@Demon:
Welp, guess I'm the only one in the world who was ok with the ending that aired on TV…
I was fine with the ending that aired on tv too, for the most part.
And I guess I'll go into why here. Five months later, but here's my thoughts on the finale. Warning it's long, like longer than even my normally long posts.
! Even though the show is called "How I Met Your Mother", if the story begins with the main character falling for another girl, chances are this story wasn't really about how the main character met his children's mother. From the very beginning, the story was about how Ted fell for and then got over Robin. Ted ending up with Robin in the end makes sense in that regards. The premise just had two major problems.
! 1) The show stretched Ted "getting over Robin" for far too long.
- The show spent way too much time with the "will they/won't they" for Robin and Barney given they knew from the beginning how the story would end and stuck with it.
! Now the first point is obvious. Since the writers stuck to their original ending, I get that they would want Ted to always in the back of his mind have his sights on Robin throughout the series so the finale can come full circle, at least until he found a love that would lead to his happiness and children. But stretching out anything for too long gets annoying in television, and worse it made him seem to stagnate in his relationships, and put Robin on a pedestal that would make it impossible for anybody else to seem like nothing but a consolation prize.
! The second could be pages worth of writing on its own. So to try to simplify it for this post, I'll say that my biggest issue is that kinda like the relationship itself, it was all flash but no bang. They spent so much time working on the build up to their relationship, I mean years worth of build up, possibly spent more time setting up those two more than Ted/Robin, that it's no wonder the ending would anger so many fans. And after that, they rarely went into why they function well as a couple, just going into wedding jitters and doubts more often than not. Cut down all the build up to like half a season or a few episodes (and that includes the years of Barney getting to the point of wanting a relationship), but keep the rest as is, I think it would have been much easier to swallow.
! Ultimately though I'm fine with how the break up occurred. Despite how underdeveloped it was, the big reason why the two didn't work seemed to be that they are both alphas that are unable to put in the effort and sacrifices to make the relationship stay afloat unless they stop being who they are fundamentally and just be complacent. The episode where NO QUESTIONS WERE ASKED is a good example of how they mesh well together, but seem to have communication issues. So obviously the good times will be great, but when things get rough, both are ill equipped to handle the situation. I want to give examples and really go in depth here, but that requires research and could be talked about another time. Ultimately I'll say that the show could have built up the whole "rocky times ahead" in a much clearer fashion instead of just repeating over and over "I have doubts, but something happened so I guess I don't have doubts anymore right now"
! But back on topic though, I never saw Barney "backsliding" after breaking up with Robin as undoing years of development. From his very first breakup with his first love, one night stands were always Barney's crutch when his heart was broken. Nora, Quinn, Robin. Him acting any different after divorcing Robin would have been the most out of character thing for him to do. It's shown that he's able to get over that when he finds his next "love". It just so happens that he knocked a girl up before he found the next "one". I'll end this with saying given Barney's mother Noretta, having Barney finally settle down because he's taking care of his daughter was personally a good way to end his arc. Plus, the Perfect Month pseudo-justified Ted telling his children about Barney's Perfect Week so that the Perfect Month has some context and thus so does Barney's daughter.
! Robin however I can slightly see it being undoing her development and personally feel like her character was the one in the main five that got hurt the most in the finale, but post marriage she seemed to be reached a level of stardom and fame that allowed her to travel around the world and do lots of new and exciting things. That's a level in her career she hasn't achieved before in the series, so I get her wanting to keep pursuing that instead of making some sacrifices, especially since the last time she did put her love life first (and probably only time), she got burned badly, and given how much she accepted of Barney, I could see why she would think Barney would do the same.
! The bigger issue though is the whole Ted/Barney situation and my only personal problem with the finale (well second but I'll save the mother for last). Robin is the character that's the worst at expressing her emotions. We hear that she loves Barney and later on Ted, but we never hear her go into more depth to her feelings than discussing acts that they have done for her or to make her feel good. Sure, this indicates that she still might have some issues with her emotions which fits her character, but we rarely did if ever went over qualities or traits that she found attractive in Barney or Ted.
! Personally, I'm more inclined to blame the writing staff and the creators since I feel like they intentionally seemed to avoid these things or never brought up stuff because they felt that sticking to their planned series of events was a good enough explanation, which actually for me made the second half of the emotional journey ring hallow. "They're getting married because we set it up three seasons ago." Ugh. And "Oh we're in love" is a buzz phrase that means nothing without context behind it. One of the worst sins the series did is not have Robin tell her vows to Barney. I've been personally waiting the entire series for Robin to express why she loves Barney other than "I just need to get him out of my system because I want what I can't have". I don't think they've ever gone into why Robin loves Barney or have Robin express she loves Barney, other than when he's not available. Maybe people rooting for Barney and Robin could explain this to me or show me times I'm missing. And don't get me wrong, I could make a list right now showing all the times Barney's shown interest in Robin starting from season 1.
! And that's the biggest reason why I never really bought Barney and Robin as a couple but still bought Ted and Robin after all this time and saw the chemistry between the two. I bring up communication as an issue for Barney and Robin because that's the one thing Robin and Ted seemed to have down in the second half of the season and one of the second half's saving graces: Ted and Robin discussed their issues together. When Robin officially rejected Ted in season 7, the episode after had Robin express how Ted is the one person over everybody else she wanted to talk to about her work issues because she was afraid she was going to get fired. Robin's able to discuss with Ted her issues with her father. They both talked to each other about each other's relationships and want the other to truly be happy. And she knew him well enough to realize that Ted was the one that tracked her locket back, tricked him, and realized it was probably meant to try to win her back. They were comfortable around each other and wanted nothing but the other person to be happy. They have fun hanging out together and were each other's rocks during bad times.
! So yeah, I don't think Robin being in love with Ted was at all out of the blue or makes no sense. In fact, I was more bothered that Ted and Robin never seemed to try their relationship again in season 7 because, like I mentioned earlier, I believe the writers already had the Barney/Robin wedding planned at that point so I felt that was enough of a reason for them to not pursue that avenue and don't explore in universe explanations for why it doesn't happen again. Ted and Robin never have the discussion as to why it's a bad idea like they had in season 2 when they first broke up. All that's said was "Robin doesn't love Ted in that way anymore", but like I pointed out up above, she clearly does in some respects. But nope, the writers already seemed to decide that Robin and Barney have to get married, Ted meets Tracy there, and obviously we knew from episode 1 that Robin/Ted don't end up together by the time of the pilot, so that's fine. No need to get into any emotional crux of why they don't get together… I brought up my theory earlier that Robin rejected Ted because she didn't want Ted to be with someone that couldn't have kids, but she still loved him or at least wanted to give it another shot.
! Now where am I? Right. Barney's story was fine with me. Ultimately, I was fine with Robin being in love with Ted as well. Now it's just the mother of it all. (Kudos if you've read this far)
! Given the premise (the story meant to be a Ted/Robin story not a Ted/Tracy story), and the original intent was never to show the Mother at all, caving into fan pressure by giving her a face and personality instead of just having her show up at the end might have been a bad move looking back.
! The only issue I have with the Mother dying in the finale was of course the whiplash of officially finding out the information and how quickly they moved on from that scene to Ted's kids telling Ted to go after Robin. If there's a good example of horrific pacing out there it will be that scene. But like I said at the top, it makes sense that the Mother was never meant to really be developed into a character if you're meant to be rooting for Ted and Robin in the end. She's just a Macguffin to explain why the kids existed and that's all her role needed to be in the story honestly given the story was meant to be about Ted and Robin. And the scenes they did show did have me convinced that Ted got over Robin and lived a very happy life with her (though Ted not being over Robin was something I only didn't buy once Barney/Robin broke up. Stella and Victoria pre-move to Germany I totally bought Ted was in love). It's just they tried to have their cake and eat it too by bringing the Mother in the final season but still trying to leave her character as the Macguffin she was originally intended to be.
! Ultimately, my problems with the finale are less to do with the final two episodes but more with the pacing overall. I brought up how Ted getting over Robin and the UST between Robin and Barney was stretched out, but obviously the biggest problem is that the finale was only given two episodes and the rest of the season focused more or less on a wedding weekend when it should have been the other way around. The wedding should have been a small multi-parter and the rest of the finale should have made up the rest of the season. People definitely would not have felt as robbed with the Mother dying if she was more prominent and we saw her with the gang. Heck, a lot of people thought Tracy was so good in the final season that they already loved her (I was mixed. Feel like the writers kept holding back her character due to the ending/Macguffin issue). Her being together with the group, being her own character, and then having her die in more than a two minute afterthought would have been tragic, but also would have given her the proper closure she needed as a character in a story instead of feeling wasted.
! I guess all in all I do have a lot of problems with the finale, but I don't hate the finale or have issues with where it went. I just wish the creators executed the finale much better. I also want to blame Ted since I apparently inherited his inability to be terse. And there's still probably stuff here I can discuss or go more in depth in.