Cobie Smulders on “How I Met Your Mother” controversial ending |  

it also foreshadows that life doesn't plan on having a romantic happy ever after with the soulmate of your life either. I appreciate the finale more now that I have had family who passed on very young and had enough life to see others who lost a spouse early on. Finding love again doesn't mean that they didn't love their spouse.

I watched the sitcom all together, and the original ending really sucks. Never mind if the wife died, but Ted returning again to his obsession of the past?. That's what I find terrible. The alternate ending is definitely better. Or this ending it's better: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-hHYg6Q7HIaQ.html

I didn't get that at all. It felt more like they shoe-horned in a moment every season to prepare us for the already planned ending. For example, Ted telling Robin he loved her after she broke up with Kevin was so jarring and out of nowhere. Same as the locket storyline, having the flashback of Robin getting drunk when Ted is marrying Stella, the long terms bet between Marshall and Lily. Again, feels like lazy story telling to me. I can practically see the board in the writers room titled "sprinkles of Ted and Robin romance to remind audience that they are a thing"

the only problem with the finale is it was all squeezed in few minutes, we needed to see episodes about each of these topics: robin and barney's wedding, meeting the mother, life of the main couple their wedding kids etc and funeral, kids learning the story and ted starts to date robin again. And after robin, barney shouldn't have got back to the old times like finding chick every night, thats obviously not barney anymore and no 31st's kid ofc.

It is absolutely correct to say that it makes sense that they would end up together... if you ignore all the parts that contradict that. I just finished binging the show on Netflix (all 9 seasons in a couple weeks) and boy howdy was I a strong advocate of Robin and Ted for the majority of the run time. But, by the time Ted confessed his love to Robin after her breakup with Kevin, I was about done with it (as in I was still onboard, but I just couldn't hang in there for that much longer). When Robin rejected Ted, we go through an arc of Ted accepting rejection and moving on. The first big scene about Ted moving on was when he revoked the deal to get married to Robin if they were both single at 40. While that scene doesn't resolve Ted's feelings, it sets in stone how Robin feels, meaning that Ted (and the audience) need to move on. Later, Robin gets engaged to Barney, which only further solidifies that Ted (and the audience) need to move on. Of course, there was always a chance that Ted would break up the wedding, until the episode where he finally let's go of Robin. I don't remember which episode it is, but its the one with Robin and Ted sitting at the beach while looking for a very drunken Barney. During this scene, Ted literally lets go of Robin and let's her float into the atmosphere, paralleling the time where he let go of a balloon (albeit by accident) that was his best friend as a 7 year old). This scene is the moment where Ted accepts that he isn't going to end up with Robin, and finally moves on. And, having this closure, he opens himself up more to other opportunities and ultimately decides not to leave New York (which he wanted to do to avoid the awkwardness of his true love being married to his best friend. So yeah, I can see why it makes sense that Ted and Robin would end up together, but there are a few really big plot points that mark out the reasons that they absolutely shouldn't have wound up together. Plus, the pacing of the last couple episodes was wild. I mean, Ted finally wind up with "the one," but then it is announced that she is dead and before the audience has time to accept this truth (and move on) Ted is all over Robin again. Thematically, it makes sense, since Ted has had 6 years to mourn, but the audience has well under less than a minute to reconcile with this twist and accept the ending. It's just too much to process that quickly.

He was the worst loser of all times.

Simp would've left the wife for her. He didn't.

@@JoybuzzerX your comment makes absolutely no sense Barney and Robin were married and travelling the world because of Robin's career when Ted met Tracy. How was he supposed to "leave the wife for her" when she was married and halfway across the world from him? And he already had a kid (Penny) by the time everyone got to know about B&R's breakup. You think Ted is not a simp because he didn't leave his girlfriend and baby daughter for her? What kind of logic is that? *Just because Ted and Tracy were perfect for each other and meant to be, doesn't mean that Ted didn't simp for Robin* The guy literally hosted 3 parties in 3 nights just to be able to see her. He got shot down repeatedly, even after surprised her with a blue instrument band dozens of rose bouquets at her own house. He finally had to resort to try and make it rain just for her to yes to him He even used Robin's vulnerability at times to his advantage. Don broke up with Robin and she goes to Ted, so what do they do? Almost kiss till Robin sees that Ted is blonde. Robin tells Ted that Kevin took back the ring and broke up, and what did ted do? He told Robin he loved her and kissed her.

Ted Mosby is one of the kindest and most magnificent fictional characters ever written. Most optimistic also. Always looking at the positive.

@@justarandomguy4844 Besides the cut scene, we see Ted talking to Robin after the divorce while with Tracy. So he could've left Tracy. Ted is a romantic who makes big gestures. Robin realizes that when talking to a doctor about him. Falling in love with someone doesn't mean simp, and if you stop living them, were you ever really in love with them?

Alternative one is trash

Nothing about HIMYM screamed happy ending, Marshals dad dying, Robin can’t have kids, Lily leaving marshal, loving someone who doesn’t love you back, etc. they portrayed life, and for that, great ending.

@@snowman9642 All the examples you gave weren't the ending, so they were never about "screaming happy *ending* ". All those moments were about showing the highs and lows in a sitcom HIMYM had highs and lows, like all other shows. Friends also showed a lot of sad moments, like Chandler realising he'll die alone, Ross cheating on Rachel, when Monica and Chandler couldn't have kids, etc. The show literally opened with Ross getting cheated on and divorced. But they still had a happy ending. You can take other sitcoms as examples too. The Big Bang Theory, Modern Family, etc all of them had happy and sad scenes, doesn't mean they didn't "scream happy ending" It's pretty obvious for all shows to have highs and lows, just as its also obvious that it needs to end on a high. They're sitcoms, not reality shows where they have to show how messy and unpredictable real life is. All that being said, i have made my peace with direction the ending went to, but not the execution (like Cobie said, it was extremely rushed). In contrast, the alternate ending was much more paced and felt like the closing scene

It couldn’t have been rushed the whole thing was foreshadowed they took their time with it

​@niragirajacques8943 Tracey's death was well foreshadowed in season 9, the eventual reunion of Ted and Robyn was clumsy and lazy imo

Exactly

For me, it's just rushed not ridiculous. I really wish I could see more episodes about all of them growing up and having a new life. At least half of the season instead of making Barney & Robin's wedding for almost the whole season, but then they end up divorced lol

The problem with how it was structured was we spent an entire season on one weekend, then the finale spans 15 years. Ted’s kids’ reactions seem like they don’t give a shit about their dead mom because we just found out she was dead 2 minutes beforehand (despite the foreshadowing), but in canon she’s been dead for 6 years and they’ve healed from it. It’s just emotional whiplash for the viewers and makes it feel like the mother was being thrown aside and that Tracy was just a plot device to get Ted back to Robin

BUT UMMM! 🍻

BUT UMMM! 🍻

BUT UMMM! 🍻

Over the years I've come to terms with the ending and this is basically my take as well. I understand what they were going for and have to applaud them for trying something risky like that, but it just wasn't executed properly. This is the first time I've heard of them being afraid of being a leak, and I'm sure there were lots of other small contributing factors why we got the ending we did. But honestly for all its faults, there were so many amazing moments throughout the show that I can't say that I'm willing to toss away the whole show or that it isn't worth watching just because I know how it ends. It's still an amazing journey. Besides, there's an alternate ending out there that I can always pretend is my headcanon lol.

My thoughts exactly.

Your comment is the best comment ever

Barney had matured greatly by the end they were not toxic at all but a better match for Robin. They completed each other and the chemistry between both actors just work better.

Spitting fax

Creepy stalker??? Do you have truma or something?

Barney is the greatest creepy stalker in TV history Also Robin and Barney were the worst couple ever 🤮 So yeah glad they got divorced Robin actually wanted to run away with Ted in her wedding day so that really showed who was the better man 😂😂

@@vootvoot9180 not arguing who the better man is, but your reasoning is completely wrong. Stella ran off with Tony, so does that mean he's a better man that Ted? This is the same Tony who later on breaks up with Stella because of his conversation with Ted. So of course not, he's not better than Ted Barney and Robin weren't a great couple, but Ted and Robin were also horrible and this is shown multiple times throughout the series

Ted wasn’t a creepy stalker in the end.. sounds like you need to rewatch the Dobbler/Dahmer episode. Robin was feeling it, so Ted is definitely Dobbler

How would you have ended it, genius script-writer?

@@brandonsamuelshort9776 the last season would have been about Ted & Tracy not Barney & Robin… why put us through all this crap only to kill her off & go back to day one after we’ve realized Ted & Robin dont work

​​@@brandonsamuelshort9776 Marshal creates a scenario where Lilly dies of a rare illness and then he waits the appropriate amount of years to cheat on Lilly, when he wants to fantasize about other women in his mind That's the ending of the show 😂 "Fantasize about whomever you want just don't kill me off" Lilly said this But the writers actually killed the title character off Barney and Robin and Ted and the Mother is the ending of the show.. everything else is bullshit

Yeah Ted and Robin seems like a horrible idea, especially since he learned to (supposedly) let her go and come to peace with that so that he could find something better for himself, only to still be hung up on her..ugh. Although it did seem like the whole point of a couple seasons was Barney learning to love another person and want married life (was kind of a weird arch for him imo but it happened that way in the show)

The only thing that came between Ted and Robin was Ted wanting kids and Robin both not being able to have kids and not wanting to have kids because of her career aspirations. Once Ted already has kids and isnt looking for that from Robin anymore, they 100% made more sense than Barney and Robin. Though to be fair, both Ted and Robin and Barney and Robin had great chemistry as couples.. I think this is kind of the point of the show - that even when love doesn’t fit into the standard progression of an idealized relationship escalator it can still be both valid and beautiful and a positive thing for everyone involved

I don’t think it’s fair to say that the people who bashed the ending didn’t understand what the overall story was. The majority opinion among the people who didn’t like it is that it was rushed and sloppy. In a final season that spent 22 of its last 24 episodes centred around Barney and Robin’s wedding, and key episodes focused on Tracy, it felt wasteful and unearned to end the story how they did in the span of the last 2 episodes.

The show should have been called "How I Met Your Aunt" not "How I Met Your Mother" Tracy was just a sidekick and many are just disappointing with what the screenwriters did to her. "This is a story about how you're in love with Aunt Robin and thinking about asking her out and wondering if we’re okay with it,” Penny Mosby bluntly stated to her dad Ted in the final moments of How I Met Your Mother. From the moment he spotted her across the bar in 2005, Ted’s story has always been about Robin. In the series finale, we learn that Ted tells this story to his kids Penny and Luke to keep the memory of their six years-departed mother alive. Ted’s eldest Penny catches on that her dad’s story has revolved around his love for their Aunt Robin. The show ends with Penny and her brother Luke encouraging their dad to chase Robin, as he delivers a blue French horn to her door one last time. That’s right, the mother really has been dead all along. As a nine-year viewer of the show, this is hard for me to come to terms with; it’s the theory I’ve feared most. I’ve rooted for Ted from the beginning. For every woman that broke Ted’s heart over the years, I took solace in the fact that Ted’s perfect woman was waiting for him. *So, once the truth finally came out, I felt a little cheated.* Nine years of hearing Future Ted talk up the mother of his children and then taking her away from us the minute we get to know her seemed downright cruel. The Mother has died, but Ted and the kids have had six years to come to terms with this. We, the audience, may have had only two minutes… The end was extremely rushed and many are frustrated/upset that Tracy didn't get the respect and consideration she deserves.

@@mickaellandry9726 First of all, shows don’t have to telegraph their stories in the title. 🤷🏼‍♂️ Despite the title, Tracy was just a side character. She was introduced in the finale of the 8th season of a 9 season show! That said, I would argue that the way Ted talks about her throughout and the way we feel in the moments we do get with Tracy does amount to giving her the respect and consideration she deserves, though. Particularly the episode where Ted is left alone int he bar and talks about what he would have done if he’d known about Tracy 45 days before he met her is a great example of that. You’re absolutely right to feel cheated to not get more time with Tracy and to feel frustrated that she was taken away so soon and that we/Ted didn’t get to spend more time with her. I would argue that WAS the writers intent because that’s how it feels to have someone you plan to spend forever with die young. It was taking the audience on an emotional journey and it was REALLY well executed in that the lack of time with Tracy puts us as viewers in a position that we feel what Ted feels when his time with her is cut short by tragically losing her. I feel like people who are upset with where the story ended up are missing the whole point of the show being that love is rarely as linear and uncomplicated as it is in Hollywood movies and part of the risk of opening your heart to love is that you expose yourself to heartbreak and loss. Life sometimes surprises you and while sometimes those can be positive surprises, they aren’t always good news, yet we have to do the best we can to love, keep close and look out for the people who matter to us. Perhaps Ted finally getting his “perfect” woman only to have her ripped away is a commentary by the writing team about how we could all stand to be less attached to storybook outcomes and in stead focus on making the most of the time we have with the people who are special to us and appreciating deep meaningful connections even when they don’t fit into a traditional template or follow the typical relationship escalator. Regardless of the fact that she couldn’t have children with him (and also had a conflicting path and wasn’t sure she even wanted to before recieving her tragic news earlier in the run of the show), Robin was/is/has been another pretty much ideal match for Ted in a ton of ways. In real life, love is messy and complicated and not-always-linear, yet it’s still valid and valuable and beautiful - both Ted’s love for Tracy and his love for Robin. As someone who has loved someone who passed away wayyyyyyy before her time, this show really squared with those themes and feelings of love and loss and finding the strength to try to be vulnerable again after being hurt in a way that your typical Hollywood love stories just don’t. The grief, the regrets, the anger that such a thing could happen, the frustration at how difficult it can be to open up and take the leap only to have your heart ripped out when things take an unexpected turn, sometimes against the will of all involved and outside of anyone’s control. These themes are present in Tracy’s story as well with her losing her partner and then coming back from that to give things a real chance with Ted. It’s a deep and emotionally complex set of themes that aren’t all sunshine and rainbows, but I think a lot of viewers who are upset they had to go through that are missing the point that that’s how it feels to lose someone who is your whole world. THAT is the point of the show.. it’s a story about coming through tragedy and darkness and still finding hope and vulnerability again to open up to happiness, which I think is a totally valid and beautiful message.

We won't get it. they think the finale is good haha

Only if it picks up from the alternate ending.

@@qui-gonrick7002 the alternate ending is worthless. it's great but meaningless #teambarney

People who don’t like the ending don’t get the show

@@AlexCrean Well, that would be most people.

The show wasn't called "my life dating your mother".. They where never going to go far beyond when they met.. Be glad we got to see some of the major highlights of their relationship

Ted and Robin were always supposed to end up together they were like Ross and Rachel

@@mullaoslo by that logic, the show also wasn't called "getting my kids' approval to bang their aunt Robin", but we still had that ending. Why do the kids say that Ted told the whole story to show much he loved Robin. Was the series named "i love your aunt robin"? Also, by your logic, the show is named "How i met your mother" so why didn't the show end on that scene, of Ted meeting Tracy at the station? Why does it go on for a few minutes and end the same way S1E1 ended, with Ted outside Robin's house holding a blue french horn? We had a lot of snippets of the future like Marshal's Supreme Court race, Barney having a kid, Lily and Marshal being pregnant for the third time, Ted restarting his architectural firm, Ted and Tracy being pregnant with Luke (their second kid). So adding a few scenes of Ted and Tracy's dating life doesn't need a title change. It also wouldn't have changed anything but give a lot of closure to the show and the fans

But um

The alternate ending wasn't all perfect either. Robin and Barney still divorce, divorce is more common irl than partner death is. But they still give hope that maybe they'll reconcile or get back together, maybe they won't. But it's hope and that's better than nothing. Plus the show already has so much realism already, but it's always followed by how the characters got through it as better people. Neither ending shows that, but I'd rather the alternate ending as Ted finally get his happily ever after with the mother of his children (what he's been longing for forever and loses hope every passing year) than that. He doesn't go back on the show lessons: "You can't cling to the past" and "If you love something, let it go". Which btw is why Ted didn't go to Chicago. He originally wanted to go as it might be awkward hanging out after the wedding. Then he realised through Lily that he loved NY, made peace with Barney and let go of Robin for real so that when he met and fell in love with Tracy, he had no reason to leave.

The show should have been called "How I Met Your Aunt" not "How I Met Your Mother" Tracy was just a sidekick and many are just disappointing with what the screenwriters did to her. "This is a story about how you're in love with Aunt Robin and thinking about asking her out and wondering if we’re okay with it,” Penny Mosby bluntly stated to her dad Ted in the final moments of How I Met Your Mother. From the moment he spotted her across the bar in 2005, Ted’s story has always been about Robin. In the series finale, we learn that Ted tells this story to his kids Penny and Luke to keep the memory of their six years-departed mother alive. Ted’s eldest Penny catches on that her dad’s story has revolved around his love for their Aunt Robin. The show ends with Penny and her brother Luke encouraging their dad to chase Robin, as he delivers a blue French horn to her door one last time. That’s right, the mother really has been dead all along. As a nine-year viewer of the show, this is hard for me to come to terms with; it’s the theory I’ve feared most. I’ve rooted for Ted from the beginning. For every woman that broke Ted’s heart over the years, I took solace in the fact that Ted’s perfect woman was waiting for him. *So, once the truth finally came out, I felt a little cheated.* Nine years of hearing Future Ted talk up the mother of his children and then taking her away from us the minute we get to know her seemed downright cruel. The Mother has died, but Ted and the kids have had six years to come to terms with this. We, the audience, may have had only two minutes… The end was extremely rushed and many are frustrated/upset that Tracy didn't get the respect and consideration she deserves.

salty ted hater🤣

I understand your point, but this could be countered by a simple: both of them are now older and more mature, knowing what they want and not letting things get between what they want. The true problem with the ending is the waste of the character development we see throughout the seasons. All of this is thrown in the bin for something which could have been undone with a simple trick like the kids, now older, telling him: "Dad, you tell the same story every year" or something of this nature.

While my initial reaction all those years ago to the ending was the same as most people. I now see it as, both of them lived their lives and achieved the things they wanted to. But by the time they got back together, all the stuff that made their lives not line up was behind them. So all that was left was how they felt about each other.

Yeah that was them in their 20s, why would they be the same people in their 40s? I know LOTS of people that have reconnected with their high school sweetheart or an old flame after DECADES. It happens all the time.

Shot a new one? The kids were 9 years older by then.

But was Robin meant to be with Ted? Don't think so

​@@reeegs90 Yes they were meant to be Just the time wasn't right. And at the end it was the good time

The only thing that wasn’t in alignment about Ted and Robin was that he wanted kids and she didn’t and then couldnt have kids. Once Ted had kids, Robin and Ted were free to be the great match they always were outside of that one major misalignment.. MAJOR MISALIGNMENT 🫡

Actually it was the best ending possible. Grow up.

@@abdulazizhawsah9884 nope. It was the worst ever.

​@@AfonsoHenriques1139best finale ever Still mad about the divorce haha 😂😂

@@vootvoot9180 worst ever. You're on the minority, the dummies.

You are weird

Correction : me, included

@@shreeyasethi1490classic shmosby

There are also so many people who love nonsense I have a feeling there's an overlap in this one

​@@boazlichtman4323I'm not going to do it now but I could have given you VERY long explanation of why I love the ending..

in my experience, HIMYM haters are extremely loud in general, not just about the ending.

the mayority are the fans who hated the finale tbh

Wow. A wise oldass

You may be right, but Ted and Robyn were not a good match either.

Noo it was bad, I watched this show when it was airing the ending was so bad.. the whole last season focusing on Robin and Barney wedding just for them to get divorce 😢😢

in the end of that episode she explains that the kids were fake, she was just imagining what it would’ve been like

The kids in that episode were a story device. It was established in the episode that they didn’t exist