On Monday night, “How I Met Your Mother” concluded after nine legendary seasons. The series finale, however, left many people angry and upset. However, if you take a closer look at the episode, you can see its true beauty.
One of the major complaints was that nothing had changed from the pilot, questioning the purpose of the last nine years if Ted and Robin were just going to get together yet again.
The thing is, everything did change though, and it had to change. Ted and Robin couldn’t be together originally because they both wanted different things out of life.
Ted wanted to settle down and have a family, while Robin wanted to travel the world and focus on her career. So, they went their separate ways and did exactly that.
Ted meets Tracy and they start a family and have this beautiful love story, and it seems to be everything he ever wanted. Robin and Barney get divorced and she travels all around the world, becoming the face of World Wide News. They both get exactly what they wanted from life.
But, tragedy strikes Ted in the beautifully foreshadowed death of the mother. When we first get a glimpse of the mother’s life, we find that she had just lost her great love, and didn’t think she could ever love again. But she finds that she can find love again, with Louis.
That relationship set her up to be able to meet Ted and have a great relationship with him, only to meet the fate of her beloved Max and die before she and Ted could grow old together.
In the end, her death was not some small plot point that allowed Robin and Ted to be together. It was the mother giving all she could to Ted so that he could know what a great love is. That way, he could finally be with Robin and not “Ted it up.”
While Ted is telling the story of how he met Tracy to their children because he wants to ask their permission to date Robin, I feel that there is another reason to it as well.
The kids think the story is more about how he loves their “Aunt” Robin than about their mother. However, I find it to be more about how much love Ted has had for the people closest to him in life, especially the mother.
In a way, he is telling them how hard it was to lose her, but how thankful he was to have her in his life so that he can eventually feel ready to move on.
Then, we have the pivotal last scene. Many fans were angered about its similarity to the pilot: Robin looking out her window with her dogs and Ted standing on the street, hoisting the blue French horn in the air.
Many have called this a cop out or a predictable ending, but it brought the show and its characters full circle.
With the stars finally aligned for Ted and Robin, what better place to start their second chance than the start of relationship?
No matter how you felt about the end, we are all now left with a void not only of the Monday nighttime slot, but also in our hearts. When a series runs for nine years, people become attached to the characters, making it hard to let them go and believe that it is really the end.
While the finale didn’t have the “she got off the plane” moment a similar show had, it is this writer’s opinion that the end was worthy of the legen – wait for it one last time – dary show. “How I Met Your Mother” may be over, but it will always live on in our hearts and in reruns on FX.
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