Let me preface this by saying that How I Met Your Mother definitely filled the void that Friends left in my life. It was a funny show, with great characters and story lines. I wanted to be friends with these people. Sit in MacLaren's and have a drink. But I was extremely disappointed with the finale. Here's why:
- Barney and Robin - Now, I will admit that I had a feeling that they were going to break them up. So I am not surprised. But the whole season was dedicated to the wedding. THE WHOLE DAMN SEASON. Only to say "Yeah, we're getting divorced." I was rooting for them, but that's just a minor issue. Moving on....
- Robin - So she and Barney break up and she just says "Sorry Lily, I know you're my best friend, and really my ONLY friend, but now all of a sudden I'm really famous, so bye." I mean I'm glad that she got to "live her dream", but I find it hard to believe that she wouldn't care about her friends. Once again, minor issue....
- Barney - Ok, this was when I REALLY started to get pissed. So Barney goes from womanizing asshole, to falling in love with Robin, to breaking up with Robin, to meeting and falling for Nora, to losing Nora, to meeting and proposing to Quinn, only to break up and propose to Robin in the most AWESOME way Barney could, only to come full circle back to womanizer. Not only to come back, but to actually make another playbook. Or wait, am I not supposed to care because he got some nameless woman (literally nameless. they referred to her as #31) pregnant? Ok, I will admit, I did tear up at that part though. But they spent 6 years showing that there's more to Barney than his womanizing and that Robin changed him and showed him that love is possible, only to have him revert right back to season 1 Barney.
- The Mother - Once again, my powers of deduction proved to be too smart for my own good. I had a feeling she was dead/dying and that was the reason that he was telling the kids the stories. Although the daughter said it best, "This isn't a story about how you met mom, she's hardly in it..." I'm not finishing that quote right now. That's my biggest issue. But let's talk about the mother. She's the basis of the whole show. She's the reason we watched every week, and I couldn't give 2 fucks that she died. She was a plot device. And a poor one at that. She was okay. I didn't hate her. I just didn't care. I didn't have time to care. Shit, she only had 1/2 a season.
- That piss poor excuse of an ending - Ok, now I'm going to set aside my love for Robin/Barney and be objective here. The name of the show is "How I Met You Mother." The whole premise of the show is that Ted is telling the kids how he met and married their mom. BUT WAIT!!! IT'S NOT!!! Let's revisit the daughter's quote "This isn't a story about how you met mom, she's hardly in it. This is the story of how your're totally in love with Aunt Robin." When those words came out of that little girl's mouth, I literally screamed at my TV. No, no, no, no, no, no. I DID NOT spend 9 years watching show that built up this grand love story about how Ted meets the so called "love of his life," only to kill her off and have him go running off after Robin. It's ridiculous. So the past 9 years of episodes of plot and character development leading up to the moment he met Tracy (the mother), have all been bullshit. Like I said before, they reduced the "love of Ted's life" down to a fucking plot point so that him and Robin could end up together. Robin herself said it best...
I would have been happier with an episode that just explained where the fucking pineapple came from. I feel like I was on the losing end of a slap bet.