How I Met Your Mother 6: Tomorrow and Tomorrow and...

[Mya Stone]

Mya,

I do understand why they made the choices that they made. However, having her die, not showing how her death affected Ted and the gang, then having Ted show up with the blue french horn at Robin's window, again, without having shown that grief just seems... trite.

Does that make sense? My whole point about completion is lost because we doen't see the completion. We see Ted hoping right back on board the Robin train.

Absolutely. It feels a bit cheap, I agree with that much. But I still love it. :p

[Ferocious Veldt Roarer]

I remember one of the very first lines of the show, by the kids: "are we being punished for something?". Let's see. Your mother has died, dad wants to tell you the story of how the two of them met, and you can't be bothered, you unfeeling little shits?... Right.

My first impression, though - the finale was fine. At least this way it's a little bit more consistent with the actual story, where the actual mother is, contrary to the show's title, a mere footnote. A second thought - yeah, making the entire season about Barney and Robin's wedding, then undoing it with ease in sixty seconds... The showrunners invested so much into the wedding that first, I didn't give a rat's ass about, second, at the end of the day didn't matter much.

All in all, mixed feelings. But at least the show's over.

[Greywolf2375]

This.

She fell sick, died six years ago and that's it ? It felt rushed. The Tracy/Ted moments were so sweet and that's what we've been waiting to see for nine seasons now and I don't think we got nearly enough of them.

In short, it was underwhelming (for me) and the last bits with the kids and Robin kinda ruined it for me. It was not the bittersweet ending I was hoping it would be.

That was part of the problem I had.

- Barney/Robin - we go from wedding/happy to divorce without any travel time

- Ted/Tracy - we've been given hints, but we go from married/great life to sick/dead without travel time

- the spliced ending - that absolutely needed to be done better

And, from the standpoint of story - yes, I think they cheated The Mother and us. As said above, if I leave the show ending at them standing under the umbrella, I am pretty happy with it. Continuing the story the way they did, they - in my opinion - ignore the story they told.

So we've seen Ted and Robin crash and burn...3, 5, how many times? Why will it work now? Dating was awkward enough for ted at the beginning with Barney & Robin after their breakup...how is it going to be now with Ted & Robin trying again?

That being said...Barney and his daughter was perfect.

White whale was great.

Ending sucked.

[danm_999]

You've never played the woulda coulda shoulda game? Or felt that way about a past love? I thought it was realistic. Although honestly, Ted and Robin during the time of the show's run (2005-2013) would have never worked. They showed that repeatedly. But Robin and Barney wouldn't have worked either. Which was also realistic, and flies back in everyone's face who complained about Barney and Robin marrying to begin with.

I think regret about a failed relationship, and regret about a failed relationship symbolising a fundamental failure to capitalise on what you were "supposed to" have happen to you in life are two different things.

I also think context is important here. Robin got over seeing Ted with other women a long time ago (or at least, she stopped showing any external indication of displeasure). That she couldn't handle it in the flash forward demonstrates it isn't just simple fallout from Ted and Robin's relationship that was 10 years dead at that point.

[Tempra]

I'll agree that there's no indication she was miserable the whole time, but I'll stand by the assertion that calling someone the person you "probably should have ended up with" is such a regret filled statement it transcends the context of being sad you can't hang out in a particular group anymore. It's the kind of statement someone makes when they think they've fucked up their whole life.

That Robin had such a visceral reaction to seeing Ted happy with Tracy, but not one at seeing Barney (her ex-husband) doing his thing, seems unequivocably clear that at that point in her life, Robin was miserable and lonely and longed for another chance to be with Ted.

Didn't Robin have a reaction to seeing Barney sleeping around? Pretty sure she commented on Barney during her speech. To the extent there is a difference in reaction, i would chalk that up to Robin having married Barney and realizing they were not meant to be. In that sense, Ted is the one that got away. Robin realized, as a great many people do, that when you have unrequited feelings, the best course of action is to avoid the other person. Most people quickly move on. We weren't told this explicitly, but it sounds as if Robin became a bigger part of Ted's life again after Tracy passed away. Consequently, those feelings that were buried down deep resurfaced, apparently, in a painfully obvious way.

I remember reading about this story a few years ago: http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/high-school-sweethearts-reunite-marry-58-years-151539453.html

A real life Ted and Robin.

[danm_999]

Didn't Robin have a reaction to seeing Barney sleeping around? Pretty sure she commented on Barney during her speech.

Rewatching the scene on DVR, she sees Barney and sort of nods politely at his schtick.

She sees Ted, starts tearing up and informs Marshall she has to leave.

To the extent there is a difference in reaction, i would chalk that up to Robin having married Barney and realizing they were not meant to be. In that sense, Ted is the one that got away. Robin realized, as a great many people do, that when you have unrequited feelings, the best course of action is to avoid the other person. Most people quickly move on. We weren't told this explicitly, but it sounds as if Robin became a bigger part of Ted's life again after Tracy passed away. Consequently, those feelings that were buried down deep resurfaced, apparently, in a painfully obvious way.

I Rembert reading about this story a few years ago: http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/high-school-sweethearts-reunite-marry-58-years-151539453.html

A real life Ted and Robin.

Perhaps this is the case. Of course, this begs the question why didn't we see any of this?

[Rhom]

I will say that midway through the episode I thought perhaps we might be heading towards a reveal of "And that kids is why your mother and I never got married..." and they were getting ready to tie the knot at long last.

Ah well.

[Brendan Moody]

A problem with How I Met Your Mother has always been that it flirts with hard-hearted emotional realism but then goes for the safe, trope-y ending. Like "Last Words," which toys with the cold fact that sudden death sometimes deprives us of a meaningful goodbye from a loved one... and then lets Marshall have one anyway. Or "Natural History" pretending to deal with personal evolution and the decline of idealism, then telling us Corporate Marshall is extinct after all. The finale ends up doing the same thing with the pilot's subversion of the romantic comedy notions of love at first sight and destined couples. Of course, the irony is that the characters have changed enough over the years that the theoretically heartwarming traditional ending doesn't work for a lot of people.

It's hard to shake the feeling that the writers spent most of the series viewing the mother as a plot device and dropping little hints about her merely to satisfy fans who didn't know the endgame and were interested in her as a character. The trouble is that those hints only increased the anticipation, making Ted/Mother a far more involving pairing for many than Ted/Robin, especially since the show stopped playing the latter for a very long time in the middle of its run and went for Barney/Robin instead. Probably Barney/Robin was meant to work the same way the Rachel/Joey nonsense worked on Friends: as a pairing that had high emotional stakes because it involved two members of the group, but was obviously never going to go the distance. Of course, Rachel and Joey only actually dated for a couple episodes, and had absolutely no chemistry, whereas Barney/Robin was a thing for quite a while, and... Well, by usual romantic comedy standards what they had was hardly chemistry, but it worked about as well as Ted and Robin ever had.

What I find frustrating is that the writers agreed to a last-minute ninth season knowing that the only thing they could do with it was draw out the story of Barney and Robin's wedding. That made the wedding even more of an event than it otherwise would have been, and guaranteed that the eventual collapse of their relationship would make the entire season feel pointless. What I find baffling is that they chose to cast the mother and make her a major presence in the season, knowing that they were ultimately going to go back to treating her as a plot device. I guess the goal was to please the segment of the audience that was invested in the mother without changing their long-term plans. But you can't really do both at once.

All of which led to a finale that couldn't tick all the boxes it wanted to tick. The first fifteen minutes or so are rather good as latter-day How I Met Your Mother goes, sentimental without sacrificing the show's particular comic sensibility. But as we move further into the future and the plot gets heavier, it stops being funny and the emotional beats get weird. Lily and Marshall don't get anything new to play, and might as well not be in it past a certain point. The Barney/Robin breakup is rushed, and falls especially flat because it's about wanting different things at a particular moment, which is exactly the reason Ted and Robin broke up initially; if they can eventually find their moment, why couldn't Barney and Robin? No reason except that that wasn't the plan. Barney having a kid and settling down is a tolerable idea, though I've personally reached my saturation point on TV sentimentality about how Children Change Everything Instantly; not that it's not true in many cases, but not everything that's true is worthwhile television. It's a bit creepy that "Number 31" is such a non-presence in the episode, especially since it means that two different women are reduced to baby-generating plot devices for male protagonists. Which brings us to Tracy.

As good as Milioti is, I don't think the show should ever have cast the mother for more than the finale. I spent most of season nine wondering why the writers were using her the way they were, hitting the high points of her emotional life with Ted and writing funny random bits with the other cast, but never really giving her much of a personality. (Even "How Your Mother Met Me" is more about tying her character into various moments from the series' past than about her own story; in hindsight, the dead boyfriend is groundwork for the Ted/Robin ending rather than a real emotional arc.) "Last Forever" continues this trend-- she's sitting there at Wrestlers vs. Robots for no particular reason, but doesn't get a death scene-- and makes it obvious why: they were playing the futile game of trying to make Tracy likable enough to satisfy mother fans, but not so likable no one would balk at Ted going from "Oh, no, my wonderful dead wife" to "Oh, yes, my ex-girlfriend" in about sixty seconds of screen time. This isn't about emotional reality: in the real world there would be nothing wrong with a man who had been a widower for six years dating a former girlfriend who was also a friend of the family. But this isn't the real world: this is a romantic comedy that likes to talk about destiny and soulmates. In that context, Robin and Tracy will always be in competition, and the fact that the ending can't really let either one win gives the final scenes a hollow feeling that the bluest french horn in the world couldn't dispel.

Ah, well, I did like Marshall's attempts at a positive attitude about his job.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Brendan,

As good as Milioti is, I don't think the show should ever have cast the mother for more than the finale. I spent most of season nine wondering why the writers were using her the way they were, hitting the high points of her emotional life with Ted and writing funny random bits with the other cast, but never really giving her much of a personality. (Even "How Your Mother Met Me" is more about tying her character into various moments from the series' past than about her own story; in hindsight, the dead boyfriend is groundwork for the Ted/Robin ending rather than a real emotional arc.) "Last Forever" continues this trend-- she's sitting there at Wrestlers vs. Robots for no particular reason, but doesn't get a death scene-- and makes it obvious why: they were playing the futile game of trying to make Tracy likable enough to satisfy mother fans, but not so likable no one would balk at Ted going from "Oh, no, my wonderful dead wife" to "Oh, yes, my ex-girlfriend" in about sixty seconds of screen time. This isn't about emotional reality: in the real world there would be nothing wrong with a man who had been a widower for six years dating a former girlfriend who was also a friend of the family. But this isn't the real world: this is a romantic comedy that likes to talk about destiny and soulmates. In that context, Robin and Tracy will always be in competition, and the fact that the ending can't really let either one win gives the final scenes a hollow feeling that the bluest french horn in the world couldn't dispel.

Very well said. The show runners were trying to satisfy two different needs the orginal idea of the ending with Robin/Ted trying again and showing why Tracy was so important to Ted. They are contradictory and cramming them together in one episode created a lot of emotional disonance.

[Myrddin]

Absolutely. It feels a bit cheap, I agree with that much. But I still love it. :P

I'm with Mya. It wasn't a perfect finale (what show has ever had one?), but it was a good ending as far as I'm concerned.

I'm glad we didn't see the death and aftermath of Tracy (she has a name!). If they had shown that, then Ted going right after Robin would've felt even more "too soon" that it already was.

Eh. I can pick it apart, but I'm going to just enjoy it.

Barney and daughter scene was perfect though (I don't envy her or Barney when she's older).

[The Unborn]

A problem with How I Met Your Mother has always been that it flirts with hard-hearted emotional realism but then goes for the safe, trope-y ending. Like "Last Words," which toys with the cold fact that sudden death sometimes deprives us of a meaningful goodbye from a loved one... and then lets Marshall have one anyway. Or "Natural History" pretending to deal with personal evolution and the decline of idealism, then telling us Corporate Marshall is extinct after all. The finale ends up doing the same thing with the pilot's subversion of the romantic comedy notions of love at first sight and destined couples. Of course, the irony is that the characters have changed enough over the years that the theoretically heartwarming traditional ending doesn't work for a lot of people.

It's hard to shake the feeling that the writers spent most of the series viewing the mother as a plot device and dropping little hints about her merely to satisfy fans who didn't know the endgame and were interested in her as a character. The trouble is that those hints only increased the anticipation, making Ted/Mother a far more involving pairing for many than Ted/Robin, especially since the show stopped playing the latter for a very long time in the middle of its run and went for Barney/Robin instead. Probably Barney/Robin was meant to work the same way the Rachel/Joey nonsense worked on Friends: as a pairing that had high emotional stakes because it involved two members of the group, but was obviously never going to go the distance. Of course, Rachel and Joey only actually dated for a couple episodes, and had absolutely no chemistry, whereas Barney/Robin was a thing for quite a while, and... Well, by usual romantic comedy standards what they had was hardly chemistry, but it worked about as well as Ted and Robin ever had.

What I find frustrating is that the writers agreed to a last-minute ninth season knowing that the only thing they could do with it was draw out the story of Barney and Robin's wedding. That made the wedding even more of an event than it otherwise would have been, and guaranteed that the eventual collapse of their relationship would make the entire season feel pointless. What I find baffling is that they chose to cast the mother and make her a major presence in the season, knowing that they were ultimately going to go back to treating her as a plot device. I guess the goal was to please the segment of the audience that was invested in the mother without changing their long-term plans. But you can't really do both at once.

All of which led to a finale that couldn't tick all the boxes it wanted to tick. The first fifteen minutes or so are rather good as latter-day How I Met Your Mother goes, sentimental without sacrificing the show's particular comic sensibility. But as we move further into the future and the plot gets heavier, it stops being funny and the emotional beats get weird. Lily and Marshall don't get anything new to play, and might as well not be in it past a certain point. The Barney/Robin breakup is rushed, and falls especially flat because it's about wanting different things at a particular moment, which is exactly the reason Ted and Robin broke up initially; if they can eventually find their moment, why couldn't Barney and Robin? No reason except that that wasn't the plan. Barney having a kid and settling down is a tolerable idea, though I've personally reached my saturation point on TV sentimentality about how Children Change Everything Instantly; not that it's not true in many cases, but not everything that's true is worthwhile television. It's a bit creepy that "Number 31" is such a non-presence in the episode, especially since it means that two different women are reduced to baby-generating plot devices for male protagonists. Which brings us to Tracy.

As good as Milioti is, I don't think the show should ever have cast the mother for more than the finale. I spent most of season nine wondering why the writers were using her the way they were, hitting the high points of her emotional life with Ted and writing funny random bits with the other cast, but never really giving her much of a personality. (Even "How Your Mother Met Me" is more about tying her character into various moments from the series' past than about her own story; in hindsight, the dead boyfriend is groundwork for the Ted/Robin ending rather than a real emotional arc.) "Last Forever" continues this trend-- she's sitting there at Wrestlers vs. Robots for no particular reason, but doesn't get a death scene-- and makes it obvious why: they were playing the futile game of trying to make Tracy likable enough to satisfy mother fans, but not so likable no one would balk at Ted going from "Oh, no, my wonderful dead wife" to "Oh, yes, my ex-girlfriend" in about sixty seconds of screen time. This isn't about emotional reality: in the real world there would be nothing wrong with a man who had been a widower for six years dating a former girlfriend who was also a friend of the family. But this isn't the real world: this is a romantic comedy that likes to talk about destiny and soulmates. In that context, Robin and Tracy will always be in competition, and the fact that the ending can't really let either one win gives the final scenes a hollow feeling that the bluest french horn in the world couldn't dispel.

Ah, well, I did like Marshall's attempts at a positive attitude about his job.

I liked Barney's ending. He never had a father and it is something he hated. He decided that he didn't want to make Ellie go through this like he did, even though he doesn't love the mother (but he's probably friends with her).

[Datepalm]

I do like the way Ted's narration, assuming it's being filtered through his biases of the moment - ie, justifying to his kids getting with Robin - tends to skew the story towards Robin/Ted. But then the mother, and all the clue and puzzles of her, not to mention the last season, becomes even more of a tease, one that eventually goes nowhere. This needs more thinking about - not the structure, but the underlying ethos. There isn't a "the one," except really there is?

[SpaceChampion]

I'm glad we didn't see the death and aftermath of Tracy (she has a name!). If they had shown that, then Ted going right after Robin would've felt even more "too soon" that it already was.

The problem with that is they made a big deal of the gang getting together for the big moments. What would be bigger than Tracey's untimely death? I understand the reasoning for not showing it, but the reasons for showing it would be equally valid, so it's really a no-win scenario for the writer's point of view.

It ended up being too much about who would end up with who, should have been more of a story about larger themes like showing how choice & free will (Barney choosing to be a Dad might have meant more if he adopted a child OR put a lot of effort tracking down #31 if she had disappeared with the baby) transcended the destiny vs coincidence dynamic they played with in EVERY SINGLE EPISODE. Then this show would mean more than is does. Think back to the first episode with Ted's rain dance; we were essentially promised a story about destiny vs coincidence vs free will.

Does anybody think Ted & Robin will actually last? Isn't she still travelling the world or is she back in NY permanently? If she was back in NY why didn't Barney make another attempt?

Or maybe Ted's choice to get back together with Robin was them showing us what bad choices free will would get him? ;)

[Myrddin]

This needs more thinking about - not the structure, but the underlying ethos. There isn't a "the one," except really there is?

There is only "the one" right here and now. :)

Robin/Tracy aside, I actually thought the story of the group to be more poignant. The slow eroding of their bonds as the shifting priorities of life come to play. Maybe because my life has been pretty mobile, I can relate to that sad realization that your friends will not be around forever.

ETA:

The problem with that is they made a big deal of the gang getting together for the big moments. What would be bigger than Tracey's untimely death? I understand the reasoning for not showing it, but the reasons for showing it would be equally valid, so it's really a no-win scenario for the writer's point of view.

Agreed. That definitely qualified as a "big moment", though seeing Robin looking at Ted crying over Tracy's casket would destroy any audience empathy for the six-years-later scene.

Ultimately, the creators had to decide whether the show's ending was about Ted/Robin or Ted/Mother. As the HitFix article linked upstream covered, they tried to have it both ways.

[Datepalm]

Except there's another one down the line...?

'There are times in life when people must know when not to let go. Balloons are designed to teach small children this. - Terry Pratchett.

I really wouldn't have minded Tracy dying, and that being the bittersweet ending. I think Brendan Moody put his finger on it, that the show always shies away from holding on to itself, just a little. It always needs to fix things. Tracy dies...but Robin's there. Barney is alone again...but he gets a magic baby. Lily and Marshall compromise and give up career dreams for their marriage...but they get the judgeship and the year in rome anyway. It cheapens everything retroactively - Ted letting go of romantic fantasies (the last episode reminded us of that day 1 "I love you" from Ted)...but not. Barney climbing out of his pit of degeneracy...only not.

[The Unborn]

Since Robin had a couple of dogs, I'd say she's in NY for good.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

DP,

You're absolutely right. What made the Marshall/Lilly fight interesting was that their positions were both right and fundamentally incompatable. They copped out. Tracy/Ted/Robin are incompatable they copped out again.

[Greywolf2375]

Since Robin had a couple of dogs, I'd say she's in NY for good.

Why? She's gotten rid of dogs before.

Does anybody think Ted & Robin will actually last? Isn't she still travelling the world or is she back in NY permanently? If she was back in NY why didn't Barney make another attempt?

Or maybe Ted's choice to get back together with Robin was them showing us what bad choices free will would get him? ;)

I don't think it would last - nothing has changed fundamentally about them that overcomes what caused them to break up the bazillion times before. Barney and Robins dating relationship was far more successful than any of Ted and Robins and look where that ended up.

[Sir Thursday]

I was interested to read (frequent board punching bag) reviewer Todd Vanderwerff's take on Grantland. It felt very...Dateplam-esque, I guess :P.

ST

[Madfunkymonkey]

I'm with Mya. It wasn't a perfect finale (what show has ever had one?), but it was a good ending as far as I'm concerned.

I'm glad we didn't see the death and aftermath of Tracy (she has a name!). If they had shown that, then Ted going right after Robin would've felt even more "too soon" that it already was.

Eh. I can pick it apart, but I'm going to just enjoy it.

Barney and daughter scene was perfect though (I don't envy her or Barney when she's older).

One could argue that Star Trek the Next Generation had a perfect finale.