‘How I Met Your Mother’ series finale: surprisingly, not surprising at all

Satisfying. Exhilarating. Touching. Phenomenon.

Those are the words you won’t hear from me about the series finale of CBS’ long-run sitcom, ‘How I Met Your Mother’.

You may or may not agree with me, but I’m gonna stick with my words here: no creators should treat the fans of a nine-years show the way Carter Bays and Craig Thomas treated ‘HIMYM’ fans.

-----SPOILER ALERT----

I actually began to watch ‘HIMYM’ regularly back in 2011, when it’s already entered season 7. Lucky for me, I was coming really late in loving the show at the time. I can’t imagine if I were watching it right from the first time it came out on 2005. Geez, it’d be frustrating knowing how the story ended now after being a devoted fan for nine years.

I remember when I watched the show for the first time, I actually didn’t see why it’s making so much hyped back then. Especially, when I actually see it because of all the good words my friends had told me. But, even from that lack-of-impression pilot, I always knew how the story’s gonna play out throughout the whole series. Ted is gonna end up with Robin anyway. That’s the endgame.

Nevertheless, my theory aside, Bays and Thomas were making a big fat promise to the audience right from the first episode that Robin IS NOT “the mother”. So, those viewers who had more faith in the show were clinging to that promise and hoping that the show wasn’t going to be another cheesy sitcom that basically revolves around they-will/they-won’t relationship and love triangle between its characters. It was about Ted finding his true love outside his circle and his journey to get to that point. Period.

Anyway, back to my own journey in watching the series, after the pilot, I took some time to watch the rest of the seasons. Until one day, summer came and I’ve no longer had another series to watch but ‘HIMYM’ in my storage.

So I did it. I watched the whole first season in two days and felt that the show was actually getting better on every episode. The jokes got more hilarious, the characters were funnier, and the storyline was getting more creative, it made the show stands out among many other sitcoms at the time.

During those days of binge-watching, a lot of things have happened in Ted’s love life. For sure, there was a sweet year when Ted and Robin are actually dating. But after that, it’s pretty much just some girls were coming in and out of his life. Some had their moments, and some were just too meaningless for us to remember their names for.

And Robin was moving on too. She dates some guys and had some break-ups. She even turned down Ted in season 7 for the most firm and logical reason possible: that she doesn’t love him. The message to the audience was loud and clear: Robin’s simply not into Ted. At the moment.

That message only got stronger when the series revealed that Robin will end up married to Barney. As someone who roots for Barney to get Robin from season 4, I most definitely welcomed the news with a big glee on my face. Until the last season of the series, their relationships were really doing pretty good and they were actually getting married. 

Who knows this will only last for 3 years, right?

But, deep in my heart (yes, I realized this sounds cheap, but whatever) I still got the feeling that Robin will end up being with Ted somehow.

From the very first episode of the show, I convinced that Ted-Robin was the endgame. I knew at the time that Robin can’t be “the mother”, but I always have a theory I held close at heart to make that scenario works. It goes like this: even though Robin married Barney, they’d get divorce at some point. And even though Ted met “the mother” and married her, she’d ended up dead somehow. Thus, Ted and Robin will reunite at the end.

I really wanted to be wrong. Really. But, damn it, did I get it all right. The finale was exactly what I was thinking it would be. 100% spot on.

So, after a long, over-dragging season, the series finale came up in back-to-back, an-hour-long episode. Now let me give you a piece of my mind about the whole season finale first. Actually, suffice to say that season 9 of ‘HIMYM’ is a buttload of crap. It was actually a sad, ridiculous attempt to cover a two-days event and making it into 22 episodes.

The story was dragged waaayy too long. It was the worst way possible to make an audience get pumped up and excited towards the last episode of a series that has run for nine years. Really, what were they thinking? Basically, you could give yourself a favor and skip the whole first 20 episodes of season nine and you still won’t miss a thing!

After those insignificant episodes, now there comes the series finale we’ve all been waiting for. But God, can I’d be more disappointed. Not only the ending was the one I’ve been plotting in my mind all along, the way the story itself being told was so ugly and frustrating to watch.

If the whole season was too long because it was based on a too-brief moment, the finale episode was the opposite. It was a result of multiyear events being crammed into only an hour episode. A lot of things happened on the finale: Robin-Barney get married, Ted finally met “the mother”, “the mother” got pregnant, Robin-Barney get divorced, Marshall became supreme fudge, Robin travelled around the world, Barney had a daughter (I know!), Ted married “the mother”, and finally she’s dead (talk about a major buzzkill).

I feel like I was being rushed and forced to eat all of those life-changing moments in an unreasonable amounts of time. It was simply too much to soak in.

Now, that flaw would’ve been easily forgiven if the actual story was satisfying. If! But sadly, no. It wasn’t even remotely. Of course, the word of ‘satisfying’ itself is bias and subjective, but I’d try to reason with you my own definition. 

Seeing how much room the series has given the relationship between Robin and Barney to grow and evolve certainly would’ve made everyone who watched the show feels like they were a real deal. The show even given one whole season dedicated to their romance journey, gave the audience a lot of reason to fall and root for the pair.

I mean...right?!

Now imagine all those times we’ve spent to invest in their relationship were ripped off on the last 30 minutes of the series finale. So all those schemes, touching moments, beautiful plots we saw between Robin and Barney all these years were all for nothing. And there was even no sign of this downfall coming on one episode before the finale (which ended with Robin-Barney finally gave their vows and exchange the rings). How’s that for satisfying? Far from!

Add that point to the fact that the series constantly mislead us into thinking that this was the story of how a guy met the mother of his children. That “the mother” was THE ultimate answer to his long search for “the one”.  When in fact, that wasn’t even the basic premise of the show at all. This is actually a story of a guy who fights for a woman he’s been in love with for a half of his life. And we found out about that after how long? Nine years! Nine fucking years. Let me ask again, how’s that for satisfying? Right.

‘HIMYM’ is a perfect example of a false attempt from a creator who wants to make a supposedly twisted, touching ending, only ended up making a fool of the audience and piss them off instead. Don’t get me wrong, I love a twisted ending. But there’s a big difference between a creator who’s being cunning to create an unpredictable ending and simply just being an ass.

Bays and Thomas are clearly being the latter when they decided to make a long-running conspiracy theory took over the basic idea of the whole series. And what’s more disappointing was the ending wasn’t even that twisting to shock me and went all ‘ooh, I didn’t see that coming’ in a good way.

All I’m saying is Bays and Thomas totally fooled the audience deliberately into believing that finding “the mother” was the ultimate goal of the whole series. And in all those times, all those years with numerous plots and schemes, they tried really hard to convince us over and over again that Ted actually had someone waiting for him. And that ‘someone’ was not Robin, no matter how in love Ted was with her during those times.  

And when the show ended and we finally got that this was about Ted-Robin journey to be together all along, I can’t help but feel cheated.

Despite my conspiracy theory, I really wish that this show could end up in a way that will live up to its promise, story-wise. That the show could’ve ended when Ted finally meet “the mother” and have a family with her.

Just look at how sweet they're together!

Well, it could’ve ended that way. It should’ve.