SPOILER ALERT: If you have not yet seen the series finale or any of the series, this lays it all out. It not only references the ending, but analyzes it. This review will diminish your enjoyment of said ending if you have not yet seen it (but will hopefully amplify your appreciation if you have seen it). Read at your own risk.

 

It’s finally all laid before us. We’ve gotten the whole story. We now know how Ted met the mother of his children and have, more importantly, gotten a glimpse into what the story means. There are many for whom the series finale of How I Met Your Mother (hereafter referred to as HIMYM) came as an unwelcome shock. Critical reception was divided (though the majority opinion tended toward the negative) and public outcry was loud. While I understand the negative criticism that the end of the show received, I must disagree whole-heartedly and throw my voice in loudly with those for whom the ending was not only positive, but wonderful. Overall, I cannot conceive of an ending that could be more internally consistent, meaningful, and altogether necessary than the one that the writers were no doubt planning all along. I do not claim that the ending was perfect, but that it is absolutely clear that every choice the writers made along the way was in service to the ending that we got and that even the failings within the ending are due not to incompetence in writing but to realities of the form of story they were telling.

 

I love a good surprise, especially one that brings everything else into focus. It’s a beautiful thing when that little piece of information upon which a good story hinges becomes clear and that reference point brings everything together. When executed correctly, it’s the last gift a storyteller can give you, whereby the process of discovery that’s taken place up to that point becomes a process of rediscovery and the path we’ve taken is both familiar and new at the same time. A good surprise gives a story an even keel and sharpens the experience. A poor surprise makes the whole narrative come off as clumsy and poorly planned. Perhaps there were viewers who possess a great deal more predictive power than I (or more motivation, I generally don’t try to guess these things in advance), but the ending came as a shock to me. The story is not actually about how Ted met the mother! It was never supposed to be about how he met Tracy. That was the reason Ted gave his kids for telling them the story, but in the end it was actually about Ted and Robin. The one thing that we were assured of from the beginning, that Ted and Robin would not end up together, was the real ending all along. And it’s perfectly clear that this was how it was meant to be all along, since the scene with the kids at the end of the show had them the same age they were at the beginning of the 1st season (you can’t fake not growing up in 9 years). So many of my great frustrations with the show transform and make sense in this light. Why do they continue to hammer the staying power of Ted’s feelings for Robin when we know she was never a viable option? Because she is. Why do we get so little time to meet Tracy and see Ted’s and her relationship together? Because while it is clearly incredibly important, that’s not what the story is really about.

 

I would be remiss if I did not reference Tracy’s role in the show. When I say that the story isn’t about her, I don’t mean to detract from her importance. She continues to be what she always has been to the show: a presence. Her presence runs through everything, coloring it and adding vibrancy to it long before we ever saw her, and it is clear that just as she had an unseen but palpable presence on the show throughout its run, she continues to be a palpable presence in Ted’s life after her death. Even after we meet Tracy, she serves for the most part more as a mediating force than as a character in her own right. Even her own episode serves mostly to put her in the context of past events. The absence of her character in the narrative reflects her absence from the lives of her family. Throughout the run of the show, Ted’s narration on the importance of Tracy and the wonder of getting to be with her is always so sweet and so positive and so ideal that eventually it had me rolling my eyes a bit. But if we’re talking about a Tracy who dies 11 years into Ted’s and her relationship, while her children are 9 and 7, the romanticizing that takes place is both appropriate and poignant. Without a dead mother and the ultimate possibility of Ted and Robin’s continued romance, the whole narrative seems unfocused and out of balance with the its purpose.

 

So what are the problems? Why is there a whole nation of fans that are screaming, feeling ultimately let down be the whole thing? Why are there people who, while I am delineating the virtues of the finale and its drawing everything into proper place and adding a layer of richness to the show, are saying that it ruins the whole picture? The biggest complaint I have about the finale is, I believe, also the thing that put a sour taste in so many mouths: abruptness. They squeezed so much narrative into so little a window that we feel let down not to have been in that story. A number of people are disappointed by the content of the narrative, but they have a more serious issue with its execution. Why did they spend years getting Barney and Robin married and have the entire final season, excluding copious flashbacks and flashforwards, take place during their wedding weekend if they were going to divorce them in the first ten minutes of the last episode? Why did they do such a great job developing Tracy in the time they did have when they were going to kill her in just a couple of lines of dialogue? And why hasn’t Ted seemed more sad this entire time? I completely agree. If we are talking generally about narrative, the story of Barney and Robin’s relationship was paced atrociously. The dragged-out quality of Tracy’s buildup was matched only by the gracelessness of her dismissal. If this were a novel or a movie or even a drama, all of this would be inexcusable.

 

The thing is, How I Met Your Mother is an American sitcom. If there is one thing that the show had to be at the end of the day, it was funny. Insofar as the narrative was concerned, Barney’s and Robin’s descent should have matched more coherently with their ascent. But watching two of your favorite characters grow apart and fight and develop a gulf between them doesn’t exactly make for rollicking laughter. Plus, every show in American TV needs a will-they, won’t-they couple (don’t pretend it hasn’t worked, and continues to work, on you). The same is true of Tracy’s death. Cancer and death of one’s beloved wife and the mother of two small children isn’t exactly great crazy antics material. It might have been endearing to see more of Ted’s grieving, but we wouldn’t have been rolling on the floor laughing. Add to that the fact that the length of the show’s run and the working relationships of the actors were completely unpredictable, and it becomes easy to see how the finale had to be a bit of a rush job (story-wise, not production-wise). The Barney and Robin relationship really stretched out quite a ways to end so suddenly, but so did the show. Harris and Smulders honestly had a good bit more chemistry than Smulders and Radnor, but that could not have been predicted. The build to meeting Tracy was huge to have her taken away so fast, but the show was successful and it was important that she not be in it as a charater until the end. Milioti almost did too good a job in making us fall in love with her before she was snatched from us, but who could have predicted that? I am not saying that there was nothing the writers could have done to make the ending a bit less abrupt, but I do think we have to be fair in seeing the ways in which their hands were tied. When seen in the light of the demands of the form (sitcom narrative) the failings of some pacing elements become extremely understandable.

 

The best thing about the ending to me was that it wasn’t neat. I fully expected Ted to meet Tracy and Barney and Robin to go the distance (as far as we knew) and for there just to be 3 beautiful, happy couples. But life isn’t like that. A womanizing sociopath and a commitment-phobe don’t just change absolutely everything and have a happy marriage just because we like them. Happy wedding, yes, but not a happy marriage. Sometimes people die too early and leave children and a grieving spouse behind. Happily ever after always actually means happy for a while. Please don’t misunderstand me or the show. Life isn’t only pain and misery either. It’s just a bit messy. We have to take the happiness we can get when we can get it, and not let that detract from the happiness we had before. And when the end of something comes, we have to remind ourselves that that’s just a word for a stopping place, but soon enough we’ll be getting up to keep on moving, and who can say what will come next? Ted meeting the mother is an end. Ted reconnecting with Robin is another end that just happens to be a bit further down the line. Choose one you like, but know that whichever it is, life must continue to move, and things always change.