Why the HIMYM Finale Wasn’t That Bad

After three years off the air, How I Met Your Mother (HIMYM) remains one of America’s favorite sitcoms and was nominated for 28 Emmys during its nine-year-long run. Loosely based on the friendship of the show’s executive producers Craig Thomas and Carter Bays, the show follows the main character, Ted, as he tells his children the story of how he met their mother. After years of speculation over the identity of the mother, HIMYM reveals in its last two seasons that the mother is Tracy McConnell, who Ted has unknowingly crossed paths with for years. The show’s very last episode (“Last Forever”) reveals Tracy’s death, Barney and Robin’s divorce, and features a twist ending where Ted and Robin get back together.

The final episode of the show received mostly negative reviews. Three years after the finale aired, the feelings of anger and disappointment are still raw among HIMYM fans, especially considering most had dedicated over a hundred hours into the show. The show continues having legions of fans at AISG, and upon being asked how they felt about the finale, they were eager to express their thoughts. Ardent HIMYM fan Manogya Chandar expresses that she “loathes” the ending, and it was a “very anti-climatic end to a built-up season.” She thinks that it is “stupid” that they set up an entire show based around a character who “randomly dies” in the very last episode. Senior Rusha Sen had been keeping up with HIMYM since she was in middle school, but she says its ending was “disappointing” and “awkward”, and Ted deserves a happier ending than having his wife pass away.

Of all the people I have spoken to about HIMYM’s long-awaited finale, none of them had anything positive to say about it. I would like to stand among the masses and speak my opinion, no matter how much hate I might get for it: I liked the How I Met Your Mother finale. I thought it was touching and tragically beautiful. It just had so much heart— Barney meets his new daughter and finds someone he can be dedicated to for the first time in his life. Ted holds up a blue french horn on Robin’s doorstep. It took courage for the writers to write such a controversial ending, but I think they did the best they could. Let’s analyze the decisions they made:

Barney and Robin get divorced.

In my opinion, this was destined to happen, and any other ending for them would have been unrealistic. They’re too similar to be compatible. They both dislike being tied down with commitments, and they’re both dominating and like to take charge, so an ending where they stayed together would have felt illogical. I also thought their relationship was a bit forced in the first place. Barney’s repeated confessions to liking Robin made me cringe because they were so out of character. He’s a suave, suit-wearing womanizer, and I couldn’t see him confessing his feelings so openly and emotionally. His proposal to Robin in Season 8 felt a little forced as well. I’m not saying I was rooting for them to break up, but it didn’t upset me too much.

Barney has a daughter.

Neil Patrick Harris’s stellar acting performance made this scene stand out. After Barney and Robin’s divorce, I think that Barney having a child is the only way to give his character a happy ending. Barney himself says that if he couldn’t make a relationship with Robin work, he can’t make a relationship with any girl work. It would be sad if Robin finds Ted, and Barney ends up alone. The show writers fix this problem by giving him a daughter.

The mother dies and Ted is with Robin.

I thought the mother’s death was tragic, but it set up a beautiful ending between Ted and Robin. If anything, this ending is about recovery and hope. Ted finds the love of his life, which he has spent the entirety of his young adult life looking for, but he is able to move on after she dies. I think it is necessary for Tracy to die because it’s the only way for Ted to end up with Robin, which I think was the end-game the whole time. Ted sees her in the premiere of the show and they fall in love at first sight, and even his kids think that she’s the mother. He also repeatedly falls in and out of love with her, right up to her wedding with Barney. Considering Ted’s long-time fixation with Robin, I think that it’s completely plausible for him to end up with her after Tracy’s death. While Manogya told me that it’s “stupid” for them to build up a romance between Ted and Tracy when she simply dies in the finale, I think that they were also building up a romance between Ted and Robin, which they eventually fulfilled. Also, I like how the final scene with Ted and the blue french horn is reminiscent of him stealing Robin a blue french horn for her in the pilot.