How I Met Your Mother ends after nine seasons

Over the past nine years the popular sitcom How I Met Your Mother has been the favorite TV program of many faithful watchers. For those of you who are not familiar with the show, it tells the tale of Ted Mosby’s, played by Josh Radnor, pursuit in finding the love of his life and mother of his children. The whole show is a series of flashbacks that Ted is telling his kids in the year 2030.

For some odd reason, I didn’t know of the brilliance of the show until this past semester. I am proud to say that I watched all eight seasons available on Netflix in about a month and half’s time. Due to the busyness of the current semester, I have not been able to see most of season nine, but I do know that it is mainly centered on Barney, played by Neil Patrick Harris, and Robin’s, played by Cobie Smulders, wedding and offers more insight into the mother. I was planning to watch the season finale when Netflix finally puts up the new season, but when I saw that many people were freaking out about the outcome on Tumblr, the anticipation was too much to handle.

In all my life I have never been so disappointed with a series finale. In fact, it is taking all of my willpower to not write this whole review in caps lock as I feel that caps lock is the only way I can thoroughly express my rage and disappointment. HIMYM writers took nine years of wonder, anticipation, fun, amazement, spontaneity and just pure awesome and shoved it right down a blue French horn.

The finale, which encompasses 17 years worth of the character’s lives, finally reveals that Marshall, played by Jason Segel, and Lily played by Alyson Hannigan, end up having three kids and Marshall gets the judgeship he’s always wanted, Barney and Robin get divorced three years into their marriage, Barney goes back to his womanizing ways and gets a woman pregnant - a woman which we never meet, becomes a father, then stops his skirt-chasing when he meets his daughter and the most shocking - Ted’s wife Tracy McConnell, played by Cristin Milioti, dies due to a “sickness.” Six years later, Ted goes after the woman who has been there from the start - the conveniently divorced Robin Scherbatsky.

My first problem with the finale is that writers decided to fit all this information into one hour long episode when it had an entire season to better string this sequence of events together. Instead, writers made Barney and Robin’s wedding take up the entire season and kept teasing viewers about the mother only to drop a bomb on fans at the very last moment.

Secondly, I thought the Ted/Robin/Barney love triangle was over during season 8’s finale? Guess not. I had been on Team Ted and Robin during the first couple of seasons when they were in a relationship, but when it was clear that they couldn’t work together because Ted and Robin wanted different things such as Ted wanting a family and Robin wanting a career and not a family; I accepted that they wouldn’t be together in the long run.

With this relationship seemingly being over with, writers then focused on building up the yellow umbrella-owning and bass guitar-playing mother who was perfect for Ted only to have her be dead the entire time.

Her death was revealed during the finale when Ted winds down his nine year long story when he states that she got sick and gave an emotionally-moving mini-speech on why he loved her so much.

“Even then, in what can only be called the worst of times, all I could do was look at her and thank God, thank every god there is, or ever was, or will be, and the whole universe, and anyone else I can possibly thank…that I saw that beautiful girl on that train platform, and that I had the guts to stand up, walk over to her, tap her on the shoulder, open my mouth, and speak…”

The fact that she was dead was a shock, but what was even worse was that it seemed that the mother was written for the sole purpose of giving Ted the kids that he so badly wanted just so he could keep chasing Robin. It’s like the mother never even mattered.

In a series of tweets responding to the backlash, HIMYM co-creator Craig Thomas said, “We did a finale about life's twists and turns…”

While this is true, the finale was still a major let down. I don’t mind that they killed off the mother, but the fact that writers chose for a more perfect ending by having Ted end up with Robin seems like a cop out. If they just hadn’t written that Ted go back with Robin, it would have made the finale sad obviously, but way more respectable. The fact that Ted had Robin to fall back on makes it even more of a fairytale ending in a way. I can hear Bob Saget’s voice now…

“Kids, if your wife dies, it’s okay because at least you have your old girlfriend from your 30’s to start things back up with again.”

To see your favorite show end like this is hard for millions of HIMYM fans, but the fact that it is receiving this kind of attention due to the backlash is a sign of how beloved the show is.

As for me, I would have wanted the yellow umbrella instead of the blue French horn.