still feels forced. Maybe you don't need to tell us everything that happened to everyone on a damn half hour comedy? Just leave it open-ended.
100% agree, loved her character
@@christopherlyons5900 I agree with you, but at the same time I would prefer that they killed Marshall since he didn't want to be there and made one more season with the mother. This way the ending wouldn't be so scuffed. Could show us a bit more of her, even getting sick (it was not what I wanted, but I feel like I would accept it better) and grief that had only been seen by Marshall's dad, but it still could be a fun thing to explore. About Robbin and Barney they could show us the struggle but still make it work, I just feel that they got lazy and wanted to use what they already had in “stock”.
@@martins2677 I don't see how making Lily a grieving widow is helping anything. No, the only real mistake they made was to get so committed to the ending they dreamed up before they shot the pilot, they couldn't adjust to the reality that it didn't work anymore.
loved this video ! thank you !
The mother dying isnt the problem, it’s that robin and Barney split up and Ted went back to robin. Keep them together and let Ted cherish all the stories he got to tell to his kids.
I don’t know what’s more misogynistic. The mother being reduced down to “the mother that dies because plot” and to set Ted up with someone else or Robin basically throwing away everything to get back with a guy who is not even compatible with her
Don´t forget the misogynistic trope of a man only learning to respect women and see them as humans after they contribute to make one; with the adding bonus that the mother of the girl doesn´t even have a name, just a number.🤮🤢🤮🤢
I dont know that Robin would have to throw everything away, but it is stupid and forced. It never sat right with me that Tracy was basically the r63 of Ted. Like what is the message here? That someone needs to be your exact doppelganger in terms of personality in order for you to be compatible.
Because the show is not about a happily ever after, It's about life and changes. Ted wanted a "perfect girl" that doesn't exist and he only accepts life when he finally move on from his wife's death.
@@owenleal no need to be a doppelganger, but you need to at least have common future goals, which Ted and Robin didn't have. Pining for your ex girlfriend, who is also the ex wife of your friend, for decades is also not a good message :)) I'm sure Ted and Tracy were not perfect copies of each other, we just saw very little of her.
@@JakeSmith-zk3ho But they made Tracy perfect :)) and then they killed her If she was not dead, would Ted still go back to Robin?? Would the "perfect girl" still not exist? And even taking that all aside, season 9 was terribly planned. You don't spend the last seasons saying how done were Ted and Robin, plan her wedding with Barney for the whole final season, present the Mother as perfect..... and then undo everything in the last ten minutes. To this day, those final 10 minutes are some the most ridiculous character assassination I've ever witnessed.
I will NEVER understand how they couldn’t make season 9 all about Tracy and Ted’s relationship. It might have made us people that hated the Robin/Ted ending willing to maybe accept it. This idiotic ending made Tracy seem like a surrogate for his kids. We got duped! Tracy was perfect and they pulled the rug from under us! Also, by Ted running back to Robin it looked like he never grew up and the cycle of Ted/Robin started all over again.
Seriously, I would have loved more time with Tracy, and getting to see their life together. We didn't need twists and drama and Ted getting back with Robin, we just needed that cute happy ending we wanted.
Ted x Robin forever! Stay mad!
@@Vi_Vi_1happy endings are boring
@@TheSuperappelflap firmly disagree: life is hard, and very rarely has happy endings. Maybe you don't enjoy them, but plenty of us do. Plus, they could still have written a sad ending if they wanted to. I'm not upset with it because it wasn't happy, I'm upset with it because it was poorly written and deeply unsatisfying. And I'm not going to explain that because the video we're commenting on does a great job explaining it lol
Good point! The ending ruined Ted, too! It’s like he never learned to let go, and the show said he’s right to keep pining over Robin. “Keep trying and the girl will be with you” is a terrible message. 🤦♀️
Dude, Robin and Barney were perfect for each other at that time. Robin was a career woman and Barney, even though he realized that he can love, with all his scars, he didn't work on them. He chose and fell in love with a woman that fit them. Plus he lost his job which was a big part of his identity right at the same time and he realized that his new life wasn't good enough. When his relationship reached its obvious doom, he reverted back to where he felt safe. It's not a complete abandonment of the character's progress, it's a regression to the mean. He summarizes it perfectly "If it wasn't going to work with Robin, it wasn't going to work with anyone." Showing he never really moved on.
Great retrospective! Wild that it’s already been 10 years since the finale. I remember being on those fan theory websites and groups back when the show was airing and how collectively disappointed everyone was with the canon ending. The alternate ending is way better for sure. And yeah I also usually skip season 9 when I rewatch the show. It ending at season 8 is not perfect, but it does make a lot more sense than what we actually got.
Ah yes, another 40 minutes video essay of a show I've never watched by friendly space ninja, today is a good day
I loved this show but could NEVER finish season 9 lol it was so bad
As much as the alternate ending does fix Tracy and Ted’s story, it still doesn’t change the assassination of Barney and Robin’s character arcs. Robin still wishes she was with Ted and is alone now, and Barney still goes back to his old ways, only with a baby now. That’s how bad these writers screwed this finale up so much.
Barney stopped once he had his daughter though. He’s the only one to really grow by the time the finale ended
My headcannon is that when he says "things fall apart, things get put back together" and t shows barney and robin, its left unsaid that they get back together again.
Barney and Robin are together in the real ending which is the one set at their wedding. There was no breakup which makes no sense to who they are and all the developments that went on during the last few seasons and not just the final season.
@@Sharzzz12 no that’s not it at all, like he said: everything from the finale stays the same except for the death of the mother. Everything alluding to her death is wiped out of existence, and it ends at the train. Barney and Robin still get divorce
@@brenegade7 in the alternate Barney and Robin remain married, if they had issues which were already resolved during the series and season they would get through it. They had grown enough to make their relationship work there was no need to break them up. Yes Tracy’s death is sad but shouldn’t have happened. So the alternate has her alive and Barney and Robin together. I don’t really care what happened with them but divorcing them for a plot that didn’t work for the entirety of the series was wrong. You can kill off Tracy just leave BR in tact they were fine with each other. Making the whole show about Robin was the incorrect ending the right ending is at Barney and Robin’s wedding.
I remember watching and discussing online this show so much, theorizing and overanalyzing things was part of my fun with the show and how in time I kind of figured out a few things about the ending. "The time travelers" pretty much spells out that the mother dies, over a year before the ending airs. Also in the first few seasons the show makes a big deal about underlying that Aunt Robin was a big part of the kid's lives. For me the show was always about Ted and Robin, even when it kind of stopped being about Ted and Robin so I always loved the ending because of that. I did felt let down by quality of the episodes that last season though, even if it ended how I wanted.
Tracy was so perfectly cast and the actress had such good chemistry with the cast that it actually made it hurt EXTRA BAD when that ending hit. Because they managed to pull off the impossible and then stumbled on what should have been the easiest part.
The thing about the alternate ending is that it was clearly thrown together at the last minute due to backlash, and it's still way more satisfying than the one they actually put effort into.
I’m as baffled as FSN. If they did put any effort into it, they wouldn’t have tried to force a decade-long show fit a predetermined ending in less than 30 minutes. Build up to it, man 🤦♀️
Exactly. I mean I don’t know how the creators thought their planned ending would go well. Either they were that stupid not to know or they didn’t care. Good writers and producers acknowledge that shows by their nature change. They evolve and grow. And HIMYM had completely outgrown the ending they had planned. It could’ve worked if the show ended in s3-5, but s9? NOPE. It’s just awful. And I’m so glad everyone is on the same page here. I can’t understand how ANYONE can justify or defend this awful finale. I see people defend GOT finale (myself included) but THIS? No
@@jessedellross3245this ending sure never worked passed season 1. Cause Ted and Robin were never meant to be. It is about the mother who ever she was at that season.
Just watched the final season of 8, and astonishment doesn’t describe how I feel
I rewatched Friends around 15-20 times, sometimes still do, it's just comforting. I also rewatched HIMYM a lot when it was airing. Since the finale came out, I have never rewatched a single episode of it. It's just too depressing to listen to any of these stories when you know what the end of it will be.
13:50 “but ultimately, every theory about the mother’s identity ended up being wrong” hmm….. I caught the Tracy hint in like 2012 and my family didn’t believe me and the internet didn’t believe me but I was RIGHT and I will never be prouder of myself
congrats! :D
VINDICATION!
The entire series showed WHY robin and ted didn't fucking work. And they end it with them getting together, are you fucking kidding me
It plays off the whole "great couples need perfect timing." The thing is that it's actually a little insulting that another person doesn't 'work out' now, but maybe they will in another 10 years. I know that in Ted's case the pressure would be off Robin for no kids, but the idea that two people will be better off building a life separately rather than together, and get together when the time is right just ignores the fact that both people will miss out on a lot of time together.
The Tracy character didnt seem to match either. I would have chose Rachel Bilson for him. That would have completed the show very nicely. And don’t kill her off either.
The Tracy character didnt seem to match either. I would have chose Rachel Bilson for him. That would have completed the show very nicely. And don’t kill her off either.
The Tracy character didnt seem to match either. I would have chose Rachel Bilson for him. That would have completed the show very nicely. And don’t kill her off either.
I am such a huge fan of this series, I watch it when I am happy, when I am sad, when I don't know what to do. And I love the ending.
I kind of saw the ending coming more near the end. I watched the whole series with my ex after she got the whole DVD collection for christmas. I was HEAVILY invested. I still enjoyed seeing Barney and Robin's relationship grow, I mean my favorite/saddest part is when Barney had those rose pedals on the bed but Robin goes with the other dude, Ted goes back to the apartment and sees Barney just completely broken. Literally broke me. I was thrown off that Robin and Ted got back at the end but Robin and him were going to be the end story for sure.
You can't change my mind that the writers had no idea how to write a female character that was career driven. And same with lily they made lily so bitchy and ruined here too.
But like...weren't the men awful too? Hahaha
@@OpqHMg not really. Sure barney's character was exaggerated for satire but the character development of the characters barney ted and marshall was great(don't count s9) whereas most women character dev was around career or family even with lily like srsly couldnt think of any other problem? marshall could have both without it being a noise.
It's a very misogynistic show. The writers are misogynists it is why they fridged the Mother.
Robin was written pretty well imo. If they had to break up Robin and Barney (terrible decision all around but whatever) that could’ve worked IF she remained a career focused woman. That would’ve been an ending that fit her character and arc. But that DAMN scene where she whines about Ted RUINED her. Lily………awful. Worst sitcom character ever imo. Just terrible and pointless
@@jessedellross3245Robin was awesome, but her ending up with Ted was an insult to her, paired an amazing woman with a Nice guy
I wonder if they hadn't dropped the ball so hard on the ending if HIMYM would've had the same cult status as Friends. People rewatch Friends all the time and remember it fondly decades later. HIMYM kind of fell into obscurity after being one of the biggest shows out there because you can't rewatch it without remembering it's all leading up to this disaster of an ending
You can kind of see a pattern here, the mega popular shows sort of fade into obscurity, if their finale is that bad. Think about "Lost" or "Game Of Thrones". The biggest shows of their time, losing a huge bunch of fans because of their final episodes and being semi-forgotten afterwards. HIMYM fits this mold too well.
Yeah kinda incredible that after a luxurious meal the people rejected the spoonful of shit and toxic waste forcefully put in their mouths...
They would have had so many reruns and it would still be on the air on many networks. But because of the ending and how terrible it is nothing came of the show after it ended. It’s only talked about now when people talk about the ending. The ending killed anything that the show tried to have.
The "45 days" monolauge gave away the ending; everybody either didn't pick up on it or they willfully ignored it.
I agree with most of the video and still hate the ending like most people do, RIP Tracy. But upon my latest rewatch, I realized something that made me see the ending in a whole new light. You were halfway there when you mentioned Robin being career driven the entire show. That’s what she always wanted, and Ted wanted to get married, settle down and have kids, always something Robin did not want. THIS is why they never worked. But by the end, after Ted had gotten married and had two beautiful kids, and Robin had her spectacular career she always wanted, they were both truly free to be together; sewed their oats in a way. Even early on in a scene at a wedding, Robin straight up tells Ted what you need for a relationship to work - chemistry and good timing. After realizing this, it made me appreciate the ending a bit more, still don’t like it but makes me think it wasn’t as bad as I had thought 10 years ago
Ted and Robin never had chemistry at all, romantically they don’t have chemistry they lasts. That’s the reason why they changed her real romantic to Barney because he’s her true soulmate and real love of her life. Robin doesn’t love Ted she likes him as a friend nothing more.
At least Game of Thrones had a final season to go off the rails. HIMYM only had three minutes. The kids don't even seem upset Ted going after Robin. It's basically "It's been six years, now go get with Aunt Robin!"
But season 9, if ya wanna acknowledge its existence, of HIMYM did go off the rails 😅
GoT was going off the rails since season 5, don't minimize how truly terrible it was.
I binged all of GoT before the last season aired and you can really feel a huge drop in quality after season 4. Season 5 is kinda boring with not much happening (plus it introduced the sand snakes). Season 6 has many terrible scene, but also some great one so ii's just kinda mid. Season 7 is when the show start getting terrible and the story fall appart. The entire season is bad but to me the show jumped the shark when John, the new king of a really unstable region, decide he will go himself capture a white walker instead of sending a few of the thousands of soldiers working for him. Nothing can ever be the same again after something so unbeliably stupid happen on sceen. Season 8 well I don't even have to argue, I've never seen a single person who liked it.
@@Dext3rM0rg4n This is because season 5 is when the story starts diverging sharply from the books. They left out Lady Stoneheart and fAegon, butchered the Dorne and Northern conspiracy plots, ignored Bran's creepy fantasy plot and the Riverlands politicking, ruined Tyrion, Sansa, Littlefinger and Varys by taking away their stories (especially removing Tyrion villain arc) and so on. Stannis, Tyrion, Doran and Bran were especially done dirty. The world expands so much after s4 creates a power vacuum, but GoT starts cutting out characters and storylines and turning smart characters stupid, even though they were under no pressure to wrap up the story. HBO would've happily funded many more seasons. (So yeah, HIMYM finale bad but it's not half as close to the GoT quality drop-off.)
@@Dext3rM0rg4nI stopped watching halfway through season 3 when they started changing the story and making up dialogue. Yes I read all the books before the show was announced. I am the OG hater of that show. Fight me.
I like the idea behind HIMYM ending, starting again, not really being compatible on their 30 but in their 50, healing, loving again, etc. However the problem is the execution. First being the mess of Ted and Robin relationship post break-up, the amount of build up that Robin and Barney' s weeding had and the abrupt conclusion of the mother's arc.
At the time, there were theories about this ending because Ted says his favorite book is Love in the Time of Cholera, which does that. But infinitely better. Daisy Jones and The Six as well. But both really respect the lives that they live, even settle with in some cases. And for Love, it really deals with how worthy that life is even if it's maybe not with your soulmate. I actually enjoy the trope, but I really hated it in HIMYM. I think the biggest issue really is that it felt like it was just what Ted wanted. It didn't really value the life that Tracy and Ted had lived together and didn't value who Robin was. It had to make Robin resent her choices and give Ted what he wanted so he wouldn't have been bitter. Instead of maybe just letting Robin like him again at a later time period without having to be resentful.
I agree, every single thing presented in the ending works in theory i.e. Tracy dying, Barney and Robin divorcing and even Ted and Robin getting back together - The problem is that the final season doesn't take place over the course of normal life like the other seasons do, so we don't get that natural build up that other events throughout the show have gotten. The only thing that does get at least *some* level of build up is Tracy's death, there is a slight implication of her fate way back in the time travellers episode and her death is hinted during season 9 during one of her scenes - Even then, the shoddy and rushed way it's just thrown at the audience during the final episode is just lazy. The season takes place over a single weekend so we don't get that progression of Tracy's "mystery illness" that we would probably see over the course of a normal season. It pains me to think about the season that we could have gotten instead - It could have been a normally structured season where we would actually see Ted and Tracy's relationship develop over time. We could see how she fits into the group dynamic with the others, how she works well with Ted compared to past girlfriends, what they argue about and how they resolve those arguments, and of course the big moments in more detail. One could easily argue that a single season may not have been enough to properly depict all of that to the usual standard, and that it may have needed a 10th season to truly work, but it would have been a million times more compelling than what we eventually got.
Like New Girl also did the right person, wrong time arc. It’s in the execution where HIMYM screwed up big time.
Yeeees, i'm 100% with you..fully agree.
Ok honestly I really like season 9. I think the show is just as funny as always and there are still good character arcs, moments and just generally good writing happening, with only a couple noticeable clunky moments. I LOVE the Ted and Tracy scenes so damn much and I also really enjoyed how they spread them out and did them in a non chronological way, so that the show could truly end with the meeting (which it didn't). EVEN the mother dying isn't so bad, as it makes sense to tell the story and could've been written to make a heartfelt finale. It also didn't come out of left field, with some great foreshadowing and build up that I thought was done REALLY well. I personally wish Ted and Tracy had more time together and some more scenes of them couldn't have hurt but all in all that side of things wasn't bad at all, in fact it made sense and I enjoyed it. What ABSOLUTELY blew it for me was (1) Barney and Robin's divorce is terrible and horrible and I hate it SO much its inconceivable. Like yes the whole last season was good and there were good character moments - MAINLY BARNEY AND ROBIN LEARNING TO BE A COUPLE AND THE SHOW SHOWING US THAT THEY COULD WORK. The season itself was still fantastic but that ending really messed it up. Then of course (2) is Ted going back to Robin which is also super problematic. As another comment mentioned, its very odd to have the mother come, have Ted's kids and then die so Ted can have kids AND be with Robin (which wouldn't have been possible otherwise since Robin can't have kids). Plus as this video mentions, Ted and Robin ended really well and were shown not to work and Ted LITERALLY lets Robin go in the last season. To just shove them together at the end was a tragic decision. The ONLY good thing to come out of this version of the ending was the scene where Barney has his kid. I DON'T like that he reverted to his pre-marriage ways, undoing his entire multi-season arc -in one episode, and that the best thing he could manage for finale-worthy content was a perfect month, BUT the scene where he falls in love with and devotes all his time to his baby is fanastic.
As someone who has never seen a full episode.... your intro makes it seem like you're from another dimension lol
The core of the problem is definitely that they betrayed the premise of the show with the twist. The very first episode set up a subversion of expectations. It looks like the classic sitcom meet cute but it ends with "that's how I met your Aunt Robin." Thus the premise of the show was that it was a "will they, won't they" show in which the original core couple WON'T get together. A Ross and Rachel where the breakup was definitive. That was fresh and new. That was the bedrock of the show. But then the finale betrays that by saying "actually psych, they WILL after all!" which just sucks. Even ignoring all the character reversions, especially with Barney, it sucks.
Absolutely 🙏🏻
I have an instant fix for their excuse of using the prefilmed ending with the kids. Don't use them. Use *their* kids. Ted meets Tracy. We hear the whole Tracy getting sick speach and it ends with a shot of her grave. Standing in front of it is old man Ted surrounded by his family. As they all go to leave, Old Man Ted turns to one of his grandchildren and says "have I ever told you about how I met your grandmother?" Cut to black. Play the song. Everyone cries. We all start the series over and everyone wins.
Dammit, why didnt you write the finale! 👏🏼👏🏼