How I Met Your Mother - Season 9

D3sperado

This ending will serve as the perfect argument in the future whenever someone criticises a show for not having its entire story mapped out from the beginning!

The writers filmed the scene with the kids in season 1 and it was clearly their plan to finish the story like his regardless of the identity of the mother. In one way I get this and they deserve kudos for creating and writing a sitcom that turned so many of the old sitcom cliches on their heads HOWEVER that said I hated the ending for a couple of major reasons...

1. The show spent so long on the whole concept of destiny and finding your soulmate. Ted and Robin were almost a perfect fit but not quite. We've seen on numerous occasions that they don't work as a couple.
2. Cristin Milioti is an amazing actress and her portrayal of the mother is the best part of the past season. She was a perfect match for Ted and also a breath of fresh air into a cast that had largely become caricatures of themselves To short change her like they did was pretty unforgivable.
3. The main focus of the show from season 4-8 has arguably been about Barney and Robin. We've literally had whole seasons about how much they both changed and how right they are for each other.
4. The last episode effectively just retcons all of the character development of the past 4 or 5 seasons to allow the writers to finish the story the way they planned at the start.

To quote someone from a different comment thread "it looks like there was one final secret slap in reserve and the writers just gave it to the fans and while it was deep and hurtful we ultimately should have seen it coming".

phasers

ARE YOU ****ING KIDDING ME!????


I'm so angry about that ending I can't even put it into words.

Rfrip

I bawled

allym

Tears. So many tears.

While I completely understand why people are annoyed, I think we all saw that ending coming in some way,shape or form.

I will say though I wish it ended with Lilly and Marshalls bet. I think it would have been a bit nicer!

BluesBerry

If they had of just left it at

the Train station under the umbrella

it would have been perfect , it was very rushed but I am kinda happy

Robin wont be alone

Glad its over :pac:

phasers

I'll spoiler just in case anyone hasn't seen it.

I saw Ted and Robin coming (although I didn't think they'd actually go through with something so lame and obvious) but I really feel bad for Barney.

What's happened to him? Yeah he has a kid with some bimbo, but what else? What's the deal with his job? Judging by his interaction with those young girls in the bar he's not chasing ladies in bars anymore, so what's left? His whole world can't revolve around his daughter, is he happy? And now Ted is back with Robin, who he is clearly still in love with? Barney's ending is really bad, and I can't help but feel that the writers just couldn't think of anything else to do with him since they had to push Ted and Robin together.

Not only that, but the entire ninth season was just a waste of time. They spend 22 episodes solidifying Barney and Robin, showing Ted getting over her and Barney growing into a man who really did want to settle down, and then Poof! divorce.

And the Mother is basically a damn footnote in the great Ted and Robin story, even though it has been spelled out in no uncertain terms that Ted and Robin are wrong for each other. She floated away like a balloon for God's sake! Ted moved on! It's done!

And then this amazing woman, who has been built up as Ted's perfect woman for nine years, just "got sick" and we see nothing??? She's just gone!?

I know this ending was written back in 2006 and that really hurt it. The slow has evolved so much since then that the ending didn't fit at all.

I am so irrationally angry about the ending, I was actually shouting at my screen the whole way through.

And it was never explained why Ted sounded like Bob Saget all these years :pac:

FlyingIrishMan

Damn, I was never that invested in the show and always thought a twist ending would be good, but once I saw that final umbrella scene, and the proposal I changed my mind.
Should have ended the show right after that umbrella scene when they said Hi.

Other than that last few minutes, I don't think it was too bad of a finale, certainly not the worst. Probably should have spent a few episodes going over all this epilogue stuff rather than just trying to squeeze it all into the finale and brushing over everything. They spent an entire 22 episodes on the wedding, and then revealed that they got divorced in less than 30 seconds and never brought it up again..

miralize

My god.

Painful that the mother had such a small storyline.

Mokuba

Was one of the worst modern finales I've ever seen, and I'm not overreacting.

Kerplunk124

Another great show ruined by a bull**** ending

hynesie08

I didn't hate it but I think that when the writers wrote that ending that they had no idea how good Cristina millioti would be as the mother. With the likes of Stella and victoria, they never had that chemistry with Ted, but as soon as they put him and tracy together on screen, you couldn't help but root for them. So yeah, I wouldn't have complained if the umbrella scene was the end, but I'm happy enough with that.

Also Starring LeVar Burton

I'm quite content with how they ended it. Thought it was a decent finale. I reckon if someone comes along now and bingewatches the whole 9 seasons on Netflix over a few weeks, they'll be delighted with that ending.

The way they chose to tell the story makes it seems like they built up Barney & Robin/Ted & Tracey for so long and then destroyed it all in the space of 5 minutes, but if you look at it from an actual time perspective, no one really believed Barney & Robin as a viable longterm couple until Season 9 which all took place over 3 days (the weekend of their wedding) when emotions are gonna be amplified anyway given the weekend that it was. And Ted & Tracey had what 11/12 happy years together before she died, then he's alone and grieving for 6 years before his kids tell him to ask out Robin, who he's known for 25 years, and had a strong bond with in the past. Yeah, when it's all melded into a 10 minute montage I can feel why people hated how it ended, but when you look at it from the perspective of the time that that montage covered, it's actually a really sweet and touching ending about a Widower finally moving on with his life again.

I dunno, initially I was like that was shít, but then I took a minute and thought about it like I wrote above and then I thought it worked well.

Either that, or I'm just content as long as a series finale is better than how Dexter ended...

Mr.Prodston

I don't know how I feel.

I really enjoyed the episode and may have nearly welled up once or twice but I couldn't help but think that this episode should have been the whole final season and not some ridiculous build up to a wedding we see 10 minutes of!

HIMYM was the first show I binge watched in my first year of college a few years ago when I discovered the magic of the internetz so I've had a belligerent loyalty to the show. Anything else and I may well have stopped years ago. Rightly or wrongly my opinion is that since The Playbook episode the show has had a downward trajectory. That's not to say there haven't been good episodes (Farhampton sticks in my mind) but I'm glad it's finally over and Jason Segel and NPH are free and so am I.

Cristin Milloti as the mother was absolutely fantastic and she could easily have been utilised more. The more I think about it they really should have used the season to go from the present up to 2030. We could have seen more of Barney's transition from married man, to bachelor to a father. Everyone could have had a well rounded story instead of a 40 minute wrap up, it did work well as the finale but to me it's a slap in the face that we had 22 episodes of very little compared to what we could have easily had.

I forgot how much I used to like the show, just yesterday I saw the "Nothing good happens after 2am" episode on e4. I know characters change and evolve but that episode really was great tv.

Anyway it's over, it's done. For the good times I've had watching the show I thank you HIMYM, for the bad or banal I'll say nothing because even BB or The Wire would suffer if it was stretched to within an inch of its life. On balance I'm glad I met Ted.

Reading about the finale and really glad that I have up on the show when I did. It had so much promise for its first few series but it sadly evolved into a generic sitcom featuring one of the blandest leads in TV history. My girlfriend is currently watching the last few episodes and the few moments I've seen are tiresome, the kind of generic and trite comedy that was stale two decades ago.

ManofStraw

I will put spoilers in for this

The finale truly left me feeling cold, as it was written before it felt written for seasons 1-3 rather than season 9. While I have some issues with the overall storyline I can accept it, my issues are with the execution of the story. I really liked the flash forwards and how we got to see partially where the characters ended but but I cant understand blowing through it all in 2 episodes. Alyson Hannigan tweeted today that they cut 18 mins from the finale, thats another episode!

The season was render pointless by last night, they could have ended it at the season 8 finale and we would have been in the same place. For me this season would have been the perfect opportunity to develop the characters future lives. The entire season could have been the last two episodes.There certainly were enough points to keep it interesting.

Like other people have expressed why spend so long building towards character development and a wedding just to scrap all of it. This season was largely aimed at how Ted lets go of Robin and meets the mother and Robin and Barney overcome everything and get married. Instead in the finale we get that Ted never let Robin go despite meeting the mother and a marriage that lasts less than an episode.

Robin and Barney's divorce is consistent with Robin's character as the one thing that has remained throughout the show is that Robin puts work first. But would Robin really just sit around for 20 odd years waiting for Ted arrive with a Blue Horn and rescue her ? Also if she travels so much and is gone from the gang for so long would Ted and her really remain in close contact. She always said she never wanted kids so how would that situation work out. I also found it insincere that the kids were begging Ted to go get Robin.

I believe that Barney would go back to banging random chicks following a divorce. But the perfect month/playbook thing was just stupid, why revisit that. His ending was just left hanging there too. It's great that he had a kid, but now that he stopped chasing women what does he do ? Does he have sole custody of the child ? Is there anyone in his life ? What about the mother of the child ? If the group doesnt hang out much does he have new friends? If Robin can't handle seeing Ted with Tracy how does Barney feel about Ted ending up with Robin ? There is just too many questions there.

Lily and Marshall's story has been in place for quite a while but why never show us the 3rd child they have.

As with Ted, I personally find it hard to believe that Tracy and him are a genuine relationship as they only had about 9 scenes together in the show while Ted and Robin have 9 seasons together. I can't understand the rationale of the writers with this. They build the entire show around this mythical mother but then they never flesh any of their story out. I know he is talking to his kids who would know most of the story but to include nothing at all seems odd.

And we never found out about the Pineapple!

Unfortunately the finale, like the show itself, just didnt know when do stop. It should have ended at the scene where Ted meets Tracy and they are talking under the umbrella. For me it would have signaled that despite what happened before or after they met, Ted really was telling the story of how he met the mother

RobbingBandit

Oh I've wasted my life.

Just watched it again, wtf was that aboot. We got a quick finish off to several background characters in the last couple of episodes but with this we find the mother got sick, what kind of sick, what is the name of Lilly and Marshalls third child, did Barney end up with number 31 or did he get the baby only, grrrrrrr. ****ing Bastards screwing us over like this,Ted ending up with Robin is a travesty worse than the end of the Sopranos, plot holes everywhere.

Killer_banana

I've been disappointed with a finale before but never has one been so bad I wished I'd never watched the show.

I thought Barney and Robin were written so badly that in reality they wouldn't last but I didn't think that that would actually happen in the show. As soon as Robin said it I saw where it was going but spent the rest of it praying it wasn't true. Really disgusted this is how it went.

Also Starring LeVar Burton

RobbingBandit wrote: »

Oh I've wasted my life.

Just watched it again, wtf was that aboot. We got a quick finish off to several background characters in the last couple of episodes but with this we find the mother got sick, what kind of sick, what is the name of Lilly and Marshalls third child, did Barney end up with number 31 or did he get the baby only, grrrrrrr. ****ing Bastards screwing us over like this,Ted ending up with Robin is a travesty worse than the end of the Sopranos, plot holes everywhere.

Oh you're one of those people who thought the finale of The Sopranos was a travesty...
It is clear to me in this moment that we will never see eye to eye on anything
Robbing Bandit.

I'm glad Ted and Robin got together. Glad I tells ya. I'll say it once more time in case ya didn't hear me... Glad! Been rooting for them since the pilot. It was always meant to be. Written in the stars. Ted & Robin Forever

There I said it. I've just infuriated most posters in this thread, but I regret nothing! Nothing!

:cool:

Killer_banana

Also Starring LeVar Burton wrote: »

I'm glad Ted and Robin got together. Glad I tells ya. I'll say it once more time in case ya didn't hear me... Glad! Been rooting for them since the pilot. It was always meant to be. Written in the stars. Ted & Robin Forever

There I said it. I've just infuriated most posters in this thread, but I regret nothing! Nothing!

:cool:

I'd be glad if for nine years they hadn't shown us time and again how, although they were almost perfect they just weren't right for each other, it wasn't 'destiny' whereas Tracey McConnel was. Also that's the what, third, fourth time Ted stole the blue french horn? How does he still get allowed into that restaurant?

phasers

Also Starring LeVar Burton wrote: »

I'm glad Ted and Robin got together. Glad I tells ya. I'll say it once more time in case ya didn't hear me... Glad! Been rooting for them since the pilot. It was always meant to be. Written in the stars. Ted & Robin Forever

There I said it. I've just infuriated most posters in this thread, but I regret nothing! Nothing!

:cool:

Also Starring LeVar Burton

phasers wrote: »

I like your style phasers

sunbabe08

excuse me? i had to read spoilers. seriously what on earth was that? :mad: can i have the last eight years of my life back. worst ending ever

iguana

The ending was a pity. I thought the introduction of Miloti had breathed new life into the show and she made the ridiculous stunt of setting the entire last series over the course of one weekend bearable.

Then for a finale we get a quick montage of scenes of their life together, 30 seconds of her being sick and back to Ted and Robin. Maybe if the last 4 seasons hadn't built toward Robin and Barney's wedding, if they had instead married a couple of seasons ago. If we saw their marriage live and die over time while also seeing more of Ted and Tracey in the last few seasons instead of being repeatedly shown how Ted and Robin weren't together. Her death and Ted's gradual recovery and involvement with Robin could have been a moving ending to the show.

But as it was, it felt pointless.

FlyingIrishMan

sunbabe08 wrote: »

excuse me? i had to read spoilers. seriously what on earth was that? :mad: can i have the last eight years of my life back. worst ending ever

Why does a show that you enjoyed for the past 8 years suddenly become a bad because of a subjectively bad finale?

phasers

Also Starring LeVar Burton wrote: »

I like your style phasers

I've got a gif guy :cool:

AlmightyCushion

phasers wrote: »

I've got a gif guy :cool:

Pfft, I've got, like, three gif guys.

ManofStraw

FlyingIrishMan wrote: »

Why does a show that you enjoyed for the past 8 years suddenly become a bad because of a subjectively bad finale?

The show didnt suddenly become bad but the finale does put a new twist on the show. I think that over time certain moments will change in light of the finale

for instance in pilot the kids roll their eyes when Ted starts to tell them about how he met the mother. Now that we know she is already dead, it seems a little insensitive.

There may be other instances but this is the one that comes to mind.

sunbabe08

FlyingIrishMan wrote: »

Why does a show that you enjoyed for the past 8 years suddenly become a bad because of a subjectively bad finale?

it was not just the finale, but the last couple of episodes

excuse me for thinking that at least we would get a happy ending and not Ted run back to robin

Otacon

AlmightyCushion wrote: »

Pfft, I've got, like, three gif guys.

... and a jpeg guy.

allym

Again I understand why people are annoyed but I think the ending makes complete sense. It does seem slightly rushed but as has been said

Teds telling the story to his children who obviously know all about their mother's death, he wouldn't spend time going through all the details and upset them. And as his daughter said the story really has always been about his feelings for Robin.
I personally don't think she deserves him for how badly she's stomped all over him before, but it does make sense that they would eventually end up together: I think it's nice after seeing how much Ted has struggled, particularly in the last few series, that he wouldn't end up alone.

Oh and also Bayes and Thomas said

that we'd never find out about the pineapple so I had kind of put it out of my head altogether!